two time machine backups on the same disk/NAS

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two time machine backups on the same disk/NAS

I have recently bought a new mac Studio to replace my old Mac Pro (2013). Time machine has been managed for more than 10 years on a NAS. The data managed by Time machine was related only to private data, no programs or apps, just personal data.

Once received the new Mac Studio and installed all the software, i connected the same NAS and i did a first backup using time machine. Now on the NAS i have a backup from the old Mac Pro and the new Mac Studio.

How can i choose to replace file from the old backup? There is a way to mount on the desktop the old backup or to use is it (once needed) in Time Machine? By default time machine uses only the Mac Studio while i need, form time to time, to use the Mac Pro backup

Thanks

Mac Studio, macOS 15.3

Posted on Feb 7, 2025 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

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Tesserax

Level 10

157,896 points

Feb 7, 2025 12:58 PM in response to oesse

oesse wrote:

...Time machine has been managed for more than 10 years on a NAS. The data managed by Time machine was related only to private data, no programs or apps, just personal data.

Hmm, not sure how you managed to only include "personal" data in those Time Machine (TM) backups, without going through extensive trouble identifying each item to list in the exclusion list.

Once received the new Mac Studio and installed all the software, i connected the same NAS and i did a first backup using time machine. Now on the NAS i have a backup from the old Mac Pro and the new Mac Studio.

Is it safe to assume that you did not you use either Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant on your Mac Studio to migrate your data from your Mac Pro's Time Machine (TM) backup that was on this NAS? That instead, you just did the initial setup on the Studio, then ran a new TM backup to the same NAS ... but now want to access files from the Mac Pro's backup?

If so files on a disk with Time Machine backups from one Mac cannot be accessed by another Mac using the Time Machine application. However, data can be accessed and transferred using one of these three options:

Migration Assistant on the new Mac.
By inheriting another devices' Time Machine backups.
Use the new Mac to access the backups of the older Mac by drilling down the TM's backup drive's Backups.backupdb folder using Finder from the new Mac.

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