Can I use time machine for backup but also keep my itunes library on my external and not on my MacBook Pro?

I have two 1TB external drives that I planned on using for backup of my MacBook Pro (Not actually sure how to use them both as duplicate backups but I'l have to figure that out later). What I'm wanting to do is use the external as a backup but I'd also like to keep the majority of my music on the external drive so I can keep the space free on my MacBook. Is this possible?

Possible, but not advisable.
You would be using the same drive for backup & normal (live) uses at the same time. That pretty much negates the whole purpose of backup, at least as far as that single drive would be concerned.
Better to devote 1 drive to backup (TM or otherwise) and a 2nd drive for online (live) usage.
One more thing ... you don't really have effective backup until you have at least 2 separate backups on 2 separate drives, neither of which is connected to your Mac except for backup & restore operations. Three is even better.

Similar Messages

Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?

Trying to plan in advance...
I was wondering if I can (with a laptop) use Time Machine for both:
1. Creating Time Machine backups on a partiion of an external drive. My plan was going to create 2 partitions: one to be used for Time Machine backups of another external hard drive (that holds all of my media) and then the other partition was going to be a bootable clone of my internal drive (totally separate from Time Machine)
and
2. Also use Time Machine for my Time Capsule, to create Time Machine backups of my internal drive.
Is this possible? I had heard that you can't use TM to make backups to a partition on an external drive, AND use it for another drive (like Time Capsule) at the same time. But I would think that this should be possible-
Thanks everyone-

Yes you can, and if you are using Mountain Lion it's easy.
If you are using Snow Leopard (as in your profile - this is the Mountain Lion forum), you have to manually select the backup volume each time. Tedious, but possible.
Read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ on that subject: "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

Can I use time machine to backup on my server HD?

I've mac Leapard with Time Machine but never made use of it because:
- I don't have and don't want to have an external HD.
- Don't have Time Capsule, and cannot afford it.
Yet I was wondering if it was somehow possible to use Time Machine, to backup directly to my server (online) for example.

-(.)^(.)- wrote:
Time Machine backups are NOT supported for NAS devices except Time Capsule or a USB HDD connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station. All other options are hacks.
I would add that even if a network drive were available, unless it was formatted HFS+ with either GUID or APM depending, it would not be acceptable anyway for TM.

Can I use Time Machine to backup ONLY an external drive?

I am having problems with the internal HD on my iMac and Disk Utility is telling me I need to reformat the drive and restore from backup. Only problem is that my 3TB Lacie Thunderbolt drive I was using for Time Machine recently failed (think it may have happened during an electrical storm brownout). Yep, I know, ***** to be me
The issues with the internal HD are preventing the iMac from booting and I would prefer not to have to purchase various repair software to find one that really works such as Disk Warrior or similar ((despite it getting very good reviews). I suspect it make be HFS corruption but no way to really tell that I am aware of.
I have setup an external drive with Yosemite and booted from that so now my old internal drive is seen as an "external drive".
I am using Disk Utility to make an image copy to a new 3TB external drive I purchased. Writing the DMG is going to take some time.
What I would like to do is to set up Time Machine to backup to a separate external 3TB hard drive (the second one I purchased) and have TM create a backup of ONLY the old internal drive - not the new system as well as the old internal unit.
Is this possible and if so can anyone advise how to do this. Does not seem I can exclude the system drive I am now booted from so that it is not backed up. (This makes sense that TM would be designed this way given its primary purpose is to backup a system).
If TM cannot be configured in this way, is there another option I can use?
Thanks
Andrew

Thanks for that advice. I have heard of it but a friend who does IT support at a University nearby suggested using Disk Utility to save an image - hence this is currently underway at present. Once this is finished I will try Carbon Copy Cloner.
I have another friend who has an older version of CCC - do you know if an old version will work ok or if only the latest supports Yosemite?
Also once I have the clone completed from CCC, is the process then to reformat the old internal drive and then clone from the CCC external drive back to the internal and then reboot and trust all is well?
Appreciate your help Csound1.
Regards
Andrew

HOW CAN I USE TIME MACHINE TO BACKUP ONLY PART OF MY FILES ON EXTERNAL D?

Hi, I am using time machine to back up all my files at the moment. but I want to get rid of video and photo material from my laptop and keep it on the external hard drive to which the time machine backs up my stuff.
how can i do this without losing the video and photo files permamnently?
thank a lot!

nefsi wrote:
doesn't time machine back up my files on the External hard disk?
By default, Time Machine backs-up almost everything on your internal HD to your External HD. It can also back up things on an external HD, if you want it to.
What I would like is, to find a way so that I could back up everything, but not have all the videos and photos I do not use often, on my laptop. instead I want to put them on the external hard drive and have time machine update all the other files.
Yes, you can do that, but there are two considerations:
You should partition the external HD so the TM backups are in one partition, and the other files are in the other partition. A partition (also called a volume), is treated like a separate disk for most purposes. See #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
You should find another way to back-up the videos and photos in that other partition, such as archiving them to CDs/DVDs.
In other words, can Time machine back up only some of my files?
Yes. You can exclude things from Time Machine. See #10 in the FAQ Tip. If you partition your TM drive, the other partition on it should be excluded automatically; but if it isn't, you can easily add it to the +Do not back up+ list in TM Preferences > Options.
For detailed instructions on making another partition on your external HD, see #6 in the FAQ Tip. It shows how to add a TM partition to a drive that already has other data on it, but the procedure is the same.

