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Last active January 19, 2020 14:43
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time-machine-migrate.md

How to move Mac Time Machine backup from one disk to another (or two) disk(s) THE RIGHT WAY

(In fact, you can have more than one Time Machine backup disks, MacOS will backup your whole system alternately into them)

!!　DO NOT USE APPLE OFFICIAL APPROACH (DRAG-N-DROP), WHICH COSTS WEEKS TO FINISH WRITING 10x DISKS !!

  1. Open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app).
  2. Check the format of your new backup drive. It needs to be a GUID partition and formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
  3. Temporarily turn Time Machine off.
  4. In Disk Utility select the new backup drive.
  5. From the “Edit” menu item, select “Restore…”.
  6. In the menu that pops up select the original Time Machine drive.
  7. Wait…
  8. Set permissions on your new backup drive. Get Info on the new drive in Finder and make sure “Ignore ownership on this volume” at the bottom of the “Sharing & Permissions” section of the Get Info window is unchecked.
  9. Go into Time Machine and select your new drive to backup to.

PS: Use Disk Util in Recovery Mode if not successful when logged-in. Also, you can't ignore the ownership on a backup drive so step 8 no need.

References:
To move your Time Machine backup to another disk, use Disk Utility
Clone Time Machine volume

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