Two external hard drives and Time Machine Problem

I have two external hard drives I use with Time Machine. One is for constant backup and the other I keep off-site and back up weekly.
Problem: Each time I connect a different hard drive it wants to start from scratch and create another new backup file. What I want is called smart copy in Superduper! but can't figure out how to do it on Time Machine
Thank You

Anybody?

Similar Messages

  • Two External Hard Drives and Time Machine

    Hi All
    Does anyone out there know if it is possible to use Time Machine to backup information from one external hard drive to a second external hard drive? I dont want to store this particular information on my internal hard drive (partly because the HD is not big enough. If Time Machine cannot do this, does anyone know of another way?
    Thanks
    Regards
    Sonia

    Hi Sonia
    Yes you can do that. In Timemachine you just tell it to use the one external HD for Timemachine. In the same panel you can tell timemachine which drives to backup, and here you just specify the other external HD and leaves out your internal HD.

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    Apple explains how to use Time Machine in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427.
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  • External Hard Drive and Time Machine questions

    Hello, I am new here to the forums and I have looked all over for the answers to two questions that I have regarding external hard drives and the time machine feature.
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    Format the new SSD in Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that will solve question No. 1.
    After formatting, clone the new SSD using Disk Utility>Restore or Carbon Copy Cloner (down load from the Internet).  Test the new SSD and if it performs as expected, do the physical swap.
    Question No. 2.  Erase the Time Machine HDD using Disk Utility and then install Time Machine.  See this excellent website regarding Time Machine.
    http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
    If you want an external boot HHD, get another one and use Carbon Copy Cloner.  This will give you redundancy in backups as well which is a good strategy.  CCC also can update the contents in an incremental manner similar to Time Machine.
    Ciao.

  • External Hard Drive and Time Machine no longer recognized

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    BUMP! Count me in on this one. The last Time Machine back-up was 12/6. I take my machine to the office during the week but am working from home this week. My other external drive (Archives) shows up, but Time Machine is MIA. Looking at System Profiler under USB, I can see the drive on the USB hub and the volume is labeled Time Machine, so the computer sees it, it just doesn't mount it to the desktop so Time Machine can't find its drive.
    I've turned the drive off and on. I've swapped cables with the Archive drive. I've rebooted. Nothing works. Both are Western Digital MyBook Studio editions. Both are plugged in to the same hub. I also switched the cables on the hub, but if it's showing up in the Profiler, the problem isn't with the hub, the drive or the cable.
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  • Itunes, external hard drive , and  Time machine

    Hello I am a college student at RIT with a problem
    Right now I have my itunes library on an external hard drive that I leave plugged into my laptop, my friend recently installed the software for remote time machine backups on a file server in his room. I want to find a way to plug my external hard drive into that server to do time machine backups and store my itunes library remotely so I can access them anywhere on campus
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    Thanks

    You may find more help in the TM forum, here.
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227

  • Did my first back up today using external hard drive and time machine now i can't drag and drop

    Hi, i did my first back up today using time machine it all went onto my external hard drive fine. Now i cant drag and drop anyhting. I assume ive cahnged some settings in time machine but cant figure it out what to do can some one help ?
    thanks

    Brandbasher wrote:
    Thanks Pondini but i have closed time machine, removed external hard drive.
    Did you eject it first?
    Now i cant drag and drop anything on my desk top, or mail or any other application. Ive tried moving folders, documents none of it works. Even moving around documents within a folder, it wont let me chnage the position of files.
    That shouldn't be related to Time Machine (especially if the backups aren't mounted).
    What happens when you try those things?  Do you get any messages?  Anything you can post a screenshot of?
    Have you tried a Restart?
    Does it happen in another user account?  (If you don't have one, create one via System Prefs > Users & Groups.)

  • External Hard Drives and Time Machine

    I have all my music stored on an external hard drive. The drive shows up on Time Machine Preferences as a "Do Not Back Up" and the minus button is grey so I don't seem to be able to take it off the list and back it up on Time Machine. Any suggestions as to why this might be? Might there be some reason why I can't back it up? It's a LaCie if that's relevant. Thanks.

    OK, well out of my depth now! It says the Partition Map Scheme is Master Boot Record. Not sure about the format - could MS-DOS (FAT) be a format?? Do I need to change these to back on TM? Can I do that without losing my data?

  • Slow external hard drive and time machine un able to back up

    My Western Digital Elements 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop external hard drive has become very slow to boot. I also use the same drive for time machine, which is now un able to back up. Is there anyway of increasing the speed, and fixing time machine without losing any data, as the drive is not backed up. Thanks.

