AnotherBob

Historically, I used a Windows machine; the backup software made a copy of any files changed since the previous backup. I could open the backup drive and see exactly what had been safely backed up.

Now, I'm using a MacBook, and Time Machine. I run both the internal SSD and a variety of external SSDs, and, in particular, a 12 GB Western Digital spinning drive. I'm not sure that my backup is including the external drives. I recently copied a few GB of data from the old Windows Dell to the big spinning external drive. The drives ran most of the night making the copy. The copy went smoothly; I can access all date files from the MacBook. When I ran Time Machine today, it finished in just a few minutes. I can see that it's backing up the internal SSD, but no indication that the external drive is being backed up. Time Machine sees the external drive and lists it on the options page. I fear I'm somehow telling the software to skip backing up the external drives.

Any advice from folks who actually use the well respected Time Machine would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much.

Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room

I never bonded with Time Machine. Intellectually, I like it for what it was designed to do, but the interface never sat well with me. I now use the {free} FreeFileSync (https://freefilesync.org/), which can synchronize folders as well as simply make backups. There are versions for Mac, Windows and Linux, so the interface isn't exactly "Mac-like," but usage is pretty clear and the program is actively supported.

bhapke

Drives listed on the "options" page are EXCLUDED from the Time Machine backup. Select it and hit the "minus" button to remove it from the list and it should be included in the backup. You will need to authenticate to make the change.

AnotherBob

Both drives are listed, in bright yellow, but don’t respond to being “selected,” perhaps because it takes a while for the spinning drives to come up to speed . I’ll take another shot at it
Thanks for your input. /Bob

Shellback Loc: North of Cheyenne Bottoms Wetlands - Kansas

Mac photos are stored in the cloud by default so, unless the changes were made to store locally, they will not show up in Time Machine. Time Machine will back up the photo library file which is stored in the Pictures folder of your home folder. Apple support has articles on how to store photos on external drives and YouTube has videos on how to move photos around.

Grey Ghost

Call Apple support at 800 275 2273. The will be able to competently answer your questions.

AnotherBob

Good point. Thanks for your help. /Bob

moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

"Mac photos are stored in the cloud by default..."

Yes and no. pphotos from your cell phone are, and can be shared on other devices. Photos from your camera can be stored there if you like, but you have to put them there manually.

I use Time machine, but don't backup my "Pictures" folder which is in "users"/"my name"/"pictures" which is where I import all images from my camera, through lightroom.

I back those up manually to a pair of SSDs.

Backups don't take so longwhen you do it regularly, as it only copies new files.

billmck Loc: Central KY

Actually, you don’t have to move photos to iCloud manually. You can select an option to automatically upload from Photos to iCloud just like your iPhone or iPad does. I elected to not do that due to the number of photos I have.

Bill

MJPerini

I have been using Mac's since about 1986, and time machine since whenever it came out.
Time machine and iCloud make it easy to do basic backup for anyone.
There are two ways to approach it:
The first is simply use it and configure it to back up whatever you want it will do internal & External
The second is what I do. Since my Photo library is 10x the size of all other data, I Use Time Machine & iCloud for everything BUT photography. I keep all my pictures on really fast NvMe Thunderbolt drives from OWC .
and I back those up separately (a local backup, and off site backup and a travel backup and a cloud emergency backup)
Time machine is totally automatic and very reliable AND you can have more than one if you like.
My Photo backup regimen is less automatic, but I just make it part of my workflow.
I use a Dock from OWC that allows my external drives to always be connected with just a single cable to my mac.
They make a Thunderbolt Hub and a couple of different all purpose docs, Great products.

Good Luck

moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

I'm pretty sure that's what I said: photos in "Photos" are stored in the cloud, and shared with other devides if you set it up to. Photos from other sources can be sent there. I suppose it can be made the default option, but in my case It would have used up all my iClud storage a long time ago.

Stevewayne23 Loc: Sacramento, CA

I have several external hard drives and have put Time Machine to two of them - one to back up my Mac computer and the other to back up my photos (Lightroom) hard drive. It works well, once you get it set up which is a little confusing to me. I also use Backblaze, which is extremely easy, and also manually back up my photos the old drag and copy method.