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I am trying to simply drag and drop a photo onto my external hard drive, formatted as APFS. Why is it read only? When I cmd + I on the drive, the Sharing & Permissions section says "You can only read" and I do not have access to a lock icon. I am the administrator.
iMac 27″, macOS 11.2
larathalice wrote:
Sorry, just saw the Ignore Ownership part of your comment. This is all I can see when I click cmd + I. At the bottom, in the Sharing & Permissions, I don't have any options to do anything:
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/f69ea8a1-a1df-4bf8-94fa-0260a6224490
Traditionally you interact with Time Machine through the TM interface...
Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/restore-files-mh11422/mac
i to used to use my TM disk in that same fashion. however, when i installed big sur, i put everything on the TM disk that wanted to keep on a separate drive. i then erased the TM disk to have a fresh TM for big sur. once i did that, TM became read only for some reason. (which only apple would know) when i tried to add other stuff to the TM disk, it wouldn't let me. since you have used a new drive, you may only have big sur backups on it. is it possible that your old drive was being used with catalina as well? i'm not completely sure when the protocols changed, but it does appear that they have changed.
i have noticed that my TM disk is read only. however, it is allowing TM to write to it. when i do a backup, the new data is showing up on the drive. i'm rot really sure why it works that way. i'm thinking that it is so you only use the TM disk for TM backups. if you want to add extra data to that disk, you will likely need to use disk utility to erase and reformat it and NOT use it for TM. it appears to me that it's an either/or situation now.
So, I used to use a WD My Passport Ultra in the same manner. TM had no issue doing its thing, and I could also create folders and save things manually, as well.
I now have a Samsung T7 Touch and it only lets me do TM. So, I do know it is possible to do both, but have not figured out why the T7 one will not let me.
larathalice wrote:
So, I used to use a WD My Passport Ultra in the same manner. TM had no issue doing its thing, and I could also create folders and save things manually, as well.
I now have a Samsung T7 Touch and it only lets me do TM. So, I do know it is possible to do both, but have not figured out why the T7 one will not let me.
It has always worked best if TM has it's own dedicated drive— never has it been advised to use a TM backup Drive in conjunction w/ drag and drop storage to the same drive .
External drives are relatively inexpensive, If you value your user data:
3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.
Drives can fail at anytime—you are much better off having 7 1T drives vs 1 7T drive, as an example— it may be time to rethink your backup strategy.
I think you totally nailed timeframe. I can't really confirm this theory but it all adds up. Big bummer. I definitely switched to this new HD after I upgraded to Big Sur and hadn't attempted the manual drag and drop until just now.
But as @leroydouglas said, I really should have my stuff in multiple spots. So, I may just use this drive as a TM backup and save the photos on my actual computer, where they are backed up on TM, at least that's two out of the three spots, ha.
Ughh, you are totally right. Like I mentioned above, I'll at least start with moving these photos to my actual computer and then having them backed up on TM, instead.
Would love your favorite offsite recs, if you'd like to share.
Thanks!
larathalice wrote:
Would love your favorite offsite recs, if you'd like to share.
Thanks!
i can answer that for you. i'm not sure if this means you are thinking of cloud-style storage as offsite. but for me, offsite means a 2 physical disks (duplicates) that i leave at a relative's house. i then bring them home from time to time to keep them up to date. it's a lot of "leg work", but it's good enough for my needs. and it's not as if i have a shortage of external disks. i hope this helps. :)
UPDATE:
If anyone is curious, I decided to try making a partition off of the T7 just for manual backup, and it worked totally fine that way. :-|
I am able to drag anything onto the partition.
Will still take the 3-2-1 advice, as well. But nice to know how to get around this!
Sorry, just saw the Ignore Ownership part of your comment. This is all I can see when I click cmd + I. At the bottom, in the Sharing & Permissions, I don't have any options to do anything:
Can you drag it into a folder inside the top level of the drive?
Is the Ignore Ownership checkbox checked?
Bummer, I just tried with no luck. I can't even make a new folder in the drive. The only thing the drive has been used for so far is Time Machine backups, which have been created fine.
I do use TM that way.
My issue is I am trying to also save photos manually on the hard drive, and cannot.
Ohh! I was totally thinking cloud :) Never thought of the literal approach.
Read Only Issue with APFS