HT201250 Can I use Time Machine to backup a LaCie Hard Drive connected to an Airport Extreme onto a My Book that is connected directly to a Mac Mini?

I have a LaCie 2TB hard drive connected to a Airport Extreme Base Station. I also have a 1TB MyBook connected to a Mac Mini. My question is can you backup selected files (photos) from the LaCie drive to the MyBook drive using Time Machine, or any other software? If it will cost a fortune, I guess I can always just copy the newer files over.

Thank you for such a lightning-fast response Niel :-) Can I just double check with you the following ...?
The external drive where my iPhoto library is located has three partitions - Time Machine Backup, Pictures (where the iPhoto library is located) and SuperDuper Bootable Clone.
When you say 'Remove the external drive from the list of items set to be excluded from the backup, and then add everything else on it' - am I correct in thinking that I should remove Pictures partition from the items to be excluded but leave the Time Machine Backup and SuperDuper Bootable Clone as excluded items?
On my 2TB external drive (the one I'm backing up to) there are 5 partitions - Time Machine Backup, SuperDuper Clone, Pictures, Photo Archive and Document Archive. The Time Machine Backup is 700GB of which I still have 473GB available - when I include the Pictures folder that contains the iPhoto library that will use up another 148GB but I think there's still plenty of room to use it.
When you say if the partition contain the iPhoto library isn't dedicated to it it may be easier to create one which is, the only item I have on the Pictures volume is the iPhoto library so I think that it's dedicated to it. I was going to add images from the Pictures folder on my MacBook Pro but haven't done so at this stage so I won't do so. It wouldn't matter though, would it, if I copied the images from the Pictures folder on my MBP to the 'Photo Archive' partition of the EHD?
Thank you once more for your reply.
Tricia

How can I use Time Capsule for backups and an external hard drive?

I have a large file/program on my iMacs hard drive that is 62GB and I would like to keep only things I need on my iMac. I have a 2tb time capsule currently used for backing up. It has roughly 1.66 TB free. How can I move the 62GB program onto my Time Capsule and still use it for backups? Also, is this stable? And don't worry about backing the program up because it came on 8DVD discs.
Thanks.

1. Mount the Time Capsule as a drive and drag the application over to it. If the application requires system components, those won't be transferred; if those are only data files, you may be able to drag them over as well and then create a symlink or alias to a folder enclosing their current location.
2. The application may work slowly if this is done. Note that Time Machine will eventually use up all the free space on the Time Capsule that isn't reserved by being allocated to a disk image.
(66649)

Can I use Time Machine for data recovery?

Hi All,
This might seem a bit confusing at first, so please be patient - and thanks in advance.
I'll try to make this as simple as possible:
1) I had an external HDD that (i stupidly didn't back up) that I used to free up memory on my MB Pro. I knocked it off my desk and it's now unrecoverable - there is a 'might be able to get some data back. but it will cost up to $2000' option.
2) To free up said memory, I moved all the big stuff - photos, movies, documents, iTunes libray to this HDD.
3) Now, before I did this, I was already - and still am - using ANOTHER HDD for my Time Machine back ups.
4) Does anyone have any idea as to whether I could salvage the above mentioned data from an old TM snaphot (?) - assuming it hasn't been over written already?
5) And, if it's possible, can it be done without rolling back the MB to the appropiate date??

Hi Thomas,
Thanks for the quick response! But I didn't think I explained myself very well :s
I originally had everything on the MB internal HDD, and only had 1 HDD which was / is still, my TM HDD.
I then moved all the photos, music etc to the 2nd HDD, to free up memory on the MB HDD.
I dropped the 2nd HDD and it's beyond recovery.
What my thought is - given that originally all the data would have been backed up on the TM HDD, can I recover it from there? (If it hasn't been over written of course)
I'm unsure if the 2nd HDD was included in TM backups. It was usually connected to the MB when TM was running...

Can I use Time Machine for Subversion?

I need a free, simple way to back up files in a programming project so that I can archive older files and roll back to them if needed.
-I am working by myself.
-I want to manually decide when to back up.
-I expect to submit multiple days worth of backups at the same time to an actual -SVN repository (subversion archive).
-I need to only back up a small number of folders.
-I would prefer my repository to be local, as in on the same hard drive. Externals are a little inconvenient but I could do those too. Online storage is a bad idea.
-I prefer saving only modification differences between files, but full copies of modified files is ok too.
Can Time Machine do what I'm looking for? If not, are there any free, simple ways to make a repository on my local machine?

