Cloning external drive with Time Machine backups (very basic question)

I'd like to clone an external drive used to backup multiple Macs (running Monterey if that makes a difference).

I have an empty external drive, newly formatted with an APFS filesystem. I've turned off automatic Time Machine backups on the source disk.

Do I drag and drop the individual Time Machine disk icons onto the new disk?

I'm already trying this. Looks like the disk image is copying, so the clone doesn't look like a Time Machine drive. Hmm.

Or is there a better way?

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Oct 25, 2023 3:28 PM

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tbirdvet

Level 6

13,797 points

Posted on Oct 25, 2023 4:04 PM

You really cannot move TM files to a new drive and then have it working again (or even clone a TM drive). You should always start a new TM backup on a new drive and keep the old one just in case it is needed.

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tbirdvet

Level 6

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Oct 25, 2023 4:04 PM in response to Venona

PRP_53

Level 10

85,591 points

Oct 26, 2023 3:04 AM in response to Venona

To add

Not even a Dedicated Cloning Software like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner can Clone a Time Machine Backup Drive

Follow previous advise in above posting

Can I use CCC to copy a Time Machine backup?

Ronasara

Level 6

14,643 points

Oct 26, 2023 10:12 AM in response to Venona

What I do may or may not interest you. I have two external SSD backup disks. One is regularly backed up by my backup app Carbon Copy Cloner. The second disk is used for manually backing up - by me. It contains a copy of everything in my HD's desktop folder where all my files are located. Whenever I add a new file or change one, I immediately copy it to the second backup disk. That way I have double backup protection and everything is backed up to the minute.

Cloning external drive with Time Machine backups (very basic question)