Time Machine on more than 1 external drive - 'Take Turns' message?!

[Marty_Macfly]

Hi All,

I have more than 1 backup drive now. I'd like to continue to back up onto the old one for a bit, before retiring it completely and storing away.


Some questions:

Q1) I got a message from Time Machine - 'TM with take it in turns' if I continue to use both. What on earth does that mean? (See screenshot of the message below.)

Q2) I want to connect to each, once a week, and do a manual backup - Is this not possible?

Q3) It is better to go cold turkey, and use the new Drive from now on only?

Q4) If I use only the new drive - would the 1st back up be a full backup? Or a weird incremental backup, and I would always have to find the old TM drive for older backups?


Hope you can advise
Martin

 

[Wando64]

If you opt for using both drives you will be able to alternate them and every time you plug one in, it will catch up from where it left when you unplugged it.
Is a great way to rotate two TM disks so that you can keep one off-site.

EDIT: Whatever you decide, it will create a full backup on the new drive. Each TM drive will contain a full independent backup.

 

[Nermal]

I think it's trying to say that if you have both drives connected at the same time then it'll alternate the backups. If only one drive is connected then it'll just use that.

 

[Marty_Macfly]

I think it's trying to say that if you have both drives connected at the same time then it'll alternate the backups. If only one drive is connected then it'll just use that.

hiya,

cool - I won't be doing that, so not a concern

 

[Marty_Macfly]

If you opt for using both drives you will be able to alternate them and every time you plug one in, it will catch up from where it left when you unplugged it.
Is a great way to rotate two TM disks so that you can keep one off-site.

EDIT: Whatever you decide, it will create a full backup on the new drive. Each TM drive will contain a full independent backup.

Hiya wando64,


Thats perfect! what I want

 

[Marty_Macfly]

Thanks for the info guys!

Backups is not the place to be vague about what you have backed up and how!

 

[Wando64]

Hiya wando64,


Thats perfect! what I want

I used it this way for many years.
You will get nagged from time to time if you have not plugged in your other TM drive for too long (“you haven’t backed up to Disk x for xx days”).

These days I’ve opted for keeping only one TM disk and do the second backup using CCC.

 

[Phil77354]

Well I'll be darned! I did not know that Time Machine had this capability. Good info, thanks!