You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Are there any tips and/or tricks to be aware of when using Time Machine to backup multiple internal drives? I believe I have both of my internal imac drives chosen--they are visible to TM and not on the exclude list. However, I'd prefer not to wait until a failure to realize I don't have the data I think I do.
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Good suggestion but the answer is only maybe...since I don't trust what I'm looking at. Let me explain. If I enter Time Machine and navigate using finder it does indeed include both internal drives on the left side of the window and I see recently changed files in today's backups on those drives. However--and this is why I'm confused--I also see two external USB attached drives in that finder interface with recently updated files, despite the external drives being on my "exclude list". One USB is APFS while the other is Mac OS Extended if that matters. Is there something I'm missing? Or maybe a problem with exclude. Running Big Sur if that makes a difference.
Are you referring to actual multiple internal drives? Unless you have a fusion drive or a Mac Pro with multiple disks, the usual is to have one internal drive. Or are you talking about partitions or volumes?
How about a screen shot of what you actually have in Disk Utility.
I also see two external USB attached drives in that finder interface with recently updated files, despite the external drives being on my "exclude list".
Are you saying that if you eject the two external drives and then open up Time Machine......that the two drives still appear in your Time Machine backups? If yes, then the two externals are being backed up. If no, then the externals are not being backed up along with your Mac and its internal drive(s).
Okay, so for your initial question: if they are both visible, they should both be backed up. Disclaimer; I have no experience with two internal drives, so this is a good faith guess. I'd probably test it by making an initial backup and then checking it to make sure both are backed up.
You're right. If I eject both USB drives, then they disappear from the TM Finder interface. That means they are in fact excluded as I had configured. Good deal, thank you for the suggestion!
Can you see the backups of the drives when you enter Time Machine and navigate using the Finder? If you can, then you know that the drives are being backed up.
Not a Mac Pro and I'm talking about 2 physical drives. I upgrade my iMac and installed an NVMe SSD and a separate SAS SSD. They are not combined into a Fusion drive but two separate SSDs.
Using Time Machine to backup multiple internal drives?
