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A second Time Machine disk with the same data?
- Thread starter swealpha
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Here's an article discussing how to do this:
How to Use Time Machine Backup with Multiple Drives and the Cloud
Think of Time Machine as a tool that keeps moments in time, so you can recover deleted or missing files or even revert to older versions of files you’ve worked on.
www.backblaze.com
Hmm, I have read that.Here's an article discussing how to do this:
How to Use Time Machine Backup with Multiple Drives and the Cloud
Think of Time Machine as a tool that keeps moments in time, so you can recover deleted or missing files or even revert to older versions of files you’ve worked on.
But that is not 2 disks with same data.
Lets say you have 1 disk stored somewhere else, and weekly switch it with the one connected to the mac to have the same backup located somewhere else. I mean I want to clone the disks so both of them has same data when "switching the disks".
Carbon Copy Cloner dont Time Machine clone, that sucks.
Superduper and Finder (drag and drop) is the only solution I see right now.
Edit: I looked into it some more and apparently rsync will not work with Time Machine backups. The backups are linked in a way which saves space, but which makes syncing exact copies between different drives difficult. Apple has enabled Finder to correctly transfers backups between drives but most tools will not be able to do this correctly. That's why some of the tools you've mentioned are unable to do this for you.
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My preference is one TM backup and a SuperDuper clone, rather than two TM backups.
Each are useful in their own ways, but differently.
It seems redundant to have two TM backups.
What Mac are you backing up, and which MacOS?
I used Carbon Copy to clone my time machine disk for awhile, but stopped because I didn't see the value. So this made me wonder how I was able to do it! Turns out that it works if your Time Machine destination is on a shared network disk, which is what I was doing. You could setup a simple little server - a 2012 or 2014 Mini works fine for this, even the base models which should be very inexpensive. You just need to enable file sharing and make it a time machine destination.
See this:
"When Time Machine is configured to back up a Macintosh to a network volume (such as a Time Capsule device), Time Machine stores the backup in a sparsebundle disk image. CCC can copy these sparsebundle disk image files without any special configuration; simply choose your network volume as the source of your CCC backup task."
I don't see the point. My Mac is backed up to iCloud, and to Time Machine. That's one offsite with redundant high quality server storage, and one local that is fragile and singular but under my control and at my disposal when I need it.
I can't see any point in having more than that.
I can't see any point in having more than that.
Not a great idea imo.
As the link @headlessmike provided states:
So you have two complete backups, two different medias. Cloning is unneeded work.
And if you "clone" a drive to the other one, you're breaking the spirit of 3-2-1 backups imo. You're copying a potentially bad backup (read: corrupt) onto the other backup. You now have two bad backups. And even if not a bad backup, a backup might have missing files (eg. a MBP user that does not keep their TM disk(s) plugged in full-time: create a file, accidentally delete before backup happens) so the extra work of cloning won't catch that scenario.
(add: or clone causes one to lose a file: file is on drive B but clone A to B wipes the one backup of the file)
You've gone from two backups to basically none if something goes wrong.
Better off sticking to two TM drives (which I do do) with (as others pointed out) a clone or some cloud solution (which I do monthly, manually, with my critical files).
As the link @headlessmike provided states:
So you have two complete backups, two different medias. Cloning is unneeded work.
And if you "clone" a drive to the other one, you're breaking the spirit of 3-2-1 backups imo. You're copying a potentially bad backup (read: corrupt) onto the other backup. You now have two bad backups. And even if not a bad backup, a backup might have missing files (eg. a MBP user that does not keep their TM disk(s) plugged in full-time: create a file, accidentally delete before backup happens) so the extra work of cloning won't catch that scenario.
(add: or clone causes one to lose a file: file is on drive B but clone A to B wipes the one backup of the file)
You've gone from two backups to basically none if something goes wrong.
Better off sticking to two TM drives (which I do do) with (as others pointed out) a clone or some cloud solution (which I do monthly, manually, with my critical files).
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This is easy. You just plug in a second drive and set up Time Machine to use it. TM will alternate the backup between the two drives. It's a simple way to ensure that a drive failure won't make you lose your versioned backups.
Use Time Machine on your Mac to back up to multiple disks
For extra security, use Time Machine to back up your Mac to multiple disks. Time Machine rotates the backup schedule among the disks.
support.apple.com
@chabig and @NoBoMac are right. Setting up TM with two drives means both will have all your data. No need for cloning.
The only difference between the two TM drives is that one will have backups at 7, 9, 11 o'clock and the other will have 6, 8, 10 o'clock.
When you "Browse Time Machine Backups" with both TM drives connected you will see, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 o'clock seamlessly in order.
Having a bootable clone is very handy though, if your main drive goes wrong you can boot up to the clone and continue.
Maybe, but bootable clones are flaky these days (causing CCC to relegate bootable clones to a hidden legacy option). But I do agree not to rely only on Time Machine. I keep a CCC clone of my -Data volume which is available as a reinstall/migrate option to TM.
