move time machine backup file

Hey there assegaiguy,

It sounds like you have an external drive connected and setup to use Time Machine, and would like to move the backed up files to another external drive.

This article should help you get that accomplished named:

Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5096

To have the existing Time Machine backups on the new backup drive, follow these steps:

1. Connect the new backup drive to your Mac.
2. Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
3. In Disk Utility, select the new drive's icon, then make sure it has a GUID partition, and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which you can check on the "Format:" line at the bottom of the window.
4. If it is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition. If you do not know how, see the steps in this article. Note: Back up any important data on the drive before you format it.
5. Open a new Finder window. In the Finder sidebar, click the icon of the new backup drive and choose Get Infofrom the File menu or press Command-I (⌘-I)
6. Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions:" section is not checked.
7. Open the Time Machine pane in System Preferences. Choose Time Machine > Open Time Machine Preferences…
8. Slide the Time Machine switch to Off.
9. Open a new Finder window. In the Finder sidebar, click the icon of the current backup drive.
10. Open a new Finder window. In the Finder sidebar, click the icon of the new backup drive.
11. Drag the folder "Backups.backupdb" on the current backup drive to the root level of the new backup drive.
    Note: If the drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended but without journaling, OS X may state that "the volume has the wrong case sensitivity" to be used as a back up disk.
12. Enter an administrator name and password, then click OK to start the copying process. This may take some time to complete because all the backups will be copied.
13. After the copy has completed, open Time Machine preferences and click "Select Disk…".
14. Select the new backup drive, then click "Use Backup Disk".

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

All the best,

Sterling

Yeah OS X has a problem copying large files/folder from one place to another.

The best thing to do is just leave the original backup drive alone and create a New Backup on the new drive. That way you have a new current backup and the old drive has all your previous backups.

assegaiguy wrote:

For some reason this did not work. Got error messages during the copying phase. Followed the procedure carefully twice with the same result. Thanks for the link. Lost about two months backup so not a big deal!