    If Disk Utility can't repair it, there are some expensive third party products that may be able to do so, strictly for the purpose of extracting whatever files remain intact. I have none in particular to recommend.
    Some data is already certainly gone. The disk should be replaced regardless of any utility's ability to "repair" it.

  • External Hard Drive and Time Machine Help

    Just purchased WD My Book Essential external hard drive.  I would like to back up the files on my macbook pro, but I am unsure what to do with time machine. How should I go about backing up my files?

    Hi B,
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    Open System Preferences.
    Click on Time Machine.
    Click on “Select Disk.”
    Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
    Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
    Click on “Use for backup.”
    Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.
    TM's first backup will be slightly smaller than the size of the disk space used on the HD it is backing up. Subsequent backup sizes will be greatly reduced (maybe a few percent of the original, depending on how much new data has been saved to the HD TM is backing up).

  • When using a Seagate 1T external hard drive and Time Machine to back up hourly, if I delete photo files from the Mac hard drive before the next back up, are these retained on the Seagate drive or will they be lost (overwritten) in the next backu in the ne

    Does Time Machine erase previously saved files if, say, photos are deleted from the Macbook upon the next update, or will they be stored indefinately despite the current status of the files stored on the computer? Eg. can I bckup photo files to a Seagate 1T disc and then delete them to make more room on the computer in the knowlwdge that they are always going to be on the Seagate disc? Sorry if this is very elementary but I have not used a back up before like this, and am not sure how successive backups are overlaid or retained. Thanks!!

    TM is not designed to do what you ask. As Allan wrote TM is an incremental backup not an archival solution.
    If you delete a file from the HD it will eventually be removed from the TM backup (if it ever makes it on to the backup at all).
    How long before it is removed depends on a number of factors, TM disk drive size being one factor but not the only one.
    Material that is impossible to replace and is important to you (image files usually fitting that description) need to be backed up to as least one other drive and preferably more for long term storage.

  • External Hard Drive and Time Machine

    I recently installed a new 1TB HD in my MBP but am still using a 400GB external as my Time Machine back up. Not suprisingly, in a recent backup attempt, I got an error message that said there isn't enough room on the external to back up my MBP. My question is, is there any way to set TM to backup only selected folders and applications (e.g. email) rather than doing a backup of my entire MBP? If not, my only other option would be to purchase a bigger external.

    yes you can surely remove the items which you don't want to backup. Open Time Machine and click Options to exclude folders.

  • Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine.  Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it.  Tried deleting them and now can't do anything.  Any ideas?

    Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine.  Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it.  Tried deleting them and now can't do anything.  Any ideas?

    As john noted, eventually that external is probably not going to be big enough, but it certainly is for now. The HD just needs enough capacity to cover the amount of data on your internal HD, not the internal HD's total capacity.
    Format/partition the external as follows and you should be set to go:
    1. Connect the external HD to the MBP.
    2. Open Disk Utility on the MBP.
    3. Select the external HD in the left pane.
    4. Click on the Erase tab.
    5. Choose the Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
    NOTE: if you want to zero the HD (which I always think is a good idea, but does take time), click on Security Options, click the button for Zero Out Data, click OK. The larger the HD, the longer this will take, in some cases several hours.
    6. Click on Erase and wait for the entire process to finish.
    7. Click the Partition tab.
    8. Click on Volume Scheme: and choose the number of partitions (just one in this situation).
    9. Click on the Options button (located underneath the Volume Scheme pane) and select GUID.
    10. Click Apply.
    11. Quit Disk Utility.
    Backup your internal to the external. What application are you using to backup with? I highly recommend both SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner.

  • Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013.  I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

    Time Machine will not let me restore from backups after June, 2013.  I can see the files on the external hard drive but Time Machine skips all of them and goes back to June, 2013. Does anyone have any idea what the problem is?

    rtilghman wrote:
    telling me to buy a new router is NOT a solution.
    And why not? Apple is selling these things like BigMacs. They can't make enough of them. You've been suffering since May because you refuse to get a decent router.
    Can you imagine if a company that makes a refrigerator told me that I needed to upgrade my electrical system to rectify a problem with their device? What kind of response IS that?!?!
    What if the problem with their device is that it requires a new-fangled "grounded" outlet and your circa 1890 house doesn't have grounded outlets. Would you refuse to purchase a $ 25 adapter on principle?

  • Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

    Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
    See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
    And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
    Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

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