Re: Transfer USB Time Machine Backup Drive to a New Mac

On Wed, 29 May 2024 18:41:19 -0400, Colour Sergeant Bourne
<bourne@rorke.za> wrote:

On 5/29/24 5:28 PM, Jolly Roger wrote:

On 2024-05-29, Colour Sergeant Bourne <bourne@rorke.za> wrote:

For several months, I’ve been backing up Mac “A” to an external USB Time
Machine drive.
>
I’m going to sell Mac A and replace it with Mac B.
>
Is there a way to use Mac A’s external USB Time Machine drive to now
backup Mac B AND KEEP the existing Mac A backups on the USB drive?

 
Before you start up your new Mac for the first time, connect the backup
drive to it.  When the setup assistant asks if you want to transfer your
data, choose the backup drive.
 
After the new Mac is up and running, go into System Settings > General >
Time Machine and tell it to start backing up to the backup drive. It
will create a new backup on the drive for the new Mac.
 
After some time goes by, when you feel confident that you no longer need
the old Mac's backup files, you can delete them to recover space on the
drive for newer backups.
 

Thanks. I want to keep the "A" Mac backups so I wouldn't delete them later.
>
As I mentioned above to PG, there's not enough space left on the
existing Time Machine drive so I'll need to start a new one...

 Buy a far larger drive.

 Copy the old drive's data to the new, big one.

 There should now be space enough.
 
                                                          J.