In my experience (lots of data and photos in iCloud) booting from a bootable clone is a lengthy business, while everything synchronises with the cloud, and many apps need re signing into and Full Disk Access granted etc etc. Lightroom Cloudy Libs have to be completely re downloaded.
While on the subject, for many years I found migrating from CCC backup more reliable than from a Time Machine backup, but in the last few years Time Machine migrations have been very reliable and are now my preferred go to, before CCC.
I hear ya, this is true with more recent MacOS versions.
The OP never replied to my question (post #5) about which OS they where using....🤪
@swealpha you can change the drive weekly instead of leaving both connected. If two are connected it will alternate, but if only one it will just use that. Both drives will have full set of data.
Hello!
I have a macbook pro mid 2014 workstation running High Sierra. (Newer MacOS will make the computer run hot and slow).
So my plan is to have 1x CCC disk and 1x TM disk at home.
And as emergency backup i will have 1x CCC disk and 1x TM-disk at work.
Then I will switch these disks monthly to have them both kinda updated.
I have tried to find a good and easy to use solution to backup on cloud, but couldnt find anything that feels trustworthy. I have write about this in other threads, small Russian, Ukraine or 1-man companies with hidden source code that wants me to type in my cloud password in the application. Even backblaze dont feel 100% secure, couldnt find anything that could make me fully think otherwise. There own software and there own cloud. Thats why i fall back to a year "2005" solution. Even due i got 500Mbit connection.
Here is also some answers i got from Mike Bombich (the founder of CarbonCopyCloner), i didnt ask about the "boot from external drive on newer macbooks"-issue.....
I have a macbook pro mid 2014 workstation running High Sierra. (Newer MacOS will make the computer run hot and slow).
So my plan is to have 1x CCC disk and 1x TM disk at home.
And as emergency backup i will have 1x CCC disk and 1x TM-disk at work.
Then I will switch these disks monthly to have them both kinda updated.
I have tried to find a good and easy to use solution to backup on cloud, but couldnt find anything that feels trustworthy. I have write about this in other threads, small Russian, Ukraine or 1-man companies with hidden source code that wants me to type in my cloud password in the application. Even backblaze dont feel 100% secure, couldnt find anything that could make me fully think otherwise. There own software and there own cloud. Thats why i fall back to a year "2005" solution. Even due i got 500Mbit connection.
Here is also some answers i got from Mike Bombich (the founder of CarbonCopyCloner), i didnt ask about the "boot from external drive on newer macbooks"-issue.....
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iCloud is not considered a backup service as deleted files are gone after 30 days and there is no versioning. TM backups can get corrupt - I've lost count of how many times I have had to wipe TM backups when they failed. In a 3-2-1 backup strategy you should have no more then 1 TM backup. For a robust backups you need 2 more. Backblaze offers online infinite storage forever for a reasonable fee.
Time Machine backup on two external drives
Read many posts, YouTube videos and articles on this subject, but didn’t help me. Your post is the first post that explained clearly that it could be done and will backup alternatively.
I have Sonoma 14.7. Time Machine does not let me add anther backup drive. Tried many times, but all failed. Perhaps, adding another drive will work in Ventura? Just wondering what macOS version you have.
Help would be greatly appreciate!
How to copy an APSF container (or a volume) to another drive
For members of this forum how to do the above must be common knowledge, but not for me. My skill about mac is so low that is laughable. I didn’t know how to do the above so I searched the internet and YouTube videos, but they only showed how to clone the macOS which was not what I wanted. So I started doing some experiments and found that using carbon copy cloned was a piece of cake. The trick is in the target drive first create a container then create all the volumes that I wanted to copy. Give them the same name as the source volumes but add a “-2” at the end. Use CCC to copy one volume at a time from the source drive to the target drive. Finally remove the “-2” from the target volumes.
I understand that a Time Machine backup volume (and perhaps a CCC backup volume as well) can not be copied. But don’t understand why.
For members of this forum how to do the above must be common knowledge, but not for me. My skill about mac is so low that is laughable. I didn’t know how to do the above so I searched the internet and YouTube videos, but they only showed how to clone the macOS which was not what I wanted. So I started doing some experiments and found that using carbon copy cloned was a piece of cake. The trick is in the target drive first create a container then create all the volumes that I wanted to copy. Give them the same name as the source volumes but add a “-2” at the end. Use CCC to copy one volume at a time from the source drive to the target drive. Finally remove the “-2” from the target volumes.
I understand that a Time Machine backup volume (and perhaps a CCC backup volume as well) can not be copied. But don’t understand why.
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I'm using Sonoma 14.6.1 with two external TM drives. It's easy to set up and runs like a charm.
See: System Settings>General>Time Machine
Thank you so much for taking the time to response and to confirm! You answer is giving confidence to downgrade from 14.7 to 14.6.1 and also make me feel all the effort in re-installing macOS will be worth it and will definitely will give me the the result that I have been looking for! My sincere thanks again!
I made a great mistake to use the latest version of macOS and wasted a lot of time (myself as well as all of you who replied to my post and my sincere apology).