Time Machine?

[transmaster]

I see there is some discussion about this. I had thought the Time Machine was no longer made but the tech support lady pointed out that now the “Time Machine” was any external drive formatted in APFS. I wished I had known this. I have a. 4 TB SSD formatted in APFS. One question I have is when I started fresh install I had the choice of using the Mac HD, or the 4TB Samsung. When I get done with this reload can I go back and load a copy of the OS into the external drive for backup leaving the primary boot copy on the main drive?

 

[Mike Boreham]

It sounds like you may have some catching up to do! Since Catalina what you install on the internal drive (Macintosh HD) has two main volumes: the SSV (immutable Signed Sealed System Volume) and the -Data volume, with everything you have added to the computer, including settings apps and data

There is no easy way, nor any point, in backing up the SSV onto the external, but it would be very good and easy to backup the -Data volume onto it.

Time Machine is one way of backing up the -Data volume, and would enable to restore the whol machine to the exact state (Settings, apps data), as well as being able to recover individual files.

 

[transmaster]

It sounds like you may have some catching up to do! Since Catalina what you install on the internal drive (Macintosh HD) has two main volumes: the SSV (immutable Signed Sealed System Volume) and the -Data volume, with everything you have added to the computer, including settings apps and data

There is no easy way, nor any point, in backing up the SSV onto the external, but it would be very good and easy to backup the -Data volume onto it.

Time Machine is one way of backing up the -Data volume, and would enable to restore the whol machine to the exact state (Settings, apps data), as well as being able to recover individual files.

It is not not catching up but learning. A couple years in macOS does not equal 40+ years in Windows.