Time Machine SSD

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Level 1

33 points

Time Machine SSD

I am running an iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020 and Ventura 13.1. Recently I purchased a 4TB SSD to be used for Time Machine. The drive has 2 partitions and the larger of the 2 is for Time Machine. I formatted the drive using APFS Encrypted.

So far I have had a few issues but the latest one is very concerning. When I woke up the computer this morning things seemed fine. I looked at the Time Machine drive in Finder and it was okay. I saw where backups were indeed being done every hour. About 2 hours later I wanted to do something on the other partition and could not. I got a message something like "No mountable File Systems". I tried a Restart and now the entire drive is unreadable. I can't mount it with Disk Utility or Terminal commands.

Fortunately, I still have my old spinning HD with "most" of the data plus the Time Machine backups so I am going back to that drive for now. I am afraid the only thing I can do with the SSD is to reformat it unless someone has any other suggestions.

Is anyone else having problems with Time Machine and SSD, or with Ventura and SSD?

Thanks

iMac 27″, macOS 13.1

Posted on Jan 10, 2023 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

TammyW_03

Community Specialist

Jan 13, 2023 11:11 AM in response to hcaroselli2

Hey hcaroselli2,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. If we understand correctly, you're using an external drive that has two partitions. One is used for Time Machine and the other for documents. For Time Machine it's recommended that the external drive is dedicated for that purpose only, and not used for other data. Those details can be found here: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

Connect a storage device to use for backups

Connect an external storage device to your Mac, such as a USB drive or Thunderbolt drive. Or learn about other backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.

• Use this storage device only as your Time Machine backup disk, not for storage of other files.

• Ideally, your backup disk should have at least twice the storage capacity of every disk or volume you're backing up. If your backup disk doesn't have enough storage space to contain a complete backup, Time Machine will let you know.

With the drive no longer mounting while started to your user account, you could try to start to macOS Recovery and see if Disk Utility there can repair the drive. If not, you may need to reformat it to be able to use it again. Please note, reformatting the drive will erase all data it contains. Here are those guides, just in case:

Thanks again, and take care.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

217,312 points

Jan 13, 2023 12:00 PM in response to hcaroselli2

What brand and model of SSD is it?

TM should be the only user of a drive. I recommend erasing it, formatting to use APFS and just use it for TM. Let TM do the final formatting to the Read Only APFS.

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Answer 3

hcaroselli2 Author

Level 1

33 points

Jan 13, 2023 12:54 PM in response to Old Toad

Thank you TammyW_03 and Old Toad.

Old Toad - it is SanDisk Extreme 4TB external drive.

I appreciate the responses. I have read the stuff about putting Time Machine on a drive by itself. I don't know if this is new news or not. I have been using a 6TB spinning external drive that has 2 partitions, one for Time Machine and one for other stuff, for years. I did not know this was not recommended and for all this time I have never had an issue. This problem started when I switched to SSD. Since I first posted my note I erased everything from the SSD and made it only 1 partition, formatted it using the APFS option. I still had a failure. This time the SSD seemed okay. I did not get any of the "file system" errors as before. I simply got an error message at the end of the second backup. All it told me was Time Machine was unable to complete the backup. As mentioned this was after the second backup. The first one was fine.

Not sure what to do next. I may try to return the drive.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

Hector

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

217,312 points

Jan 13, 2023 1:12 PM in response to hcaroselli2

One reason is if the TM drive fails you lose whatever is on the other partition.

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Answer 5

hcaroselli2 Author

Level 1

33 points

Jan 13, 2023 1:25 PM in response to Old Toad

Thank you. That makes sense. I am trying the SSD again for Time Machine. It has only 1 partition. Hopefully I can make it through a few backups. We'll see.

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Time Machine SSD

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