Yes if you get a hard disk and plug it in, you should get a prompt from Time Machine asking you if you want to make this your back up disk.
You do want to check which format is best for a disk that is being used for TimeMachine. You might want to erase the disk and reformat it as A P F S I am not sure about this off hand. At one point A P F S was only recommended for SSD but I believe traditional disks can also work with A P F S. The primary advantage of A P F S is that it has snapshots. A snapshot is a way to preserve the current state of a disk at a specific time. I’m not sure if Time Machine takes advantage of this for pruning hourly changes, and if so if it only works with SSD’s. I have heard a few articles recently saying a traditional disk is better for backups, since it is less likely to have a catastrophic failure where everything is lost. Jonathan > On Aug 9, 2025, at 9:50 AM, Phil Halton <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello Jonathan and thanks for the reply. At a very minimum, and that’s all > the time I wanted to devote to this, I suppose I could just hang a disc drive > of some sort directly off the MacBook Pro, assigned it as the data device in > Time Machine and then call it quits. Is that correct? Again I don’t wanna get > fancy and I don’t even wanna give this more than five minutes of my day. I > suppose I’ll have to address the router at some point as well, and I don’t > understand what’s going on with the newer routers as far as Service message > block support. Could you elaborate again keeping in mind my absolute minimal > need and desire to work with this. Going for the simplest option that is. > Sent from my IPhone > > >> On Aug 7, 2025, at 10:40 PM, 'Sabahattin Gucukoglu' via MacVisionaries >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> And, of course, macOS itself contains a Time Machine-compatible SMB server. >> So if you have an always-on Mac on your network that has enough storage >> internally or externally connected, you can expose it to other clients that >> need to back up just like Time Capsule did. >> >> You may continue to use your Time Capsule as a router, and as a big fan of >> them while they were at their prime, I'm not about to condemn you for it. >> But, really, why bother? Many routers nowadays come with sufficient SMB >> support. And even for sub-100 megabit connections, you can not only pee >> faster than Time Capsule, you can probably upload to a cloud storage server >> faster as well. Time Capsule was for a time, and I wish Apple had continued >> the line, but you really can do much better now. >> >> Cheers, >> Sabahattin >> >> -- >> The following information is important for all members of the Mac >> Visionaries list. >> >> If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if >> you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or >> moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. >> >> Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor. You can reach mark at: >> [email protected] and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at >> [email protected] >> >> The archives for this list can be searched at: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/macvisionaries/E67400CB-E96D-4FC0-BF59-E10E51DA3903%40me.com. >> hello Jonathan and thanks for the reply. > There was a time in my life when I cared about this stuff and actually made > my living working with it, but no more. I don’t even wanna give this issue > five minutes of my time, but it looks like I’m gonna have to do something. > so, I guess at a very minimum I just need to hang a disc drive off my MacBook > Pro and assign it as the time capsule device. Is that correct? And, our new > routers equipped with data storage? You said Service message block Support I > really don’t know what that involves. Again if I could I just like to stick a > thumb drive card into my Mac and use that but I don’t think it’s gonna be > that easy is it? > > -- > The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries > list. > > If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if > you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or > moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. > > Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor. You can reach mark at: > [email protected] and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at > [email protected] > > The archives for this list can be searched at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/macvisionaries/3A3C779F-6ACF-4165-A9AA-7D7A98BEDB86%40gmail.com. -- The following information is important for all members of the Mac Visionaries list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your Mac Visionaries list moderator is Mark Taylor. You can reach mark at: [email protected] and your owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/macvisionaries/E278886C-AF61-45F0-99A0-1A543ED81533%40gmail.com.
