Easily Backup your External Home SSD and Internal Data with Time Machine!

[@dennisodell3040]

Thanks so much for this tutorial. I’ve been using Time Machine for I don’t know how long. I never felt like I had a thorough understanding of the functionality and have watched a lot of videos in an attempt to learn and understand. Your tutorial, IMHO, is the most thorough and understandable I’ve found.

[@grahame8032]

Great video. I have been using Time Machine with multiple backup drives but have still learnt a lot about Time Machine from watching this video, Love your channel,

[@AymericLarose]

Thanks a lot! I am definitely convinced that using an external SSD is my solution. I use TimeMachine (to a NAS) as my primary backup on a hourly basis. I have never experienced any system slow-down (I am set on an hourly backup). Thanks for the video!! ❤

[@johnplainsong9769]

This is a perfect follow-on to your previous Home folder Mini videos. Thanks! I have a request for a future video. It feels like Apple has made iCloud intentionally mysterious, often forcing users into subscribing for more storage. In trying to manage iCloud I have (on two occasions earlier this year) lost files on my MacBook (once for all my Mail, and once for the entire contents of my Documents folder. Luckily, I was able to later recover via Time Machine. So ... I'd love to see a tutorial on how to design a smart backup strategy (eg using iCloud for an extra layer of protection without having to buy a larger subscription, integrating with Time Machine, CCC, etc). For example, I use a dedicated SSD for all my Photo backups, and have that turned off in iCloud. Your presentation style would lend itself well to such a video, and youtube is lacking in innovative iCloud tutorials.

[@egelb]

Thank you very much for this clear explanation. I have been using SuperDuper with my old iMac and have just ordered a Mac mini which I will setup to use Time Machine base on your explanation of how to do it.

[@jpl317]

Excellent video, Lance. One thing to show would be the cool interface when you open Time Machine application, instead of going in directly like you did. The standing desk looks Iinteresting, I’m going to check that out.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

@@jpl317Thanks! I do show the interface later in the video when I delete and restore a file.

[@DroseMr]

Cool! Thank You

[@chandebrec5856]

You mentioned having used Carbon Copy Cloner. What would you say about CCC vs. Time Machine for hourly or daily external home + internal data backups?

[@openformatmusic7932]

Thank you lance..!!

[@kamgirsonskamgirsons6735]

I once had my Home Folder to an external drive and had TM continuously backup both the system drive and the external drive. When I tried to restore from Time Machine to a new Mac, the restore failed because recovery couldn’t find the Home Folder in the TM backup. I had to CC the system drive to a larger external SSD, boot from it with the other external drive (containing the Home Folder) connected, move the Home Folder from the other external drive onto the new system SSD, do a TM backup of the new system SSD, then restore from TM onto my new Mac.

[@DomesticDave]

Hi, I have followed your passed videos on moving the Home folder to a 4TB Ext. SSD and all worked fine. I now have all my important data and videos on my Home documents folder and thus are now saved to iCloud as well. Now my Time machine can backup my Mac mini HDD and my Ext Home drive, so I have everything secure. Except for one thing. The time machine is making two backups every hour. One of my Mac mini Documents and Desktop and one of my Ext. home folder SSD documents and Desktop. This in itself is not a problem as I have all the data saved that I need. The problem is that when, after 48 hours the Time Machine consolidates the hourly backups to one daily backup, it only saves the backup of my Mac Mini files and not my Ext SSD Home folder and files. So therefore my only backup of my precious Files and videos on my new Ext Home SSD are today's and Yesterdays hourly backups. Can you throw some light on this please and offer any solutions?

[@MacSoundSolutions]

That is strange, I will try setting mine to hourly and see what happens. But every backup I have done it's two separate backups like it shows in the video, my entire home drive and my Macintosh HD internal DATA it has not consolidated the two. What does it show on the inside of the time machine backup? Make sure your external drive is not in the list of excluded drives.

[@Albertotorni]

@@MacSoundSolutions Settings > Siri & Spotlight > Scroll down until you find the little button called "Spotlight Privacy..." in the bottom right corner > click on it > add the entire Macintosh HD hard drive to the no-search list.

[@seanb1081]

Thank You for taking the time to explain how time machine works. Much appreciated. I will soon be receiving a new Mac Min M4. I have already also purchased a 1TB external Hard Drive to go with it. I intend to set it up so the "home" folder will be on the external 1 TB drive. (as per your previous video). Sorry, but I'm a little confused ... Are you saying in this video, I should also have another external HD (Call it something like Exteranl_2) and set up Time Machine on it, and then use it to back up my external 1TB drive (which has the home folder on it) ,and the data Etc., from the Mac Mini HD to the "External_2" drive? Thanks!

[@MacSoundSolutions]

Yes you need one dedicated Time Machine drive then you can backup your other external drive with your user account and your internal data so two external drives one Time Machine the other your user.

