How to transfer Time Machine from one ext. drive to another in Ventura (Cont'd)

PromptCritical wrote:

Does anyone know if Ventura will now let you transfer old Time Machine Files from one drive to another?

I'm running out of space on my old TM Drive and the program will soon start erasing old files to recover space.

Therefore, I want to migrate to a larger drive and continue using TM without losing the historical data.

No you can not transfer. If you want to preserve the old TM then

buy an new drive and start a new backup.

You can submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

If you value your user data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

This is not possible with any macOS tool or third-party drive cloning software with Ventura APFS Time Machine drives. You could do this with the old HFS+ Time Machine drives, but the APFS organization and changes in the Ventura Time Machine data structure now block it.

It's not a security precaution. It is a limitation of the APFS Snapshot architecture used. It cannot be reliably copied or cloned.

A follow-up question however is - if one adds another drive to Time Machine will it create a complete clone of the original TM Drive during its first backup? From what I've read, it isn't clear to me that that'll be the case.

Yes. They do not depend on one-another. Each will be independent. It alternates drives each subsequent backup.

This makes me believe that the data on the previous backups on the first drive were not included.

As I stated, the drives are independent.

You should only assume a Time Machine backup contains a duplicate of what is on your Mac at that moment. It does maintain older files that were deleted from your Mac, but there is no guarantee it does.

It is not an archival backup. If you need an archival backup, use something else in addition to Time Machine.

This is such an annoyance for anyone who wants an enduring history of their dataset.

You misunderstand the design of Time Machine. Find an archival backup solution.

It also creates a situation where one can't create two (or more ideally three) copies of their history for proper failsafe archiving

They will be identical if you start them at the same time, assuming the same size drives are used.

I hope that this issue is addressed in future updates.

I wouldn’t count on it. It’s worked as it does for as long as it has existed.