External drives · Upgrading, transferring and backing up the drive

How do I back up my fast drive to another drive?

Short answer: Open More → Drive → Backup Drive…, pick a second APFS or Mac OS Extended drive with enough room, and start. It copies and verifies everything while your current drive stays active, then offers Reveal Backup in Finder.

Use Backup Drive… in the popover's More → Drive section.

  1. Plug in a second external drive (APFS or Mac OS Extended, with room for everything on your fast drive).
  2. Open Backup Drive… and pick it — Storage Studio checks it and runs a quick speed test.
  3. Start the copy. You can close the window or quit the app; it keeps going and resumes if a drive is briefly unplugged or the Mac sleeps.
  4. When it finishes, click Reveal Backup in Finder.

It's a point-in-time copy, so run it again when you want a fresh one. For ongoing versioned backups of particular folders, see Data Backup.

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