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

On 2024-05-29, 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...

That's fine as well. You can still use the backup drive to transfer all
of your data, and I highly recommend it - especially if you've never
experienced it. The ability to have everything that matters on your new
Mac so you can literally pick up right where you left off on the old one
is somewhat magical.

Since you are going to start backing up the new Mac to a new drive, you
can just store the old backup drive somewhere safe in case you need
something from it in the future.

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JR