Since I got my M4 Mac mini, I have been doing backups to the same external SSDs I had used on my old M1 Mac mini.
I’d originally setup the M4 by restoring from one of the drives. I cannot remember in detail what I did but initially I thought both drives had been imported/connected properly.
However, I found that one drive would often report that the scheduled backup had failed. Can’t remember if it worked for a while or this started from the beginning. Had no idea why if happened. Each time it said that, I went to Time Machine and told it to backup now. And every time it was successful.
The backups to the other drive were always OK.
Basically, unattended backups too one drive always failed.
I had some suspicion that my USB hub was having power issues - and anyway the cables, his and connections needed tidying. That done, and the hub now receiving plenty of power, I crossed my fingers. But no, that didn’t help.
Over the past few days I have run First aid at every level on the problem drive. Fine at top level. Failed at container level. Then fine on the volume. Despite reporting an issue, it did not manage to repair it.
Getting thoroughly annoyed, I thought I wouldn’t lose anything by reformatting it. But Disk Utility flat out refused to let me. Rebooted and only connected the drive again once I was logged in - still could not erase it.
Hmm, maybe something in my system was confused. Took it to my MacBook Pro and tried to format it there. Again, though it physically connected - total refusal.
End of tether time. Connected it to my old Windows 10 PC. Deleted the partition!
Then reconnected it to my M4 mini, and set up a new partition, added it to Time Machine. And it is behaving.
Posting in case anyone has has a similar issue.
I read https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine.2431290/ but decided it looked somewhat different.
I have always used the latest macos releases - leaving at most a few days after an update.
I’d originally setup the M4 by restoring from one of the drives. I cannot remember in detail what I did but initially I thought both drives had been imported/connected properly.
However, I found that one drive would often report that the scheduled backup had failed. Can’t remember if it worked for a while or this started from the beginning. Had no idea why if happened. Each time it said that, I went to Time Machine and told it to backup now. And every time it was successful.
The backups to the other drive were always OK.
Basically, unattended backups too one drive always failed.
I had some suspicion that my USB hub was having power issues - and anyway the cables, his and connections needed tidying. That done, and the hub now receiving plenty of power, I crossed my fingers. But no, that didn’t help.
Over the past few days I have run First aid at every level on the problem drive. Fine at top level. Failed at container level. Then fine on the volume. Despite reporting an issue, it did not manage to repair it.
Getting thoroughly annoyed, I thought I wouldn’t lose anything by reformatting it. But Disk Utility flat out refused to let me. Rebooted and only connected the drive again once I was logged in - still could not erase it.
Hmm, maybe something in my system was confused. Took it to my MacBook Pro and tried to format it there. Again, though it physically connected - total refusal.
End of tether time. Connected it to my old Windows 10 PC. Deleted the partition!
Then reconnected it to my M4 mini, and set up a new partition, added it to Time Machine. And it is behaving.
Posting in case anyone has has a similar issue.
I read https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine.2431290/ but decided it looked somewhat different.
I have always used the latest macos releases - leaving at most a few days after an update.
