Apple's Time Machine feature in OS X is a convenient way to maintain a fully recoverable backup of your system. But sometimes you might wish to upgrade your Time Machine drive, either because you.
- Mac Time Machine Drive
- Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Disk
- Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Backup
- You first have to decide which SSD you want in your Mac. While all SSDs from the big.
- Critical reminder: Do not format a Time Machine volume of any kind (SSD or hard drive) using APFS. Time Machine requires HFS+. Time Machine requires HFS+.
You can use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up all your files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents and system files. When you have a backup, you can restore files from your backup if the original files are ever deleted from your Mac or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced.
Create a Time Machine backup
To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.
Connect an external storage device
Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately. Learn more about backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.
- External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire drive
- External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule
- AirPort Time Capsule
- Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
- Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
Select your storage device as the backup disk
When you connect an external drive directly to your Mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine. Select Encrypt Backup Disk (recommended), then click Use as Backup Disk.
An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. Learn more about keeping your backup disk secure.
If Time Machine doesn't ask to use your drive, follow these steps to add it manually:
- Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
- Click Select Backup Disk (or Select Disk, or Add or Remove Backup Disk):
- Select your external drive from the list of available disks. Then select 'Encrypt backups' (recommended) and click Use Disk:
If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.
Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups
After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.
To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.
Find out more
- If you back up to multiple disks, you can switch disks before entering Time Machine. Press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
- To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the Add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the Remove (–) button.
- If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.
- In OS X Lion v10.7.3 or later, you can start up from your Time Machine disk, if necessary. Press and hold Option as your Mac starts up. When you see the Startup Manager screen, choose 'EFI Boot' as the startup disk.
Mac Time Machine Drive
Hello Moeller1983 and welcome to Apple Support Communities.
I see you have a question about hard drive activity (specifically with the drive spinning) when Time Machine does not appear to be running.
Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Disk
Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Backup
Find out more
- If you back up to multiple disks, you can switch disks before entering Time Machine. Press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
- To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the Add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the Remove (–) button.
- If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.
- In OS X Lion v10.7.3 or later, you can start up from your Time Machine disk, if necessary. Press and hold Option as your Mac starts up. When you see the Startup Manager screen, choose 'EFI Boot' as the startup disk.
Mac Time Machine Drive
Hello Moeller1983 and welcome to Apple Support Communities.
I see you have a question about hard drive activity (specifically with the drive spinning) when Time Machine does not appear to be running.
Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Disk
Mac Upgrade Hard Drive Time Machine Backup
It's important to keep in mind that there are Time Machine tasks that are not specifically backing up. This would include things such as identifying older backups which can be deleted if the drive is starting to get low on space.
If you want to get a snapshot of all the processes underway at any time on your Mac, you can get that via the Console app.
Cheers.
Apr 25, 2020 8:54 AM
