Every time I switch my mac on the time machine drive shows activity for some time after (minutes) I switch on. This is not after a back up and time machine is not running. I am on Tahoe 26.5 on mac mini M4
Mac mini (M4, 2024)
If you're referring to a separate drive set as your Time Machine disk, that's usually normal. macOS may still access it during startup for system syncing, Spotlight indexing, verification, or snapshot checks even when a backup isn't actively running.
It could also just be macOS mounting and checking startup snapshots after boot.
+1
A slight delay is normal after a startup and powering up of the backup drive.
Mac mini M4 Time Machine drive active on startup
