Time Machine offers a powerful uninterrupted archiving tool for files on your Mac . By pattern , Apple maintain it round-eyed : it let you select just a single lot of volume ( and excluded volumes , folders , and files ) on your Mac for allTime Machinebackups , Time Machine can back up automatically only in one of three intervals ( hourly , daily , or each week ) , and whenever Time Machine volume are plugged in , macOS rotates among them across the specified interval . ( For case , if you have Time Machine Volume A and Volume B and are set to hourly backups , macOS backs up to Volume A at 3 p.m. , Volume B at 4 p.m. , Volume A at 5 p.m. , and so on . )
However , you could gain some controller by mounting and unmounting loudness . For instance , say you have a 1 TB inner drive and a 4 TB external drive . You only ride the external drive from clock time to fourth dimension . For computer backup , you have a 1 TB SSD and a 6 TB hard disk drive ( HDD ) . You ca n’t back up 5 GB to a 1 TB private road .
The solution involves a slight dance whenever you need to back up the 4 TB drive .
To start with , set up your Time Machine backup to admit both your national movement and your 4 TB external exposure / data drive and eject the 4 TB drive . You ’ll have to make certain Time Machine is n’t in the midriff of a backup , and you may have to invalid Time Machine momentarily to boot out it without erroneous belief . In Monterey or earlier , go toSystem Preferences > Time Machine ; in Ventura or later , go toSystem preferences > General > Time Machine .
Now , rent normal Time Machine musical accompaniment occur on your 1 TB Time Machine drive . Whenever you want to back up the 4 TB driving , instead of simply plug it in , first eject the 1 TB Time Machine volume .
Then get on the 4 TB data point drive and the 6 TB Time Machine volume . Time Machine will back upboththe internal volume and the 4 TB data drive to the 6 TB Time Machine volume . When the backup man is accomplished , you’re able to unmount the 6 TB Time Machine volume .
give the scenario , you could also contribute a third - party utility : have Time Machine only back up your 1 TB intragroup drive and useCarbon Copy Cloneror Econ Technologies’ChronoSyncto manage archiving or cloning the 4 TB drive to an outside book of the same or larger size .
This Mac 911 article is in reply to a head submitted by Macworld lector Mark .
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We also discussHow to grapple multiple Time Machine backupsandhow to restitute file from a Time Machine backup .
