Best way to transfer time machine back up files between external drives

I have to move my time machine backup files from one external drive to another.  I was planning to simply move it through finder, but it has been "preparing files" for 2 days straight.  The number of items sowing in the status bar with the status of "preparing to copy XYZ items" has continued to stadily grow.  Is there a better route or should I let it run till it is complete? 

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
That's exactly the way to transfer Time Machine backups to an external drive, so let the Finder do its job. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
Note that the destination's external drive must be formatted in "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

Similar Messages

  • How to transfer time machine back up to new hard drive

    How to transfer time machine back up to new hard drive?

    You may like to take a look at this thread... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4207670?start=0&tstart=0

  • I am trying to move previous Time Machine back ups off an external drive to my new Time Capsule. How do I do that?

    I have my previous time machine back ups on an external drive and I want to move those to my new 2tb Time Capsule. How can I make this happen?

    You probably cannot do it..
    The backup is very different from a local drive to a network drive.
    Look through the Pondini KB.
    http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    You can move the backup from a local to another local disk or network to another network.. but there are issues even doing that.
    IMHO.. don't... just start a new backup and keep what you already have saved up.. if you don't need it in 6months time.. or a year.. then you can wipe it.

  • HT201250 Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button.  No drive is found. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past.  I'm on the latest version of Snow Leopard.  Thank you!

    Time Machine cannot find my external back-up drive when I click on the "select disk" button.  No drive is listed. I have run a Time Machine back-up to this external drive in the past.    Any suggestions

    Does the disk appear in Disk Utility?

  • Time machine back up to shared external drive

    We have 4 computers running leopard, all on an airport wireless network. If I have an external hard drive attached to the airport extreme base, non of the computers know that it exists. If I attach it only to one computer directly, via USB, then the others can't seem to access it, although it will run time machine backups for that computer, only. I want to be able to back up all of the computers to one external drive, and share information between them (like transferring photos.) Does an external drive have to be dedicated to one computer only, and directly plugged in, to run time machine?

    I have been bitterly disappointed on upgrading to Leopard and have spent the last 10 days installing and reinstalling. I am unable to use Boot camp or Parallels with windows but have corrected most things by erasing and doing new install, then finding all my applications and documents and copying them directly from Time machine. The new problem is that my Toshiba USB external hard backup drive is now locked and I saw a report of time machine doing this. I have hunted high and low and can't find any info on this. I have tried to reset permissions but the drive is seen as read only. I cannot change this even from the Leopard install disk and I cannot write to the disc, can you advise how to change the permissions. I have been able to reset from Standard user to Admin by completely erasing and reinstalling but this does not change the access to my external hard drive, can you help please?

  • Deleting Time Machine Back-up Files - HELP!

    I tried to delete a time machine back-up file from my external drive (to clear space), I dragged it into the trash ... when I tried to empty trash it looked like there were 1000s of files being deleted. That scared me so I stopped the trash from emptying. Now I can't get the file out of the trash. I try to drag it out and it just copies. So two questions: 1) how do I get this file out of the trash? 2) how do I delete all of these back-up files - well, I don't need to delete all of them but there are so many? Do I really need all of these time machine back-ups? If I do delete them - what am I actually deleting? Are they just copies of my harddrive or is it a problem to delete them (when I look in the file that is in my trash it seems like it is my whole system ...). Sorry for all of the questions but I am in a bit of a panic. Also, I did try to delete the files by going into time machine, clicking on the gear icon, selecting a file and clicking on delete, nothing happened. Any thoughts, suggestions, advice most welcome!

    wcaroliner wrote:
    So two questions: 1) how do I get this file out of the trash?
    See #E6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    2) how do I delete all of these back-up files - well, I don't need to delete all of them but there are so many? Do I really need all of these time machine back-ups? If I do delete them - what am I actually deleting? Are they just copies of my harddrive or is it a problem to delete them (when I look in the file that is in my trash it seems like it is my whole system
    You shouldn't have to delete old backups. Time Machine will do that automatically when it needs space for new ones, unless you have the +Warn when old backups are deleted+ box checked in +Time Machine Preferences > Options.+ Just remove the check.
    If you have other data on your Time Machine drive, in the same partition, that's not a good idea. It needs to be moved elsewhere, so Time Machine has it's own, exclusive space. See #3 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    The backups have a complex and somewhat unusual structure; there's a bit of "smoke and mirrors" going on there, where it appears that every backup is a full copy of your system, and it is, in a way, but isn't in another. Seems contradictory, I know. See [How Time Machine works its Magic|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Works.html] for an explanation.
    I did try to delete the files by going into time machine, clicking on the gear icon, selecting a file and clicking on delete, nothing happened.
    You should have gotten a confirmation prompt, then one for your Admin password. If you didn't, the backups may be damaged/corrupted. Repair them, per #A5 in Troubleshooting.

  • I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

    I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

    I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
    You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots.  Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
    See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
    You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.  
    The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library.  Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

  • HT204057 Time machine back up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme.

    Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme?  It worked very well.

    Why did Apple stop supporting time machine back-up via USB hard drive connected to Airport Extreme?
    Time Machine backups are supported via USB hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme"ac" version.
    Time Machine backups were not supported via USB hard drive connected to earlier versions of the AirPort Extreme.
    Some users who tried this on earlier version AirPort Extremes seemed to have some success with Time Machine backups....some had moderate success and some had no success with this. Count me in the "no success" category.
    See the topic about Time Machine support for USB disks in this Apple Support document:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

  • If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer?  also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard

    If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer?  Also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard 10.6.8?

    No and Yes
    Don't use TM for this purpose, clone your drive to an external, plug the external into another MBP and reboot from it. Please note that booting a machine that came with Lion may not be possible from a drive with Snow Leopard.

  • HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost.  I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

    tgs6164 wrote:
    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
    Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
    Start burning all the photos onto DVDs. 
    At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

  • Can Time Machine back up a failed hard drive, and how long will it take to prepare?

    1. The hard drive in my 2009 MBP has failed. My Time Machine external drive failed about three weeks ago, and I don't know if I'll be able to restore from it. Is it ever possible to backup a failed hard drive with Time Machine? The machine boots, it just comes up beach balls if I use any applications for very long.
    2. I'm trying to back it up right now. I have Time Machine running to a new external drive. It has been stuck on "preparing backup" for about 20 minutes. Everyone says that preparing a first backup takes some time, but no one says if "some time" is 15 minutes or one hour or more. What is a typical length of time for preparing first backup? At what point should I walk away?
    If it's not worth trying to back this drive up myself anymore, I'd love to just drop the thing off and get the hard drive replaced -- but if it's worth doing, I'll take the extra day to back up what I can.

    You might have better luck using a clone.
    Clone  - Carbon Copy Cloner          (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
    Clone – Data Backup
    Clone – Deja Vu
    Clone  - SuperDuper
    Clone - Synk
    Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
    Commonly Used Backup Methods

  • Problem Emptying Trash filled with Time Machine Back Up Files

    I have needed to create more space on an external hard drive that I use for TIme Machine back up of my hard  drive.  I took some of the Time Machine back ups [2011 and 2012] and dumped them into my trash.  I have gone into my Preferences and removed the check mark beside the "empty trash securely" so that I can get rid of the folders faster.  I have a Mac X snow leopard operating system 10.6.8.
    However, it takes about 1o hours to have the trash "preparing to empty trash" identify about 175,000 files.  I don't know how many I have in their but it has got to be over a million.
    What can I do to get rid of all of these files from my Time Machine back up?  I don't want to wait five or six days before the trash starts to empty. Appreciate any help you can give.  Thanks.

    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/trash.html

  • How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?

    How do I tell Time Machine to add a new external drive to be backed up?  I have an external drive with data I need to add to my overall back up with what's on my mac.  I have a separate drive already active as the Time Machine backup disk.  I can see how to EXCLUDE disks, but how do I ADD that new external drive to regular backups?
    I have 10.8.5 system on my Mac laptop.

    Remove the drive from the list of items set to be excluded. It needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for this to be possible.
    (110504)

  • HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

    How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

    You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
    If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

  • Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?

    Can Time Machine back up a second external hard drive that is attached via usb to a Time Capsule?
    I have a iMac with 10.7.4

    I want to back up the data on the external Hard Drive that is attached to the Time Capsule to the Tim Capsule using Time Machine.
    Thanks for the clarification.  Unfortunately, that will not work.  You will need to connect the drive directly to your Mac if you want Time Machine to backup the drive to the Time Capsule.

Maybe you are looking for

  • Need to recover old playlists, old iTunes library will not open because it was created by a newer version?

    I have a Mac mini, have installed iTunes on it and want to find some old playlists that were lost.  I have several 'iTunes Libraries' with different dates but I cannot open any of them becauseit says they were created with a newer version of iTunes. 

  • Report on # of contacts on an opportunity

    Hi guys, I have requirement on one of my projects . It needs me to build a report on no. of contacts that are added to and activity . When I pull up a report on Activity History and have the Activity ID , Contact Id columns together , the report only

  • EA6900 - Hangs every 2 days

    I have an EA6900 wireless router working in bridge mode as a simple wifi access point to my network. The problem is that the device gets hanged every 2 days (no access from wireless, nor from cable, manual restart helps). Does anyone have any idea ho

  • Cannot revert to old version of a process

    Hi experts, we tried to change a process and this changes lead to problems when we started the process. The changes were huge (we created a process, in which we sub-referenced the old process and a new one). Now we reverted the changes in the NWDS, r

  • Control File-Changing

    Hi All, I have a ctl file like given below. load data into table IN_ONHAND_SUP_STG_DTL append FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"' TRAILING NULLCOLS IN_ITEM "LTRIM(:IN_ITEM,'0')" , SAP_PLANT , AVAIL_DATE NULLIF (AVAIL_DATE='00000000')