I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

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Will Time Machine back up iTunes media on a different internal drive

I have my iTunes media on a different internal drive.
Will Time machine back up that data as well?
I have two other internal drives, each 750gb.
Does Time Machine back those drives up as well? Or does it contain itself to the OS disk?

Stephen,
Amazingly, Time Machine will do this by default!! In fact, Time Machine will back up every volume that is present at the time of the initial backup, unless told to do otherwise. I keep my iTunes and iPhoto libraries on a secondary partition of my MBP's hard drive, and Time Machine backed that up automatically.
Your backup will be contained in a "Backups.backupdb" folder on whatever external volume you choose to use for Time Machine. Within this folder, you will find other folders named for the various volumes that are being backed up. As far as I know, there is no limit to how many can be kept.
Scott

Will time machine back up a second "internal" drive?

I have a Macbook Pro "late 2008" unibody.
I'd like to eventually buy an SSD drive to use as my "boot up / programs" drive and then use my much larger conventional drive as a "data" drive which will reside where my superdrive was. Will time machine back up this second drive or is it limited to the drive it's installed on?
If it's not possible, I'd appreciate any recommendations / tips on how I would back up the second drive or an alternate back up solution to back up both drives more efficiently.

It'll backup all except items you add in the exclude options as below:

Will Time Machine back Documents up?

My copy of Leopard is coming on Tuesday, but I would like to clarify something before I take the leap and upgrade.
Here's my situation: Instead of using the Documents folder on my internal HD, I bought a portable 40G USB HD to use as my "Documents" folder, thus saving precious HD space on my MBP.
My question is: will Time Machine back up the contents of my portable HD?
Thanks

Yes. You just need to take the drive that has your documents on it off Time Machine's exclusion list in System Preferences. Also, it would probably be a good idea to make sure that you only include alphanumeric characters (a-z,0-9) with no spaces or punctuation in naming any Time Machine source or target drives. Some people have have reported that Time Machine can be finicky about that. Also make sure that your Time Machine volume is properly formatted, Apple Extended (Journaled) with Apple Partition Map partitioning for PPC Macs and GUID for Intel Macs. It can be a bit tricky to get new drives formatted correctly. There is an explanation and a fix here.
Message was edited by: Peggy Lynn for wrong link

Will my mac back up to time machine wile it is on but shut (asleep) and can you set a time for backups???

will my mac back up to time machine wile it is on but shut (asleep) and can you set a time for backups???

If your Mac Model supports POWERNAP under Mountain Lion, yes backups and software updates can occur while the mac is taking a power nap (kind of light sleep).

Will Time Machine back up data stored on an external drive ?

I'm planning to add an external hard drive to my iMac to hold more data. I also plan to to use a larger external drive for Time Machine. Will Time Machine back up both the internal hard drive and the external data hard drive?

Sorry I was out for awhile, click on "Frequently Asked Questions" at the top of that page that I linked in earlier.

I downloaded Lion on my iMac. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. Nothing shows up from before. It looks like a brand new computer. It is backed up on Time machine. Any idea of why this happened and suggestions on restoring? Thanks.

I downloaded Lion on my 4 yr old iMac. The download stalled at the last minute so I clicked "CANCEL". When it was restarted, Lion was there, with no apparent option but to go ahead and install so I assumed it was okay. Didn't transfer data from "another computer" when prompted - assumed it would transfer from that computer. It apparently cleaned out the hard drive. It looks like a brand new computer. None of my apps, programs, files, or thousands of photos.   It is backed up on Time machine, but it's a sickening sight. Any idea why this happened and suggestions before restoring? Thanks.

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation:   What are Local Snapshots?   http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Will Time Machine Back up an External Hard Drive Attached to my Mac Pro?

Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up? So, I'd like to have Time Machine back up my Mac HD and the external HD. If Time Machine won't do this, is there a good back up program for Macs that is very turnkey?
Thanks in advance!!!

GregT wrote:
Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up?
If the drive is formatted +Mac OS Extended,+ yes. While it's connected, go to TM Preferences > Options. If it's listed in the exclusion box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's listed in gray, however, it's either formatted wrong or corrupted, and you can't remove the exclusion.

ITunes on external Hardrive- Will Time Machine back it up?

I have all my iTunes music and iPhoto pictures on an external harddrive. I have another external Harddrive that I use for Time machine. I want Time Machine to Back up the external harddrive. When I open Time Machine preferences, the list of "Do not backup" contains my external harddrive and when I try to select it and hit the "-" sign it is grayed out. What gives? How can I use time Machine to back up my music and photos? I cant keep all that info on my internal harddrive. Surely Apple must have thought of this. Help!

