1 TB iPhone Backup to iTunes to a 2TB external ssd bootdisk?

Hi applebhr,

To make sure we understand you correctly, you have a 2TB external hard drive that you'll like to connect to your computer so that you can backup your iPhone. Is that correct? If so, you can indeed do this. You would need to first create the backup on your computer and then transfer it to the external hard drive. This article will show you how to locate your iPhone backup so you can move it to another location: Locate backups of your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support. Also, please be sure to check out the section titled "Copy iOS backups to another location."

If you need copies of your backups, you can find the Backup folder and copy the entire folder (not just part of it) to another place, like an external drive or network-storage location."

We hope this helps.

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Cheers!

Thanks applebhr,

In that case, you could definitely follow the steps under How to reinstall macOS and instead of choosing the internal drive, you would choose the external drive for installation.

This approach isn't without some caveats, though. You may be better off keeping the internal drive as the drive the Mac boots up from, and simply use Time Machine to backup your data to the external drive as needed.

One reason for this is that the internal drive is already optimized to run as fast as it is able, directly connected to the logic board. Running from your external drive would bottleneck the speed at which data can be sent to the limit of a USB port, which is considerably slower for day to day use, but perfectly fine for occasional backups. You also would have to have the external drive at all times to use the Mac, and if it or the cables it uses are unavailable you would again be unable to use the Mac.

You can learn more about Time Machine here: Back up your Mac with Time Machine.

Hope that helps.

Take care.

There are too many factors to answer your question directly, applebhr. But here’s what we can tell you.

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with your Mac - Apple Support -- As you can see, this article doesn’t address this question. But, here’s what we’ve learned from our experiences:

How well your Mac and external hard drives are performing when a backup is started.

What other processes your Mac is using.

The current data transfer speed when the backup is started.

The number of files to be backed up.

Since you may be moving your backup files to the external hard drive, your Mac may initiate a full backup of your iPhone. The first one may take quite a while, but the time it takes for further backups to complete will decrease depending on how often you back up.

All the best.

Hey applebhr,

Let's get a little more information help narrow this down.

Are the external drives currently able to be recognized by the Mac?

Which version of macOS are you using?

Are you referring to the Music app or iTunes to make the backup?

Keep us posted.