I'm trying to use Time Machine to back up my Mac (Ventura 13.5) onto an external SSD ("BackupSSD"). Strangely, most of the backup folders appear to be on the internal hard drive in /Volumes/.timemachine
instead of the external SSD's mountpoint /Volumes/BackupSSD 1
. (I'm not talking about local snapshots, which are correctly in /Volumes/com.apple.TimeMachine.localsnapshots
.) Can anyone explain what's going on? I want to make sure that if my internal drive dies, the external SSD alone can achieve a complete system restore.
When I view files through the Finder or Time Machine's UI, things look fine. The Time Machine menu says backups are going to the external SSD, "BackupSSD", on my Mac, niffler:
And Finder tells me the backups are in the right place:
But when I run tmutil listbackups, the backups appear to be on the internal drive in /Volumes/.timemachine:
% tmutil listbackups
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-122149.backup/2023-08-26-122149.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-135115.backup/2023-08-26-135115.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-153333.backup/2023-08-26-153333.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-165131.backup/2023-08-26-165131.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-175142.backup/2023-08-26-175142.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-185217.backup/2023-08-26-185217.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-195206.backup/2023-08-26-195206.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-205201.backup/2023-08-26-205201.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-215213.backup/2023-08-26-215213.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-225216.backup/2023-08-26-225216.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-26-235219.backup/2023-08-26-235219.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-005241.backup/2023-08-27-005241.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-015245.backup/2023-08-27-015245.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-025314.backup/2023-08-27-025314.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-035324.backup/2023-08-27-035324.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-045328.backup/2023-08-27-045328.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-055341.backup/2023-08-27-055341.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-065345.backup/2023-08-27-065345.backup
/Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/2023-08-27-075346.backup/2023-08-27-075346.backup
If I look inside "/Volumes/BackupSSD 1", I see only a single backup directory:
$ ls -l /Volumes/BackupSSD\ 1
total 24
drwxr-xr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 07:53 2023-08-27-075346.previous/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 9433 Aug 27 07:53 backup_manifest.plist
where I see multiple directories in /Volumes/.timemachine:
$ ls -l /Volumes/.timemachine
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 22 root wheel 704 Aug 27 07:56 060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC/
$ ls -l /Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC
drwxrwxr-x@ 4 root wheel 128 Aug 26 12:21 2023-08-26-122149.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 13:51 2023-08-26-135115.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 15:33 2023-08-26-153333.backup/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 64 Aug 26 15:54 2023-08-26-155223.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 16:51 2023-08-26-165131.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 17:51 2023-08-26-175142.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 18:52 2023-08-26-185217.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 19:52 2023-08-26-195206.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 20:52 2023-08-26-205201.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 21:52 2023-08-26-215213.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 22:52 2023-08-26-225216.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 26 23:52 2023-08-26-235219.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 00:52 2023-08-27-005241.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 01:52 2023-08-27-015245.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 02:53 2023-08-27-025314.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 03:53 2023-08-27-035324.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 04:53 2023-08-27-045328.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 05:53 2023-08-27-055341.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 06:53 2023-08-27-065345.backup/
drwxrwxr-x@ 5 root wheel 160 Aug 27 07:53 2023-08-27-075346.backup/
Finally, if I cd into any backup directory /Volumes/.timemachine/*
and run df, it's clear that it's on my internal hard drive, /System/Volumes/Data
(see the rightmost column of output):
$ cd /Volumes/.timemachine/060F4496-481F-4D98-8AB7-5CD03FEB24EC
$ df .
Filesystem 512-blocks Used Available Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk3s5 15622171200 6841327280 8749769336 44% 2733912 43748846680 0% /System/Volumes/Data
And here's some other info:
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *8.0 TB disk0
1: Apple_APFS_ISC Container disk1 524.3 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk3 8.0 TB disk0s2
3: Apple_APFS_Recovery Container disk2 5.4 GB disk0s3
/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +8.0 TB disk3
Physical Store disk0s2
1: APFS Volume niffler 9.2 GB disk3s1
2: APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 9.2 GB disk3s1s1
3: APFS Volume Preboot 5.1 GB disk3s2
4: APFS Volume Recovery 801.8 MB disk3s3
5: APFS Volume Data 3.5 TB disk3s5
6: APFS Volume VM 20.5 KB disk3s6
/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *8.0 TB disk4
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk4s1
2: Apple_APFS Container disk5 8.0 TB disk4s2
/dev/disk5 (synthesized):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: APFS Container Scheme - +8.0 TB disk5
Physical Store disk4s2
1: APFS Volume BackupSSD 2.4 TB disk5s1
$ diskutil info disk3 | grep -i "size\|location\|removable\|mounted"
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
Disk Size: 8.0 TB (7998551654400 Bytes) (exactly 15622171200 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes
Device Location: Internal
Removable Media: Fixed
So the question is: where are my backups, really? If my Mac's internal drive dies, does the SSD really have everything it needs to do a full restore?
Thank you very much.