Backing up external drives or connected hd of computers

Does Time Machine only backup the internal HD of the computer it is on or will it also back up a connected hard drive, either an external hard drive or better yet another computer's hard drive that is connected to the computer on the same network. That is the computer has been logged on with appropriate passwords etc. and is mounted on the current computer which has Time Machine on it. I am trying to figure out a way of backing up several computer on the same network.
Thanks in advance,
Grant

...want to easily access the backups and not necessarily have them tied into the backup of a specific machine/computer.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner, it's donationware/free supported by a few ads. Is fully featured, auto-clone/auto-clone update and is fully accessible via any computer (Windows PC's with MacDrive), Linux, other Mac's, even hold option bootable by the same year and model of Mac (that matches hardware drivers) for the most versatiliy and data access.

Similar Messages

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

I have my Time Machine on an external drive (not connected to Airport Extreme) and I have an external HD attached to airport extreme. Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme. How?

Is it possible to have Time Machine backUp computer HD AND external HD connected to Airport Extreme.
Sorry, but no.
Time Machine will backup your Mac, but not the hard drive attached to the AirPort Extreme.
Time Machine will back up a hard drive only if it is attached directly to your Mac via USB or FireWire.

My time machine backup external hard drive has failed. I have a newer external drive already connected to my MAC but can't figure out how to get Time Machine to set up on it?

My time machine backup external hard drive has failed. I have a newer external drive already connected to my MAC but can't figure out how to get Time Machine to set up on it

http://pondini.org/TM/21.html

FCP 10.1 - External Drives stopped connecting

After a couple of days of using FCP 10.1 - suddenly when an external drive is connected - FCP doesn't recognize it.
The OS registers the drive, so clicking on the "projects and events" folder on the external drive is the only way which projects show up in the FCP GUI. Why?
How do I fix this?
Thanks!
Rob

The drives do not appear in FCP 10.1 interface. You open library either by double-clicking them or use the Open Library.

HT201250 Can time machine back up external drives to external drives?

I was wondering if I can use Time Machine to back up external drives. I know it backs up just my Mac, but need to know if
it will back up an external drive to an external drive.

Open your Time Machine drive. Open the Backups.backupdb folder therein. Open the Computer Name (e.g., Adam Smith's iMac) folder. Open any folder there whose name contains a date later than when you attached your (other) external drive. You should see a list of folders representing the drives that are being backed-up. One is typically Macintosh HD, your internal hard drive. There should be one for your other external drive.

Backing up external drives that aren't always connected?

I've got external hard drives for each of my clients. I'll connect them to my machine for a few days, then remove them and it might be months before they're connected again.
Will TM backup these externals (assuming I don't exclude them) and then keep that backup even if they're not connected for a long time? Or will it delete that backup after a period of time if the drive hasn't been reconnected?
Thanks!

TM only keeps hourly backups for 24 hours and daily backups for 30 days. Beyond that, TM keeps a weekly snapshot for as far back as you have disk space available. So depending on when you have the external drive connected, you could get no backup if connected less than 1 hour; a backup for no more than 24 hours if the external is not connected for the first backup of the day (between midnight and 1 AM); or a backup for no more than 30 days if the external is not connected for the first backup (between midnight and 1 AM) of the seventh day. Put another way, to guarantee a weekly backup, an external drive would have to be connected for a full seven (24 hour) days.
There may be further complications. TM needs to recognize a reconnected external drive as the same unit that was previously backed up or it is going to rebackup the entire external drive. This will very rapidly eat up your available TM backup disk space. I had two same model external drives that are only occasionally connected. I found that, for reasons I could not figure out, one of these was recognized by TM as having been previously backed up; the other was not.
Since I use these externals to store video files that change very infrequently, I gave up using TM to back them up and repartitioned my backup disk to have separate partitions for each external with the remainder for TM. I back up the externals with SuperDuper! as necessary and let TM backup just my internal drive. I don't think this will work for you since it seems you are dealing with many different client drives.

Backing up External drives to Time Machine - what happens if the drives are not connected at the same time?

I have 2 x 1 TB drive that I use interchangeably. 1 holds Video and the other Photos. I only have 1 connected when I'm working (using Premiere or Lightroom). I have a 2 TB NAS for making redundant copy of the other 2 drives.So far I've been doing the copying manually.
I'm considering of using Time Machine to make proper backup sets (though I'm always only interested in the latest set). I know that I can set Time Machine to backup to Nas over the network and include any external drives connected to the mac at the time.
The questions now are:
Will Time Machine fails if it can't find any of the external drives?
Does Time Machine handle backing up the external drives one at a time - only when it's connected - without thinking the files on the "missing" (or disconnected) volume had been deleted?
Thanks

Hi Ronald,
I can't answer the TM question, but Tri-Backup handles those situations perfectly...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

Pondini, I beseech thee....Time Machine won't back up external drive partitions

Pondini (or anyone else that would like to help),
I am running Mac OS X 10.7.5. At my edit bay, we utilize a Facilis Terrablock 24D for storage, which connects to our system via fibre cables. Before upgrading to 10.7.5, Time Machine would back up all of our drive partitions on the Terrablock. Since the upgrade, Time Machine still recognizes the drives, we can add or subtract files from the drives, and it appears to make and save the changes, but when Time Machine backs up, it will only back up the local hard drive. No error messages come up. It just does its thing but only for the local HD.
All of the drive partitions are Mac OS Extended Journaled. All of the permissions seem to be in order.
I have contacted Facilis and their technical support claims that they never tested their products with Time Machine (as they sell their own backup equipment) but in theory that it should work.
I'm not sure what other information you might need but please let me know and I'll do my best. I was wondering if anyone else has come across an issue like this? Thank you for your time.

