Cannot figure out backups/file storage on external drive

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Level 1

8 points

Cannot figure out backups/file storage on external drive

I'm having issues with my Mac, and I don't fully trust iCloud, so I decided to buy an external hard drive (Seagate) to hopefully do a Time Machine backup AND store various files. I cannot, for the life of me, make this work. I have erased and reformatted over a dozen times and I don't know what I'm doing. If I mess around enough I'll be able to drag and drop files to the Seagate via Finder. But the second I try to back up via TM it seems to change it, it erases everything, and I can no longer drag and drop. Is it not possible to do both? I don't understand volumes and partitions and frankly I'm nervous to add anything now at all because I'm worried the next time I try anything it'll be messed up again. Are there any extremely easy solutions to do both? Do I need to just choose one or the other and stop erasing and reformatting before I break something?

Posted on Jan 22, 2025 10:04 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Zurarczurx

Level 4

1,299 points

Jan 22, 2025 12:24 PM in response to Betsy Lynn

Time Machine has to be the only thing on a disc partition. If you add a disc with only one partition to Time Machine it reformats the disc and removes anything else that was on it and from then on it can only be used for Time Machine.

You can partition the disc and use one partition for TM and the other partition for general file storage but it is not recommended. If you do there is a significant risk that at some point in the future you will have problems the TM. You might not find this out until you desperately need to recover something. My advice would be not to partition the disc and try to use it for both.

Get a disk at least twice the size of your HD and use it exclusively for Time Machine. If you want another disc for carrying data around or for another backup using plain file copies then buy another disc. Compared to the cost of losing all your data, discs are cheap.

Finally - you're right about iCloud. iCloud is a synch service. It keeps files in synch across all your devices. If you update a file on your Mac then the change propagates and the updated file appears on all your devices. If you delete a file then the file is deleted on all your devices and, after 30 days, it's gone for ever, which means it's not a backup.

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Answer 2

muguy

Level 10

84,121 points

Jan 22, 2025 10:09 AM in response to Betsy Lynn

Your Time Machine drive is used only for Time Machine. If you wish to also export files to an external drive, you’ll want a second drive (which you can also backup to Time Machine).

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

153,462 points

Jan 22, 2025 12:05 PM in response to Betsy Lynn

Yes, and yes. TM will backup any directly attached drives, unless you explicitly tell TM not to.

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Answer 4

Betsy Lynn Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 22, 2025 10:14 AM in response to muguy

Okay, thank you. So essentially I need two drives; use this one for files/photos, and buy another one for TM backups? Can I back up both the computer and this external to the new TM-designated external?

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Answer 5

Betsy Lynn Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 22, 2025 1:25 PM in response to Zurarczurx

Perfect, thank you. I don't really need a TM backup; I only care about a backup of my photos and, as they seem to be in iCloud and not on my computer, it doesn't seem like TM would do much good anyway. I'm working on copying all the photos from iCloud to the external and if I want to use Time Machine down the road, I'll just buy another drive. Thanks!

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