Has Monteray changed the way Time Machine backups are stored?

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Has Monteray changed the way Time Machine backups are stored?

So I have a 5TB drive for Time Machine backups on different Macs. When I ask Time Machine to make a backup, instead of backing up directly to that 5TB drive, it creates a new volume on that 5TB drive and backs up to that instead. So now I have two Time Machine volumes on my desktop.

It never used to work that way; it always used to create a backup.backupd folder on the Time Machine drive and then created a separate folder for each Mac being backed up inside that backup.backupd folder.

What now happens seems to be a backward step as backups are no longer directly on that Time Machine drive.

Furthermore, I now have to mount both volumes on the desktop before Time Machine will backup.

Is this a new 'feature' (or bug) in Monterey?

Posted on May 4, 2022 11:07 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,758 points

May 4, 2022 1:53 PM in response to The_Knowledge_Seeker

Big Sur and Monterey format the drive as APFS. You can continue an HFS+ backup drive, but you cannot create a new one.

It doesn't create a backups.backupd folder as the Volume can only be used for a single Mac's backup. It will create a folder for each backup named with a timestamp.

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Answer 2

May 4, 2022 1:16 PM in response to lllaass

lllaass wrote:

Starting with Big Sur, Time Machine files are different if /when you use an APFS formatted disk.

[Ever so slightly off topic]:

Something tells me I should revert to formatting Time Machine drives as Mac OS Extended instead of APFS so that it can continue to backup Mac OS Extended or APFS formatted drives.

Am I right?

Is there any benefit to formatting a Time Machine drive as APFS?

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Answer 3

May 4, 2022 11:30 AM in response to The_Knowledge_Seeker

Hi Knowledge_Seeker, something must not be correct on your machine, I have been using TimeMachine with weekly backups since HighSierra on the same external drive and with Monterey everything just continued the same way, one drive and Monterey just keep adding new files to the backups that HighSierra started, it's not different in Monterey.

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

May 4, 2022 12:54 PM in response to The_Knowledge_Seeker

Starting with Big Sur, Time Machine files are different if /when you use an APFS formatted disk. In you look at ™ you will see a different entry for each backup. a backup.backupd folder is no longer used. See:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/29/apfs-changes-in-big-sur-how-time-machine-backs-up-to-apfs-and-more/

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Answer 5

May 4, 2022 1:20 PM in response to lllaass

Yes, in my example, the Time Machine drive is APFS and the (oldish!) internal drive to backup is Mac OS Extended.

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Has Monteray changed the way Time Machine backups are stored?

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