It is important to format the new Time Machine disk correctly first (to MacOS Extended (Journaled) because Finder will not warn you of a wrong format you will only find out it does not work when you try to activate it in Time Machine. It is annoying that it has a long 'preparation' step with no progress indication, after which user interaction is required and it does not confirm when copy is complete (it just closes the window), but it does show progress when actually copying. I read many blogs and reviews that say Finder is not a good method but after trying several alternatives, including Disk Utility, I have to agree that Finder is the best free solution for copying Time Machine disks. I recently moved a 2Tb backup to a 4Tb disk and find it surprising that Apple does not have really have a satisfactory solution. Thanks for the ideas and suggestions.īest Way to Clone a Time Machine Drive I am re-opening the discussion at Moving Time Machine backup to new drive - Apple Community 2 internal 850 Samsung SSD drives and the external HD for backups. I have iMac mid 2012 with Mojave, 16 Gb RAM. Which do you recommend? can they do the say work as TM? Well, actually TM is not working as a stable platform. I am reading the forums but cannot find if i can have the very same level of trust in those apps than Time Machine. I am thinking of changing to Super Duper! or Carbon Copy Cloner instead of Time Machine. In fact TM is the only app which gives me trouble from time to time. So, i got a bit tired of fixing bugs in a Mac environment which usually run as smooth as silk. I end up formatting the Time Machine drive as new and start all over again (16 hours for 1,3 Tb which is a bit slow) but one day i have a backup, the next day for no reason i don't. I did many of the steps recommended online as deleting the 'inprocess' file, checked drive health, etc.

The backup start but stopped for no reason and does not finished. Recently Time Machine has given me many problems.

Super duper clone mac