How can I move Time Machine backup files?

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How can I move Time Machine backup files?

I have a 3TB Laci thunderbolt external that I'm using for Time Machine backup. The drive has one large partition (about 2.5T) formatted 'Mac OS Extended (journaled) that I intended to use as the iMac backup in our office. The other smaller partition was going to be backup for files from an older PC. However, I just discovered that a wrong selection was made for Time Machine and it has been backing up to the smaller partition, which it has formatted as 'case sensitive'. I can't move the backup from one partition to the other because of the different formating. How can I move these files to some other disk, reformat the Lacie, and then move them to the correct partition? Thanks!

Mac mini

Posted on Jan 13, 2015 12:36 PM

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Answer 1

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Jan 14, 2015 12:52 PM in response to tkoes

Hi tkoes,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

I understand that you would like to temporarily move your Time Machine backups so that you can reformat the external hard drive. The instructions for this process can be found in the attached article.

Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support

Cheers,

Joe

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Answer 2

tkoes Author

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Jan 14, 2015 4:31 PM in response to AppleJoe

Thanks. I actually read this article before posting. My problem is that my TM backup file is on a case sensitive formatted disk. (which isn't covered in this tutorial) I'm not really sure how this happened but anyway I have about four other backup drives I could use to temporarily store the backup files (including the iMac HD that is being backed up) but NONE of these drives are formatted with case sensitive parameters, so I haven't been able to move the TM backup folder while I repartition the main backup hard drive. I have an old laptop drive that I can probably put in an enclosure, reformat it as case sensitive, and use that if necessary.

Perhaps my question should have been, will this TM backup folder always need to be on a case sensitive formatted disk since it was created on one or is there some conversion that can be done so that it can be stored on a case ignorant formatted disk? Thanks so much.

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Answer 3

Jan 14, 2015 5:33 PM in response to tkoes

Once case is sensitive you cannot change back .. the case remain.

http://pondini.org/TM/5.html

My understanding is that anytime you have TM working it will use case sensitive.

TM will default to case sensitive.

Pondini has a bit of info about the case issue.

http://pondini.org/TM/A8.html

And moving backups from place to place which does include case sensitive.

http://pondini.org/TM/18.html

Once solution is to create yourself a case sensitive sparsebundle on any of the drives.. and you should be then able to copy the backup to the sparsebundle. The sparsebundle is like a virtual disk.. and its internal format can be case sensitive even if the disk hosting it is not.

There is plenty of info on how to create sparsebundles.

http://www.cnet.com/au/how-to/how-to-create-a-dynamically-resizable-disk-image-i n-os-x/

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