Issues copying Time Machine folders and iPhotos to External Hard drives.

Please can you brilliant people help a therapist whose patience is being tested by unique workings of the TM app! How best to unravel a complicated tangle of copying without buying more Ext HDS! I only know some basic IT things & have got in a muddle with Time Machine back ups. Hrs spent asking google! I’ve a 2016 imac using Monterey 10.14.6. + 1.1 T storage free ( 9 G in trash). Yes - old apps, don’t want to change it, as costly - despite Epson printer only works for scans! Yes ideally a photo lover needs 3 Ext HDs, changed after a few yrs. I got an HD on Cyber Monday, it wouldn’t format for mac & Gear Tech won’t refund me. AVOID! Tried reducing storage on mac with duplicates app - takes ages for the final checks of photos & videos. 

Already put iphotos and TM on same 4T ext Hardrive My Passport, before I found out these apps clash. Since 9.24 iphotos no longer uploads from  iCloud (just as I wanted to make a photobk for my old Dad). It often freezes & have to reboot imac - even if I simply leave HD connected. 

So on Western Digital’s advice I bought a new 5T ext HD for TM. My passport ultra for mac. That had issues as the USB cable didn’t work! I wanted to keep Iphotos where it is as it took 3 wks to copy from icloud a yr ago. It was so static that I almost gave up on & makes using the mac harder!

I want all TM files on one Ext HD (6 time dates as deleted several  & I use a manual copy about once a yr as not much activity). I went ahead and changed the new ext HD as the selected HD for TM. Didnt partition it. I checked it would work in its Mac OS (journaled)format after read conflicting online info. Didn't change to APFS as Western digital said ready to use. Worked! 

Perhaps that was a bad idea tho as I then wanted to move the 6 older TM back up files from older to the newer HD. It prepared the files to copy then crashed before any were actually copied. Not enough room on imac to copy even old desktop folder.

Then read one should use APFS. Deleted that recent TM and reformatted to that. 5T free again. 

But I then tried to drag and drop TM from old to new HD. Computer said No-maybe it didn’t like being in different formats. SO back to the older format-despite finding Monterey iMac uses APFS -but too late to change the old HD to that.

SO tried copying TM folder to new empty HD. All night until a ghost image of the whole TM at the correct size of about 3 GB. It noted that 5 secs were left for so long that I rebooted the whole mac. Then folder was deep blue with only half TM back ups + they took up the whole 5GB. I couldn’t see anything in the trash & rebooted again. No change. 

I regretfully went ahead & deleted the 2 actual copied TM folders (assuming they would be in the trash which they are not). I cannot recover them (and a quick online search doesn’t give me hope of doing it easily or for free). Guessing that I have somehow got some actual copies not the so called Hard links of a TM (alias). 

What are best options pls? Waste space and money, buy 2 new HDS, format APFS, copy iPhotos off iCloud again to one (or maybe off the old HD if it worked and was easier??), use 1 for new TMs and then delete iPhotos off old HD so had old TMs on both HDs ! 

Selected new HD in TM incase it sorts out folders but can’t see how.

It seems I've caused issues with TM folders & wish Id known it was perhaps better to use the new HD for iPhotos (if any copying worked!) & simply gone back to using the old one as the TM selected HD (after deleting all old TM folders). I cannot do this now because I now have half the TM folders in one & half in the other HD & any drop & drop seems to increase storage use!

?s:

Should iphotos start working properly if delete all TM folders off old HD? 

Copy Iphotos from icloud or HD?

Can I keep some other (non TM) files /folders on the same HD as iPhotos - or does it need its own HD?

My back ups are probably mainly photos off iPhone, word docs, text edits, emails & rarely an app. So should I forget all but the oldest TM back up and just copy certain folders instead - and if so what format + where would I save those!

Is there any easy reversing of my deleted TM folders back on the old HD so that I can simply continue using that 1 for TM in future & dump iPhotos from it!

Or is there a way of getting TM to read the folders on the new HD & thereby free up space on the new HD? Then to drag/drop  other TM folders from old HD onto new HD & yet again free up space. Or maybe a way to get the TM on my iMac to sort them all out on the 2 HDs! 

THANK YOU