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I recently purchased a new Mac laptop as my other was being repaired. Now I have the repaired one back. How do I update that one and keep backups with my new laptop as the primary. I'm concerned that the older Mac will over-write my new one.
I have an external hard drive which I use and I back up to iCloud (of course) and Google drive.
Thank you - Claire
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15
I'd get a second external hard drive to back up your old Mac. You should not try to put two backups on the same drive.
iCloud is a syncing mechanism so you have access to all of your files from all of your devices, but it is not a backup. If you delete something from your computer, it will be gone in iCloud as well.
I'd get a second external hard drive to back up your old Mac. You should not try to put two backups on the same drive.
iCloud is a syncing mechanism so you have access to all of your files from all of your devices, but it is not a backup. If you delete something from your computer, it will be gone in iCloud as well.
Hi Claire,
iCloud doesn't actually offer a backup solution for Macs. It lets you store data in the cloud (just like Google Drive), but if you want to actually back up your Mac and all of its data, the easiest way to do so is to use Time Machine with an external drive.
Just to confirm, did the technician erase your old Mac? Or is your data still on it?
My data is still on it. That's why I'm leery of backing up my older Mac with the Time Machine via the external hard drive I'm using with the new Mac. I'm concerned the old Mac's time machine will overwrite the current files, etc, I hope that makes sense.
What I think is strange is that the Google Drive in the finder did not 'match' the one in my new computer.
Thank you for your help!
My data is still on it. That's why I'm leery of backing up my older Mac with the Time Machine via the external hard drive I'm using with the new Mac.
A second separate hard drive will take care of it. Of course, older backups from the old Mac will only be accessible from the TM now being used for the new Mac.
FYI, if you need to do this kind of thing again, just start a new TM on a new backup drive for the new Mac - keeps the old TM to be "caught up" with the old Mac when you get it back.
Thank you very much!
How to back up two Macs without over-riding the most current files
