Time Machine - Second drive excluded

[MacUse-R]

I´m trying to set up an old external 1TB Hard drive as my Time Machine backup location until I buy a bigger external drive, its formatted Mac OS extended (journaled).

My MacBook Pro 2011 which I want to backup has a 512GB SSD as the primary drive and a 2TB HD as a secondary drive in the optical drive bay.
I noticed that the second 2TB drive is excluded and greyed out, meaning I can't delete it from the exclusion list.

Why is this happening and how can I remove it from the list, since I don't want to exclude it, I want to include that hard drive in the backups.

Can it be because its a 2TB HD while the backup drive is only 1TB? But the 2TB is new and almost empty so it shouldn't be any problem to backup the drive?

Or can it be because the secondary 2TB drive is formatted as exFat? I know the backup drive must be formatted with a certain filesystem but I guess on the drive which is about to be backed up it doesn't matter, or am I wrong?

I know I should have a Time machine backup drive which is at least as big as my MacBook Pro Drives, but right now both MacBook Pro drives are pretty much empty so the backup will not be too big for the moment. I just want to have a backup of this MacBook Pro until I get a bigger TM hard drive.

 

[chscag]

Or can it be because the secondary 2TB drive is formatted as exFat? I know the backup drive must be formatted with a certain filesystem but I guess on the drive which is about to be backed up it doesn't matter, or am I wrong?

Good hunch.... Time Machine only works with HFS+ or the newer APFS. It won't backup your exFAT drive. However, you can use another program that will recognize and be able to backup that drive. Do some googling.

 

[pm-r]

My MacBook Pro 2011 which I want to backup has a 512GB SSD as the primary drive and a 2TB HD as a secondary drive in the optical drive bay.
I noticed that the second 2TB drive is excluded and greyed out, meaning I can't delete it from the exclusion list.

I'm also curious as to what the internal 2TB drive is actually formatted as??? HFS+, Fat???




- Patrick
======

 

[ferrarr]

I'm also curious as to what the internal 2TB drive is actually formatted as??? HFS+, Fat???




- Patrick
======

Patrick, In the top post it specifies the 2TB drive is formatted as exFAT.

 

[pm-r]

Patrick, In the top post it specifies the 2TB drive is formatted as exFAT.

Gheese, and thanks Bob, I really must open my eyes and read things better.




- Patrick
======

 

[chscag]

LOL, Patrick.... Maybe you and this character are related?

 

[MacUse-R]

Good hunch.... Time Machine only works with HFS+ or the newer APFS. It won't backup your exFAT drive. However, you can use another program that will recognize and be able to backup that drive. Do some googling.

Okay so that is the problem then. Thanks.
Actually I have googled earlier about this thing and all that I read online gave me the impression that only the TM backup hard drive (target drive) needs to be HFS+ and that the hard drive which one wants to backup can be formatted with other filesystems.

Okay but then its fortunate that the 2TB drive is almost empty so that I can do a format on the drive.

 

[IWT]

Hi MacUse-R

Actually I have googled earlier about this thing and all that I read online gave me the impression that only the TM backup hard drive (target drive) needs to be HFS+ and that the hard drive which one wants to backup can be formatted with other filesystems.

Whilst it is perfectly correct that you can Format any drive including your 2TB as ExFat and Copy TO it and Read FROM it; you are asking for something different. You are wanting Time Machine to back up this Drive - and TM will not include any Drive that isn't Formatted HFS+ or APFS.

Therein lies the confusion

Ian

 

[MacUse-R]

Okay that clears things up.
Then i need to have it formatted to HFS+
Thanks for the explanation.

 

[IWT]

You are very welcome.

Ian