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Time machine locks external drives

The current versions of Monterey deletes data on an external drive when the drive is selected as a back-up. See below.


After back up the disk was locked as Read only. See also below. No padlock to change access to the disk.


This is a new feature. I have been using external hard drives for manual storage offline and as a Time machine backup without issue.


I have a 4TB disk and want to use it for multiple purposes.






Posted on Jun 6, 2022 8:26 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jun 6, 2022 8:39 PM

Apple has decided that for Monterey using a TimeMachine drive for 12 or 13 other purposes makes no sense. TM locks the drive and makes it TM-ONLY. You can reformat the drive to be multi-purpose data drive, but TM takes complete control.


Not that a backup drive being a data drive as well makes much sense, at least to me.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jun 6, 2022 8:39 PM in response to kiwiappleman

Apple has decided that for Monterey using a TimeMachine drive for 12 or 13 other purposes makes no sense. TM locks the drive and makes it TM-ONLY. You can reformat the drive to be multi-purpose data drive, but TM takes complete control.


Not that a backup drive being a data drive as well makes much sense, at least to me.

Time machine locks external drives

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