Is it possible to duplicate a Time Machine back up HD?

Hi. I recently had a primary external SSD (Sandisk Extreme V2 2TB - only thought the Pro had a problem) fail on me. Thankfully I have a Time Machine backup setup and up to date. I want to create redundancy of the backup HDD and so was wondering if it is possible to duplicate the Time Machine backup HDD in any way?


Thanks


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MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.5

Posted on Jul 29, 2024 11:36 AM

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Posted on Jul 29, 2024 2:01 PM

If the TM backup is to a drive formatted in APFS, then only (& only potentially) can you use a bit-by-bit clone of the drive that may work. Otherwise, you cannot simply just create a copy.


AlWeir's suggestion to obtain a second drive would be the best solution for redundancy. You can then then configure TM to make subsequent backups to each of these drives alternately.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 29, 2024 2:01 PM in response to sharkster1021

If the TM backup is to a drive formatted in APFS, then only (& only potentially) can you use a bit-by-bit clone of the drive that may work. Otherwise, you cannot simply just create a copy.


AlWeir's suggestion to obtain a second drive would be the best solution for redundancy. You can then then configure TM to make subsequent backups to each of these drives alternately.

Jul 30, 2024 12:46 PM in response to VikingOSX

Yes, thank you. I'm very familiar with CCC, and I concur that it, amongst a number of other commercially available cloning solutions will not work. It's also why I mentioned that it would "only potentially" work to the OP. My guess is that only a professional data service would be able to do this ... and, most likely, only at an astronomical price to not be worth it.

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Is it possible to duplicate a Time Machine back up HD?

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