Using Time Machine, WD My Passport drive and NTFS for Mac

[Phil Tomlinson]

Good morning - Hope you are all well and coping ok in this worrying time.

Has anyone used NTFS for Mac? I recently bought a new hard drive to use with Time Machine. It is a WD "My Passport for Mac". I'm pleased with the speed of backups but dismayed that I can't seem to use this 4TB drive for other storage. The advertising for this little box said that it worked "straight out of the box with Macs". It doesn't.

After a bit of reading and googling I found that installation of NTFS for Mac was recommended. I did this but it didn't add any functionality. I contacted Paragon the company marketing the NTFS app. They told me to uninstall it and download a different version for Big Sur.

I've done this but am nervous of the software. Don't want to compromise existing Apple functions just to store photos, music etc. Any advice welcome.

Phil

[Tony Crooks]

Hi, Phil,

Big Sur requires APFS formatted drives for Time Machine I believe. So best would be to use Disk Utility to reformat the WD drive as APFS and then select it as your Time Machine destination. This is exactly what I have done with our WD drive and I’ve got it portioned so that I can use  the non-Time Machine portion for other purposes, e.g. a Photo App Library destination.

--

Tony Crooks
tcr...@gmail.com
+44 7428 706227

[Philip Tomlinson]

Hello Tony,

Many thanks for the reply. The work you did on your WD drive sounds exactly like what I want to do.

I have never portioned a drive myself. I previously had a WD My Book which had the facility to create what it called “shares” built into it. I will search for instructions how to do this. Would I need to format the drive to APFS first, then portion it into two sectors for storage?

Phil

Sent from my iPad

On 3 Feb 2021, at 10:57, Tony Crooks <tcr...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Tony Crooks]

You can do it all in Disk Utility. First use the Erase function setting format to APFS. Then use the Partition function. Should take a few minutes. Then in the Time Machine preferences the WD drive should show up as a a volume you can use for TM

[Philip Tomlinson]

Thanks Tony.

Sent from my iPad

On 3 Feb 2021, at 11:40, Tony Crooks <tcr...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Stephen Watson]

Time Machine can still use HFS+ formatted disks on Bug Sur, but with Big Sur it can also use APFS and you should definitely go for that because a) It’s a much better filing system in every way over HFS+  and b) It’s noticeably quicker to do a Time Machine backup.

Stephen

You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. ~ Carl Jung

On 3 Feb 2021, at 10:57, Tony Crooks <tcr...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Philip Tomlinson]

Hello again Tony

I’m very pleased to now have a partitioned area of my backup disk which I can use for extra storage as well as a Time Machine sector - Just what I wanted.

However, I still have a query which I’m sure you will be able to answer for me. On the My Passport for Mac Time Machine section it still says “Read-Only. Install Driver. “ I understand what read-only means but not in the context of Time Machine. Does it mean that some TM function is disabled until I enable write and read??

It was this statement that originally led me to installing Paragon’s Microsoft NTFS for Mac. In this respect I just don’t know what I’m doing!

Phil

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/5426D663-A1AE-4F15-AD87-B2B8A72930E5%40icloud.com.

[Tony Crooks]

Hi, Phil,

I've got a couple of questions you could help me with.

1. Is Time Machine running? If it is you should be able to see folders with names along the lines of 2021-02-04xxxxxxx on the Time Machine partion.

2. I'm not sure where the message "Read Only. Install Driver." is coming from. Sounds like a WD Utility app?

The attached image shows the "Get Info" window for my Time Machine volume. As you can see at the bottom it says 'read only'. I checked that when you enter Time Machine it will restore files as you'd expect.

Can't say I've had Time Machine problems, and as mentioned I've found it to backup much more quickly using APFS.

Hope this is helpful but let me know if Time Machine isn't working.

Regards,

Tony

[Jason Davies]

This is the message you get if you mount an NTFS disk, I think. Did you
say you have formatted it as APFS?

Cheers,
Jason

On 4 Feb 2021, at 10:19, 'Philip Tomlinson' via Sussex Mac User Group
wrote:

> However, I still have a query which I’m sure you will be able to
> answer for me. On the My Passport for Mac Time Machine section it
> still says “Read-Only. Install Driver. “ I understand what
> read-only means but not in the context of Time Machine. Does it mean
> that some TM function is disabled until I enable write and read??

Cheers,

Jason

[Philip Tomlinson]

Tony /Jason / Stephen

Many thanks guys for your help on this. Everything is working just fine now. In the end it was all very simple.

My problem was knowing which “messages” to believe / respond to. You’re right Tony, the message about being read-only was a WD Utility message, presumably just stuck on to their “Discovery” interface to bewilder old guys like me.

Phil

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