My wife has a 2018 iPad and now she also has a 2025 iPad Air. I have been backing up the 2018 iPad to my Mac mini, using the USB-A connector. Can I do likewise with the iPad Air and its USB-C connector? If yes, will doing so delete the 2018 backup (which I want to retain)?
Many thanks for considering.
Your Mac should recognize the new iPad as a different device, and create a separate backup. If you want some insurance, you can temporarily copy the existing backup somewhere else (I guess that would be a backup backup). Instructions on locating the existing backup files are here.
I back up my Apple devices and my wife’s to my Mac Mini weekly. Using whichever USB-? jacks are available on the Mini at the moment – followed by doing a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of the Mini.
Each iPhone and iPad recognized as a different device, and a different backup will be created for each.
[When you hardware-upgrade a device and back up the new one to the Mini – even if you give the the same name as the old one – the new one will be recognized and backed up as different device from the old one. This will happen even if you used the backup of the old device to configure the new one.]
Excellent. Thank you Jeff and Bob.