Backing up data on second hard drive & choosing not to backup applications

Hi
1...I have a second hard drive that contains my iTunes music & video's. How do I get Time Machine to back up data on stored on an external disc?
2...I want to conserve space on my backup disc by not backing up the applications folder. Is this recommended? How do I choose what I want to backup?
Cheers
David

Answer to question 1.
1. Using TM pref panel select Options...
2. Navigate to your second HD and click "-"
3. Now click "+" and navigate to your second HD and Cmd+click all items EXCEPT the iTunes and Video stuff, and then click the Exclude button.
Answer to question 2.
1. To exclude the /Applications open the TM pref panel
2. Click Options...
3. Click "+" and navigate to your /Applications and highlight it and click the Exclude button
4. It's your choice to exclude whatever you want. Some will exclude Applications based on being able to restore them by other means. If you are unsure about this or don't care if you lose an Application then exclude /Applications otherwise leave things alone.

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Files copied (backed up) on an external hard drive can NOT be opened

MacBook Pro (2.5GHz, intel Core i5)
OS X Yosemite, 10.10.2
I was running low on storage space on my Mac Pro. I copied all items on Desktop to my external hard drive. After all files were copied from MacBook Pro to the external hard drive, "get info" suggested that the amount of space taken entirely was the same between when all items were on the Desktop and when they were on the external hard drive. The number of items copied over were also identical. I should have been more careful, but I then deleted all items from the Desktop. It was until a few days later (today) that I noticed majority of the files copied over onto the external disk can NOT be opened now. The error message was "The alias “<filename>” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found.".
I really don't want to lose these files, but where are they? They got their file sizes correct but just can not be opened. I tried copying these files back to Desktop on my MacBook Pro, that's not helpful. I tried accessing the files on a PC, still can't open the files. I tried repairing disk of the external hard drive (under Disk Utility), still can't open the files. I tried repairing disk permissions of my MacBook Pro hard drive, still can't open the files.
One last thing I tried in terminal (I am not terminal savvy at all, just googled the "The alias..." error message and copied the instruction): /usr/bin/SetFile -a a /Volumes/MAC This did not solve the problem, either.
Thank you for your help in advance!

Hi, eddie from pataskala ohio.
We love pro-active thinking here at the Apple Discussions and you're off to a great start.
Even though upgrading iTunes shouldn't affect your Library, one of the funny things about computers is that sometime, somehow, somewhere when you least expect it , they can do some not so funny things, like losing data that they're not supposed to. Which is why it's a good idea to have a back up copy of any data (such as your music) that you value in reserve ... just in case.
The most straightforward way, is to go to the iTunes Edit menu > Preferences > Advanced tab > General sub-tab and make sure your iTunes Music folder is assigned to its default location: C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents\My Music\iTunes .
Next make sure all your music is stored in that folder by using the iTunes Advanced menu > Consolidate Library option.
Now you can copy the entire iTunes folder - the iTunes Music folder and the iTunes library files in particular - to your external drive.
If anything does go wrong with the upgrade, you'll be all set to recreate your Library.

Backing up to new external hard drive is not working

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jwsand wrote:
I tried to hook up the external hard drive to a different computer (imac) and it worked without any problem.
Did you cancel the backup it was attempting to do, before disconnecting it? If not, did you eject it first?
Do you mean it ran backups? Or just that it was recognized? Those are very different.
The mac pro has 2 internal hard drives. One for the OS and the other for a tm backup.
Be sure that second drive is now excluded from TM Backups via TM Preferences > Options. If TM is trying to back up the internal disk's TM backups onto the new external, that might explain why it's confused (I know I am!)
I attempted to hook up this external drive to a second external tm back up
Do you mean you've "daisy chained" it, to yet another disk also containing TM backups?
and noted the different disk in the tm preferences.
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Do you have any idea why this drive would not work on my mac pro but does work on my imac?
I'm not entirely sure that's true. Please clarify exactly what you're doing; what's connected where and how, and what's being backed-up.
On the Pro, you have 2 internals and how many externals? Which ones are being backed-up (ie, not on the exclusion list in TM Preferences > Options)?

Why does my seconds hard drive does not appear in the list of volumes in Settings - Performance - work volumes

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the photoshop installations is really slow after updating to version 2014. So I checkt all performance related facts. I the settings of photoshop I saw, that there is only the defauld drive (systemdrive) in list of volumes. This is not the optimal case. On a different PC (Windows 7 Pro), there are all volumes present that are listet in the windows explorer. I would like to change the Setting to a different drive. Where could be the problems?
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here an image to show the problem (placing an image seams to be broken :-(
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What happens to the data in apps that you choose not to backup with iCloud?

Hi,
I have a 64b iPad and a lot of the storage is used up with data stored inside apps. Some of these data stores are 10s of GB in size. Such as, I keep some videos on my iPad that I play with VLC player. When I upgraded the iPad to iOS5 and activated iCloud backup, it immediately told me there wasn't enough room to back up my iPad entirely. I turned off backing up certain apps, such as VLC.
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afterwords
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Did an erase and install and now seems like more of the same.
When I run old 10.3 on the original hard drive, life is just fine. To that end, I'm beginning to suspect the hardware. However, when I put the original Apple Hardware Test CD in and tried to use it (never done that before), it said it wouldn't run on this machine.
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Intech Speedtools is another. Can do a thorough SMART test (45 minutes), test media, scan and reassign bad blocks, and stress a drive.
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Thanks and happy Easter for those of you who celebrate it. Kate (Porter)

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Transferred backed-up data from external hard disk to new hard drive on my MacBook Pro which seemed to be successful. I now find that some (or maybe all) old emails have been resent. Can anyone tell me what has happened?

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Greetings,
I've never seen this issue, and I handle many iPads, of all versions. WiFi issues are generally local to the WiFi router - they are not all of the same quality, range, immunity to interference, etc. You have distance, building construction, and the biggie - interference.
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Time Machine not backing up system files on second hard drive

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Thanks!
System information:
MacBook Pro Mid 2012
OS X 10.8.5 (12F45)
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
240 GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD (Main Bay)
750 GB Apple HDD (Optical Bay)

I apologize, the title of this thread is misleading. I meant it to say "on primary hard drive", not "second hard drive". Sorry for any confusion.

Backing up data on second hard drive & choosing not to backup applications

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