Time Machine Backup - Best Practices

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Level 1

4 points

Time Machine Backup - Best Practices

Am responsible managing MacBook inventory for small team. All users are also given an external disk to perform regular Time Machine backups. Looking for advice/best practices when it comes to reusing/repurposing the external disks when an employee has left the company. Currently, when an employee leaves, external disk is unable to be wiped/repurposed as its been encrypted by the former user. Is there a way around this? (or would this be a function of the disk, something the manufacturer would need to answer?)

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Nov 20, 2024 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

60,506 points

Nov 20, 2024 6:17 PM in response to kwfcit

You will need to erase the whole physical external drive. By default the physical drive is hidden in Disk Utility. You need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drives and hidden APFS Containers appear on the left pain of Disk Utility. Select the physical external drive & erase it. See this Apple for some details and pictures of the process:

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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