Cannot include second hard drive in Time Machine backup

I have a Mac mini, containing two drives, a 500GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD. The OS is on my SSD. I want the Time Machine backup to include both drives.

When I view my Time Machine options, my secondary HDD is shown as grayed out in the "Exclude these items from backups" section, and I am unable to delete it. Therefore, my backups do not include my secondary HDD.

How can I fix this?

What are you using for your Time Machine Drive?

How can I fix this?

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I don't bother using Time Machine and I thought it only backed up the drive it's installed on and booted from but it seems I'm mistaken if you go here and read:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine-with-two-internal-drives.1138577/

And for more hits, try some of these that should fit your situation and get TM working as you want:
https://www.google.ca/search?client...F-8&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=XvKIWpfzIere8Aetj6nACA




- Patrick
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I think Patrick you mean it will backup the drive you are actually booted from and/or selected drives to another probably external hard drive? TM does this in its settings or automatically with a Fusion Drive.

harryb2448 said:

I think Patrick you mean it will backup the drive you are actually booted from to another probably external hard drive?

Click to expand...

I think that's what I did say harry, and I don't thick TM can even backup onto its own booted volume if that's what you were implying. If it can, then it's even dumber than I thought it is.

BTW: What the OP is wanting to do is easily done with Carbon Copy Cloner and probably SuperDuper! apps amongst some others.




- Patrick
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Ag reed I for none NEVER use TM! SuperDuper with Smart Backup on three externals is my go!

@JohnCL

Hey John... good to see you again. Long time since you last visited.

Charlie

harryb2448 said:

Ag reed I for none NEVER use TM! SuperDuper with Smart Backup on three externals is my go!

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Smart move and decision harry, and also saves you having to witness when Time Machine doesn't work or kills or corrupts the backup it was supposed to be making and keeping.

But I hear it can sometimes work properly for some, but I sure wouldn't use it for important critical stuff.
And definitely not for backing up multiple internal drives. Personal preference and experiences I've seen on other's systems!!!




- Patrick
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Patrick,

thanks for the suggestions. I followed the second one, and it referred me to check the formatting of my 2nd. HDD. For some reason, it was MSDos FAT. So, as soon as I reformatted properly, all is well.

Thanks so much.

Good catch. Time Machine will only backup drives that are formatted to HFS+ and now also APFS. And please don't believe all the blah talk about how Time Machine doesn't work, etc. Time Machine is a good backup program and does work well. Learning how to use it is important especially how to restore from it. It's an excellent program to use for data migration and can also be used to boot from to reinstall macOS if you have no other bootable backup.

I personally use Time Machine in conjunction with Carbon Copy Cloner. You can never have too many backups.

BeeoHat said:

Patrick,

thanks for the suggestions. I followed the second one, and it referred me to check the formatting of my 2nd. HDD. For some reason, it was MSDos FAT. So, as soon as I reformatted properly, all is well.

Thanks so much.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback and success and amazing isn't it that fixing the basic simple stuff can often fix a problem. ;D

But personally, I'd still advocate using Carbon Copy Cloner or some like SuperDuper!, for backups if the data is critical and important. I've always used CCC but not SD!, and never had problems.




- Patrick
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I personally use Time Machine in conjunction with Carbon Copy Cloner. You can never have too many backups.

Click to expand...

And a very good suggestion and practice if I do say so and agree myself!! ;D




- Patrick
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