Had the same issue,
Had to make sure that all the drives I wanted to back up using Time Machine were in the same format. e.g. Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
When I did that it gave me the option to back up the drive(s). However, be aware that to format a drive will delete the data currently on it.
I had to move everything off the drive. Reformat. Put the data back on. Then Time Machine accepted the drive for back up.
Hope that helps?
G

Will Time Machine back up all?

I'm waiting for my new iMac to arrive in a few days and plan to install Win XP on a separate partition. I'm curious about one thing...when I use Time Machine to back up the computer, will it also back up everything on the Mac hard drive, including the Win XP part or will I need to run a separate back up routine from within Windows?

TM will not backup a Windows partition. You will need either Windows software for doing backups or you can use a freeware utility called WinClone - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

Will Time Machine back up and external hard drive connected to my TC?

Here is my desired set-up: older Powerbook G4 whose iTunes Music is saved on an external HD (WD MyBook offering USB, FW, and ethernet connections); backup wirelessly to a Time Capsule using Time Machine; connect the external drive to the Time Capsule either using USB or ethernet (whichever is faster); have Time Machine backup everything, ie, the laptop and the external drive connected directly to the Time Capsule.
Right now, the external drive is connected directly to the Powerbook using Firewire and everything is working as desired. I would like to have the external drive networked, however, so that I can enjoy music on the laptop without having it connected to the external drive. Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
Is this possible?
If so, which connection method is best between the external drive and the Time Capsule, USB or ethernet?

f.bomb wrote:
Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
Is this possible?
No. Time Machine will not backup a network share such as you describe. Sorry.

How much will time Machine back up?

So I want to sell my mac and get a new one. I back up my mac. but when i buy my new mac, will it return EVERYTHING back to the way it was. such as programs installed and my dock looking identical to the way it was. Id like to know if i should do anything specific like backing up certain things.
Thanks!
Ziad

If you have bootcamp, then it's intel-based.
However, Time Machine does NOT and CAN NOT backup bootcamp-you'll have to do it manually onto another drive/partition with winclone.
Good luck!
Also, to keep using the same TM backups on your new mac, it will HAVE to have the same name, and you'll have to follow these steps.
Message was edited by: joshz

HT201250 Will Time Machine Back Up Everything On My Mac?

I have to submit my Macbook Pro into the store to get the USB Port fixed and they recommended backing up my computer before submitting it. I found Time Machine on here and started to back up on it... I just wanted to make sure everything will be backed up (i.e. iPhoto pictures, music on iTunes...etc)

It should.
I'd make 2 backups on 2 different drives - oops happen. It can be either 2 Time Machine or Time Machine and a clone.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Will Time Machine back up two internal hard drives on the same computer?

Hi,
I'm running a Quicksilver G4 - the last of the dual booters - and I have two hard drives installed. One is an 80Gb carrying the OS, apps, and iMovie projects and photos.
The original 60Gb drive is still in there, and has the old OS9 and all my work on there, and my iTunes library.
I currently back up to a MyBook 500Gb firewire external drive. It's partioned into 3 sections. One for long term storage, not backed up. The other two hard drives are backed up completely in the other two partitions, using Retrospect.
Can I use Time Machine two back up these two drives, and what do I need to do to the partions?
I thought it best to ask first.

Thanks Ewan,
What I'd like to do is to abandon Retrospect and use Time Machine only for both the internal drives. The remaining part of the external drive just used for storage and not backing up, I'd like to leave how it is, I just drag and drop there.
On my partions, I've allowed 80Gb and 60Gb partitions, the same size as the drives, though neither drive is more than half full.
When you say I can change the disk volume for backup, do you mean that I have to give Time machine a seperate instruction and schedule for backup? That wouldn't be a problem.

Will Time Machine back up my external hard drive as well as internal one?

I am considering upgrading my Macbook to Leopard. All of my photos, movies and iTunes music are stored on a 250G external drive and as these are the files I work with most frequently I need to back them up regularly. Can I use Time Machine to do this, in other words does the back up include drives other than the main internal one? If not it would be of little use to me.

yes HFS+=mac os extended. I would check the format of the drive. most factory formatted drives are formatted for windows not Mac and hence are formatted FAT. FAT drives are also read+write from OS X. select you drive in finder and enter command+i. read off the format in the resulting info window.

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

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