Copying a Time Machine Volume

[SandJ]

I recently discovered via DriveDX that my Seagate Ultra Touch which I use for Time Machine backups had command timeout errors that could be due to an oxidized data cable. This sounded worrying so I managed to persuade Seagate to replace the drive, but I have to send them the old drive first.

So I wanted to copy the backups I already have to another external drive (WD) I have of the same size. Various searches indicatated this is a very lengthy process and the best way was to use SuperDuper!. So I downloaded the free version and have repeatedly been trying to copy from one drive to the other but the process completes after a certain amount of time (up to hours) without copying all the files. Latest go copies about 245 gigs when I have about 900 gigs and when I click on the WD drive in finder the window is empty. After a lot of googling I’m wondering if the problem is that my source drive, the Seagate, is formatted as APFS while the new drive is formatted by SuperDuper! as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and possibly it is not possible to copy from an APFS using SuperDuper! (and other apps?) I am using a MacBook Pro 16 inch, 2019, with an 8-Core Intel Core i9 processor and Monterey OS.

Edit: SuperDuper! Have confirmed it is not possible to do this with SuperDuper!, but I'm wondering if anyone has found a way to do it?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello,

Which version of macOS?

Maybe this process will work: How to Move Time Machine to a New Backup Drive

Of course, if your Seagate drive that has the Time Machine backups on it is failing, the copying will fail, which may be what is happening when it goes so far and nothing is copied.

C

 

[SandJ]

Thanks Cory. I haven't tried that method - not after being told by SuperDuper! and in this post that "backup snapshots can’t be copied to another disk" I gave up and just started backing up to another drive. I might look into iDrive too as some have suggested this as a way to avoid failing external hard drives...

 

[TonyAguila]

I recently discovered via DriveDX that my Seagate Ultra Touch which I use for Time Machine backups had command timeout errors that could be due to an oxidized data cable. This sounded worrying so I managed to persuade Seagate to replace the drive, but I have to send them the old drive first.

So I wanted to copy the backups I already have to another external drive (WD) I have of the same size. Various searches indicatated this is a very lengthy process and the best way was to use SuperDuper!. So I downloaded the free version and have repeatedly been trying to copy from one drive to the other but the process completes after a certain amount of time (up to hours) without copying all the files. Latest go copies about 245 gigs when I have about 900 gigs and when I click on the WD drive in finder the window is empty. After a lot of googling I’m wondering if the problem is that my source drive, the Seagate, is formatted as APFS while the new drive is formatted by SuperDuper! as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and possibly it is not possible to copy from an APFS using SuperDuper! (and other apps?) I am using a MacBook Pro 16 inch, 2019, with an 8-Core Intel Core i9 processor and Monterey OS.

Edit: SuperDuper! Have confirmed it is not possible to do this with SuperDuper!, but I'm wondering if anyone has found a way to do it?

Since you already have another drive to “backup” Time Machine, why not start a new Time Machine with that drive. Open the Time Machine preference in System Preferences, click on the padlock to make changes, select “Add or Remove Backup Disk,” select the other disk and either choose to add or replace the ailing drive. With a bit of patience, a new Time Machine backup drive will be created and you can safely remove the first to send back to the manufacturer.

One thing to remember is that the old drive will have data that you might not want to share. If you did not encrypt that drive beforehand, you should erase it with Disk Utility before sending it back to them. If you did encrypt it, then they should not be able to read it, unless the password you used for encryption was really easy to guess.

 

[SandJ]

Since you already have another drive to “backup” Time Machine, why not start a new Time Machine with that drive. Open the Time Machine preference in System Preferences, click on the padlock to make changes, select “Add or Remove Backup Disk,” select the other disk and either choose to add or replace the ailing drive. With a bit of patience, a new Time Machine backup drive will be created and you can safely remove the first to send back to the manufacturer.

One thing to remember is that the old drive will have data that you might not want to share. If you did not encrypt that drive beforehand, you should erase it with Disk Utility before sending it back to them. If you did encrypt it, then they should not be able to read it, unless the password you used for encryption was really easy to guess.

Thanks Tony - I wanted to keep my old backups, I know, it's not really necessary but 'just in case'

 

[TonyAguila]

Thanks Tony - I wanted to keep my old backups, I know, it's not really necessary but 'just in case'

*Sigh* I know the feeling. You don’t have to overwrite your old Time Machine drive. They are getting cheaper by the day. I just bought an 8-TB drive for about $200.

I have a stack of hard drives that were my Time Machine drives from years ago, but I seriously doubt that I will ever read them again. Worse than that, pre-OS X days, I have a fire safe with hundreds of Retrospect tapes. I don’t think the tape drive will ever work again anyway, but…

To my credit, though, Tandem Computers used to be my client and they often asked me to send them copies of original files that they had initially given me to work on. They couldn’t find them. Their raison d'être is that you are never to lose your data ever again through their fault-tolerant systems. LOL!

(I went ahead and revealed my age, did not I?)