[@errz]

Am thinking of returning the base model and get a Pro model. For such case, what would be the best way to retain all the setup? eg. external home drive.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

@@errz make a Time Machine backup like I show in the video , Don’t log into your Apple account during the initial setup, creat a new user with the new Mac, this will be your back up internal administrative user account name it something different than the user you have on your external home drive. . Then connect your external drive and create another user account with the same name as the external user account and then activate the external user. now that you’re logged in to the external user, you can now log into your Apple account then you can migrate your Macintosh HD data from Time Machine into the new computer using Apple‘s migration tool and then you can delete the internal user that has the same name as the external because now you’ll be using the external from here on out keeping the backup internal administrative user.

[@AquarianDiary]

I still use CCC but also Time Machine. One major flaw with Time Machine, a really serious one IMO, is that you can’t migrate your TM backup to a lager drive if needed. Mind-boggling oversight IMO. And yes I tried once.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

Interesting I guess you just have to keep both drives so you can go back to your old stuff hence my note on having two backups one TM and another fall back for all your data via carbon copy cloner or whatever works.

[@AquarianDiary]

@@MacSoundSolutions Yes, if you want to maintain complete TM archives you don’t want it deleting old data. I also use other drives for manual backups too. CCC incremental clones on fast SSD’s like Samsung T7 Shield or NvME’s are very fast thus handy. Also good for restoring new Macs from.

[@AquarianDiary]

One other point worth mentioning is that if you have Spotlight turned on on an external drive it can bring it to a crawl when indexing. Very frustrating, it should have been designed to only index when not otherwise in use. Or, have indexing manually triggered. You also can’t eject it while being indexed. Duh…

[@squeakyg2161]

I have a problem on my iMac 2011 with TM where it says “browser images” failed. So when you want to restore backup the images are not available. How to fix. I have Sonoma 14.7.2 on my non-metal Computer. Everything does run fine except TM. The backups are listed as a list. No backup I,mages like shown in your video.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

Are you up to date with OCLP have you tried reinstalled post root patches. Try another drive as a test with TM and see if it works with your system.

[@squeakyg2161]

@@MacSoundSolutions yes OCLP 2.2.0 ok look at the snapshot and says "failed to capture browser images" Im so confused

[@squeakyg2161]

@@MacSoundSolutions I guess I need to buy another drive first and test it out like you instructed. Thanks again will try later in this week.

[@Albertotorni]

Hi, I ve seen all your videos on how to install an external drive, I wanted to ask you a question, I more or less did the same thing, I have the internal drive with the system, without registering in iCloud, and then I installed everything on the external drive, what s the difference with what you did?

[@MacSoundSolutions]

no difference not sure what you mean exactly, I am running my main user from the external drive and am logged into icloud with that user.

[@Albertotorni]

@@MacSoundSolutions Yes, that’s exactly it: everything on the external SSD with iCloud, and the internal disk with only the pre-installed software and no iCloud, always booting from the external disk. However, I use the same username and password on both

[@MacSoundSolutions]

@@Albertotorni that is the issue same user on both.

[@EnervatedSociety]

Phew, a lot of info on the channel which is awesome, but I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. If I may ask, I have an old Mac Pro 5,1 tower running 10.13.6. Bare minimum, what do I need to get this mac running OS 11+? I don't care which OS so long as it runs decent. For my use case, what I'm doing now on this machine: messing around online, streaming, running some WordPress sites, running some applications, mostly web development related, and a DAW/RME combo, but only for editing, I do all the serious stuff on the Windows machine. What I can't do: run some application that require 11+, or the latest browsers, ect. That's all I really need. In other words, my needs are not much. Thanks.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

I would go with Opencore Legacy Patcher and install Mac OS Monterey or Sonoma. Monterey no longer gets security updates but runs the best on the 5,1 in my opinion.

[@EnervatedSociety]

@@MacSoundSolutions Ok, I'll go with one of those. Hardware wise, I have an old RX 580 hanging around. I read it's metal compatible, not sure it that matters still. Anything else I would need hardware wise that's specific, or rather necessary, to this upgrade path? I appreciate it! Thank you!

[@MacSoundSolutions]

@@EnervatedSociety 580 is a good choice as you can upgrade to Sequoia with OCLP if you want to. A good NVMe in slot 2 is good choice, oh and wifi Bluetooth upgrade is a good idea with a Bluetooth antenna extension unless your right next to the Mac the Bluetooth range sucks even with a new card. New card gets you airdrop and handoff functionality

[@EnervatedSociety]

@@MacSoundSolutions I'm not concerned about Bluetooth, I never actually use it, so long as I can get on the internet (I'm wired in) and run my software and RME hardware I'm all good. So it looks like I'm good to go then. Just got to set aside the time. Thanks once again good sir.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

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[@steveblanchard7293]

Yawn. For those upgrading with Time Machine, it is even simpler, once the new mac is set up plug in time machine, you get asked do you want to use this time machine as backup, click yes, you are then asked if the previous time machine can be adopted, you click yes, then that is it.

[@MacSoundSolutions]

Ah no, Time Machine is not an upgrade? You don’t plug-in your Time Machine you plug in your dedicated hard drive and yes basic setup is easy. This video dives deep into Time Machine and how to back up multiple drives etc and restoring your data from your backups.