Partitioning an external HDD for Monterey and Sequoia Time Machine backups

gadgetdad1 wrote:

Can I partition an external HDD to keep Monterey TimeMachine backups and newly installed Sequoia TimeMachine backups.

Are you running two different versions of macOS on this computer? If not, then why the separate backups?

I never recommend using multiple partitions for any drives. People usually discover much later that one or both partitions are too small.

With the APFS file system, you can instead create a new APFS volume which acts a lot like a partition, but doesn't require you to make any size restrictions for the APFS volumes (to use Quotas is tricky when it is for a TM backup volume). See this Apple article for details:

Add, delete, or erase APFS volumes in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Once I partition the new 14TB HDD, how do/can I move my Monterey Time Machine backups to the new partition?

No. You cannot modify any existing TM backup or you risk corrupting the TM backup. Leave the TM backup where it is if that backup is important to you.

gadgetdad1 wrote:

Thank you for the info. My TM was created while running Monterey and have yet to choose a drive for my new TM backups. The TimeMachine backup drive is about 8 years old and the twin Media HDD (8 years old) died recently and am afraid my TM HDD may die at any time.

There are several files on the backups that I need to save. Can I copy selected files from there to a fresh SSD to use later if needed? Any suggestions besides my "solution?" Thank you in advance for your help.

Just use the Time Machine app interface to access the files you want to recover from the TM backup. You can place the retrieved files wherever you wish.

Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support