Apple is increasing its support for APFS on its computing platforms, bringing the ability to use Time Machine with an APFS-formatted disk to macOS Big Sur, while enabling the ability to view external drives using encrypted APFS in iOS and iPadOS 14.
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- Restore From Time Machine Mac
Introduced in 2016, APFS is Apple's forward-thinking file system that it uses across practically its entire device ecosystem. With the introduction of macOS Big Sur, iOS 14, and iPadOS 14, Apple will be making it even more useful for users, by adding support for APFS in a few new areas.
Even though Mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for Windows, if you intend on using your external HDD as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your Mac's Time Machine, you must format it to be entirely Mac compatible. Time Machine was designed to work with external hard drives and not cloud based systems. I suggest you try using a clone backup instead of Time Machine. Clone backups can be configured to run automatically. Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others) Clone – Data Backup. Clone – Deja Vu. Once Time Machine's first backup to the first drive is complete, disconnect it from your Mac completely. Attach the second drive and repeat the steps above. Switching between Time Machine disks requires virtually no effort on your part, but you don't want to connect both Time Machine disks simultaneously. To back up different Macs using Time Machine, you can: Do it manually. Perhaps the simplest way is to attach the drive to one Mac, let Time Machine run a backup, then disconnect the drive and repeat the steps on another Mac. In each case, Time Machine works behind the scenes to get the job done. The best Time Machine hard drives for Mac. Setting up iCloud storage is a pretty straightforward process. You just choose the amount of data that's right for you and then move your files to the iCloud Drive folder in Finder. Time Machine, on the other hand, is a bit more involved, especially since you have to pick out the right external drive.
On macOS Big Sur, Apple is finally bringing the ability to use an APFS-formatted drive with Time Machine, 9to5Macreports. With macOS Catalina and earlier releases, users were able to back up to an HFS+-formatted disk but not an APFS-formatted version, with macOS offering to reformat the drive to HFS+.
Under Big Sur, users will be able to back up directly to an APFS-formatted drive, eliminating the need to reformat any disks.
For iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Apple has plugged a hole for external drive support for one specific use case: APFS encrypted drives. While it is currently possible to view external drives in a number of common formats from an iPhone or iPad, it only works for non-encrypted drives, with encrypted drives being unreadable by the mobile devices.
On connecting an encrypted APFS drive to iOS 14 or iPadOS 14, the drive will appear on the updated Sidebar, with a selection of the drive bringing up a password prompt to decrypt it.
The added support for encrypted drives will only work for APFS-formatted drives, which may still be a limiting factor for some users in a multi-platform environment.
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To use Time Machine to make a backup of your Mac, you need one of these types of storage devices:
- External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
External drive connected to your Mac
Time Machine can back up to an external drive connected to a USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire port on your Mac. If the disk isn't using the correct format, Time Machine will prompt you to erase it.
Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
Many third-party NAS devices support Time Machine over SMB. For details, check the documentation for your NAS device.
Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
To use another Mac on your network as a Time Machine backup destination, complete these steps on the other Mac:
Best External Drive For Mac Time Machine
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Sharing.
- From the list of services on the left, select File Sharing.
- From the Shared Folders list on the right, click the add button (+), then choose a folder to use for Time Machine backups.
- Control-click the folder that you added, then choose Advanced Options from the shortcuts menu that appears.
- From the Advanced Options dialog, select 'Share as a Time Machine backup destination.'
When setting up Time Machine on your other Mac computers, you should now be able to select the shared folder as a backup disk.
External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
Time Machine can back up to an external USB drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule.
Best External Drive For Mac Time Machine
- Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Sharing.
- From the list of services on the left, select File Sharing.
- From the Shared Folders list on the right, click the add button (+), then choose a folder to use for Time Machine backups.
- Control-click the folder that you added, then choose Advanced Options from the shortcuts menu that appears.
- From the Advanced Options dialog, select 'Share as a Time Machine backup destination.'
When setting up Time Machine on your other Mac computers, you should now be able to select the shared folder as a backup disk.
External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or AirPort Time Capsule
Time Machine can back up to an external USB drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule.
- Connect the drive directly to your Mac, then use Disk Utility to erase it.
- Connect the drive to a USB port on your AirPort base station, then turn it on.
- Open AirPort Utility, then select your base station and click Edit to view its settings.
- Click the Disks tab in the settings window.
- Select your backup disk from the list of partitions, then select 'Enable file sharing':
- If more than one user on your network will back up to this disk with Time Machine, you can use the Secure Shared Disks pop-up menu to make sure that they can view only their own backups, not yours. Choose 'With accounts' from the menu, then click the add button (+) to add users.
- Click Update to restart your base station and apply the settings.
AirPort Time Capsule
Best External Hard Drive For Mac Time Machine
Time Machine can back up to the built-in hard disk of an AirPort Time Capsule on your network.
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Restore From Time Machine Mac
- Time Machine can't back up to a disk formatted for Windows, or to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
