How to copy a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive

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How to copy a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive

I was getting messages saying that the hard drive that I was using for Time Machine had problems and that I needed to copy the files off and reformat the drive.

OK--got the new drive and tried to copy the files off and got the message: This drive has the wrong format.

OK--I defined the new drive a a secondary Time Machine drive. It is now formatted. How do I copy the files from the old drive. Can I pick up and drop them on the new drive? I haven't tried that yet because the machine decided to start making a new backup on the new drive immediately.

Also--how will having two backup drives work? Will it alternate backups between drives? Or will it make identical copies to both drives? This is a time when I wish there were a manual.

iMac

Posted on Oct 9, 2022 1:11 PM

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Answer 1

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VikingOSX

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Oct 10, 2022 4:29 AM in response to marianfromla

When you connect two HFS+ formatted Time Machine drives and tell Time Machine to use both drives, it will perform a full backup to the new drive, and then will alternate future backups to each drive as long as they are mounted. It is not duplicating your first drive to the second, but performing a full backup of your Mac.

Give this article a read about Time Machine HFS+ formatted drives and how to copy one Time Machine drive to a new, larger HFS+ formatted drive.

I have no personal experience using two Time Machine drives on my Mac. I perform a last backup from a given operating system before upgrading to the next major version, and then park that Time Machine drive without backup up the new major version of macOS to it. I opt to purchase a new equal or greater capacity drive for backups of the new operating system release (as I will do when Ventura is released).

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Answer 2

Oct 9, 2022 1:42 PM in response to marianfromla

If your Time Machine drive is formatted APFS, there is no means to copy the content to another drive. The only thing you can do is boot your iMac into Recovery and then run Disk Utility First Aid on the drive regardless of its format (e.g. APFS, HFS+). And, hope that the result is that the drive errors go away.

Use macOS Recovery on an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support

Use macOS Recovery on a Mac with Apple silicon - Apple Support

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Answer 3

marianfromla Author

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Oct 9, 2022 3:46 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks. When I do a getInfo, it says that the format is Mac OS Extended. I'm not certain what APFS is. Is that the same thing?

postscript: I found a website which indicates they are not the same thing. https://www.minitool.com/data-recovery/apfs-vs-mac-os-extended-difference-and-format.html Therefore, am I in luck?

Do you have any insight into my second question? If there are two time machine drives defined, does the system alternate using each drive? Or does it back up to both drives?

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Answer 4

John Galt

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142,542 points

Oct 10, 2022 12:24 PM in response to marianfromla

If there are two time machine drives defined, does the system alternate using each drive? Or does it back up to both drives?

To augment VikingOS's answer, TM will back up to as many drives as you wish to provide, in sequential order: first A, then B. If you add a third drive then it will back up to A, then B, then C, and back to A.

If a drive is not available when TM starts a backup, it skips that one and goes to the next.

When a backup finishes, it waits an hour (or so) before backing up to the next drive in the sequence.

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How to copy a Time Machine backup to a new hard drive

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