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My Time Machine external drive failed and I have its replacement which I will reformat. I assume I will then have to identify the drive as the destination for Time Machine. I would prefer to not have to wait the couple of days while runs as I have 3-4TB of data on my Studio hard drive but that is probably what I have to do. Any advice and is there something else I should do? Sonoma.
Mac Studio, macOS 14.7
Remove the old Time Machine external backup drive from the list and then connect and add the new external drive.
see > Connect a new backup disk to your Mac - Apple Support
To help shorten the initial backup time, turn on "Prevent automatic sleep when the display is off" in the Energy settings and allow the Time Machine backup to run over night.
You should start that new backup, which will be a full backup, as soon as you can. Time machine runs during awake but not too busy times. If your Mac sleeps, the backup makes No progress during that time.
There is a way to save a substantial amount of stuff being backed up, that you can no longer use anyway.
Before you begin the backup, on the Time machine exclusions pane, exclude the 'System' Folder. It will likely ask you if you want to "exclude ALL system data", and that is YES. Typically saves over 20 GB.
Is there any way to have the initial backup run overnight?
replace Time Machine drive