I would suggest that if you really want a subversion-type app, you actually use subversion, particularly since you want to be able to upload to a larger subversion archive as well. There are several GUI front ends for subversion, some free and some shareware. I haven't used any so I can't make recommendations, but if you search MacUpdate or VersionTracker for "subversion", you'll find them.

Can't use Time Machine or Backup Error Code -36 (ioErrI/O error)

Hi... I can't backup any of my files because when I try to use BACKUP or TIME MACHINE, I get an Error -36. Can anyone help me out? I repaired disk permissions and verified my disk. That didn't help. Thanks.
Begin backup at 2009-02-11 16:47:19.331 -0800
Scanning files...
Acquired a destination for the backup.
Copied file /Users/Superman/Music/iTunes/.DS_Store
Unable to copy /Users/Superman/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4/00/00/02/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4-192AB386A6408200.itc to /Volumes/Music/Users/Superman/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4/00/00/02/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4-192AB386A6408200.itc: Operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error -36.)
End backup at 2009-02-11 16:49:01.166 -0800

Christopher Liebe wrote:
Unable to copy /Users/Superman/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4/00/00/02/5AEE06EB56C3DEC4-192AB386A6408200.itc
TM quit because there's problem with that file.
For now, don't touch it. Instead, exclude it from TM and run another backup (there might be another problem).
To exclude it, go to TM's Preferences and click Options.
In the next panel, click the plus sign at the bottom.
In the sidebar of the next panel, select your home folder, then navigate to the folder +/Users/Superman/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache+
Select it, click Exclude, then Done.
Then do a +Back Up Now+ from the TM icon in your Menubar.
If TM runs ok, then you need to figure out what's wrong with that cache file.
I'm not particularly familiar with iTunes, but you can probably just delete it. Check the iTunes forum for that.

Can I use Time Machine for just the boot drive?

Is it possible for me to set up Time Machine so that it ONLY backs up the boot drive and not any of the other drives? If so, how can I do that?

Sure, just go to System Preferences -> Time Machine and click Options, then add the drives you don't want to back up to the list by clicking the + button.

Can I use Time Machine to back files on an External Hard Drive

My MacBook Pro hard drive filled up with movies, pictures, and music, so I bought a 2TB Time Capsule. I have a external hard drive that is about the same capacity as my MacBook hard drive. Sine the Time Capsule is by far the largest drive I have, I moved all my movies, music, and pictures to the Time Capsule and am using it as an external hard drive. I attached a 500GB external hard drive to the Time Capsule and I use that as the backup drive for Time Machine. However, the problem I am encountering is that I can't seem to direct Time Machine to include all of my files on my Time Capsule in the back up on to the other external hard drive.
Can I use Time Machine to backup data that I store on my Time Capsule to a external hard drive? If not, what is hte best method for backing up my files that are on my Time Capsule?
Thanks,
David

You need to use a different utility .. eg CCC or Chronosync to backup from the TC to yet another drive.. the problem is, that drive should be connected to the computer.. if you use a USB drive on the TC.. the file copying will be slow as slow as you will not believe.. all files are copied to the computer, then back to the TC.. it cannot copy directly to the TC..
As Neil said.. one way or another you need to use an external drive on the computer, even if you don't use it all the time.. the danger of course is not doing regular backups.. and forgetting their importance.
A true NAS will have automated backup incrementally of the files stored.. The TC is not a NAS in that sense.. it is a backup target for TM above and beyond anything else.

Can I use Time Machine with a Network Storage Drive?

I just picked up this drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Macally/NSA2S350NAS/ and I would like to use Time Machine for backups, and also use a different location on the drive for sharing files on our network. But this article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html says that network server must use AFP. How do I set that up? I just have a simple network using a 4 port wireless router. I have no idea what protocol the network is. I just use the "Network" option to connect to my new drive at smb://192.168.1.105.
Is this going to be possible or do I need to buy some other backup software???

On a Mac G4 I'm running OSX leopard with Time Machine. I have my other Mac (8600)networked. The 8600 was upgraded with a G3 Sonnet and IDE card, so it'll support OSX and large hard drives. I want TM to back up to the 8600, is this possible?
Thanks

Use time capsule for backup for HP Windows computer?

How can I use Time Capsule for backup on a HP Windwos computer?

Apple does not offer Windows backup software.
A popular PC application used to backup a PC on the Time Capsule is Genie Timeline Pro. You might want to take a look:
Genie Timeline Pro | Overview | Time Machine Backup Software for ...

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

Can I use time machine for backup but also keep my itunes library on my external and not on my MacBook Pro?

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