With an external SSD always connected to my MacBook Air when I’m at my desk, it’s a necessity due to the limited capacity of the internal 120GB hard drive.
After recently discovering that my external hard drive had become corrupted, I opted for a replacement and successfully transferred the majority of data efficiently from the old drive to the new one using rsync. As I reviewed my data, I found a significant amount of information had gone missing, and fortunately, I was able to recover it from my backups.
I intend to verify the integrity of the data by examining archival Time Machine backups from previous months, thus creating a comprehensive inventory of any files or folders that have vanished or are no longer accessible on the current drive, and potentially recover lost information. In the event that there’s any information I thought was meant to be deleted, or if it simply got misplaced and needs to be restored?
To ensure a seamless backup strategy, I plan to acquire an additional solid-state drive (SSD) and duplicate the entire Time Machine snapshot onto this device. Once complete, I will utilize the “rsync -ni –ignore-existing” command to create a comprehensive file checklist, facilitating a precise comparison between the two SSDs.
Can’t I directly extract insights from the Time Machine’s temporal archives without needing to manually collect and process the data?
After initial thoughts turned to rsync, I soon realized its limitations in handling Time Machine backups, leading to a frustrating wait with no progress. Can tmutil inspect a specific earlier snapshot and only look at a certain number of items? Or is there another approach?
Thanks!
I’m using a 2018 MacBook Air running macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, and my Time Machine backup is stored on a fourth-generation Time Capsule, which is currently connected via Ethernet cable rather than its usual wireless link.