LALB wrote:
Upon including this partition and all of its contents, it disappears from the exclusion list as it should AND its size is reflected in the Estimated size of full backup. But this is the kicker! Upon clicking "Save" and starting Time Machine's backup, I receive the error "Time Machine could not complete the backup. There are no disks available to be backed up." Upon going back into TM Preferences > Options, I find that the external drive / partition has been put back on the Exclusion list. It's like it is automatically rejecting the partition after I have saved my exclusion list.
That's quite strange.
TM does that if you try to back up a USB Thumb drive (I've filed a bug report), but this is the first I've heard of it under any other circumstances. Then again, I don't recall a post by anyone trying to back up from a drive connected this way.
If a drive isn't formatted for a Mac (ie, FAT32, ExFat, NTFS, etc), Time Machine cannot back it up, and will list it in gray on the exclusion list (same as the backup drive), and won't let you remove it from the list, so it's clear.
This sounds like a "cousin" of the way it treats a thumb drive, so sure seems like a bug. TM will back up USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt drives without a problem, if they're formatted right.
If you have any Macs under 90 days old, or covered by AppleCare, a call to them is free, and the best way to get a quick answer (you may have to escalate to a "specialist" however, and it still may take a few days for something unusual). Otherwise it's $50 U.S.
An alternative is to file a Bug Report, per the green box in Reporting a Problem to Apple. That most likely won't get a response for quite a while, though.
Sorry, wish I had a fix!
Let us know what, if anything, you find out.

Was able to transfer itunes music from an external drive to a computer, but cannot listen to it without external drive being connected. There are "!" next to the transferred music.

Was able to transfer itunes music from external drive to computer, but they won't play. There are "!" marks next to all transferred songs and a message reads "Unable to locate songs". How do i get the transferred songs to play without having the external drive connected.

Select a single song with a broken link, press CTRL+I to Get Info, cancel when asked to locate the track and take a look at the Summary tab. Post back where iTunes is looking for the file. It begins file://localhost
Where is it really?
Please post back both paths so that I can make suggestions. Full paths please, exact spellings, you can replace your user name with <User> if needed.
tt2

How to back up external drive attached to time capsule

How can I backup an external 1 TB drive containing my itunes library that I have attached to my time capsule usb port to my time capsule?
Over the weekend I purchased a timecapsule and I love it! I thought the idea of not having to mount and unmount my usb external drive from my laptop would help with my itunes library intergrity (keep loosing large chunks of music). I have now plugged the drive into the timecapsule usb port but the only configuration time machine allows that I can find is to tell it what not to back up on my laptop and now that the external drive is not attached to my mac it doesn't even appear. what now? I want to get this completed prior to upgrading to snow leopard.

go system preferences > time machine > options and make sure the external is not excluded from backups.
that's it. time machine should automatically backup any drive connected directly to your computer (unless it is told not to and given there's sufficient space on the TC).
JGG

Back up external drive to ANOTHER external drive

Is there a way to back up an external drive, automatically? I'd like to keep my Aperture masters on an external (preferably NAS) drive, and then back it up to a separate external drive. Haven't found a solution for this yet!
Reason I need to do this is I have 1T of photo's and 500GB HD on my laptop!

Youre endangering your valuable data by assuming its ever safe on ANY single place, especially the internal HD.
Grab a 1TB HD for $65 and offload/copy your photos to another HD.
You dont need superduper to copy ONE external HD to another......just connect both and drag and drop what or all to the new HD.
Superduper will do the same with just 2 clicks if you want, its free.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Backing uo external drives

I have two external drives, A and B, that I wanted to have TimeMachine backup along with my internal drive. Both these externals are LaCie 250 GB Porche FW drives, are partitioned and formated the same (Apple Partition Map and Apple Extended - Journaled). Neither drive is excluded from TM backup. I initially connected A on 18 Feb and it was backed up successfully. I then connected B on 21 Feb and it backed up successfully. On 24 Feb, I ejected, disconnected and powered off both drives. On reconnecting them today, TM wanted to re-backup all of drive B, but none of drive A. I cancelled the backup and then looked at what TM had previously done. What I found was that TM indicates that drive A is backed up on every backup (daily and hourly) since 18 Feb, while drive B only exists on backups for 21 through 24 Feb.
Can anyone suggest what is going on here?

Will Time machine/Time Capsule back up the external drives I have connected to my iMac?
Yes Time Machine will back up drives connected via USB or Firewire to you Mac.
To make that happen, open System Preferences-> Time Machine-> options and remove the external drive from the exclusion list. Time Machine will now back it up along with the Mac's internal drive.
How much space will be required to back up all 3 TB?
To backup 3 TB you will need at least 3 TB. If you want to be able to recover old versions of files or deleted files you would need more than that.
It will only backup the actual files you have. So if you are currently only using 2 TB the backup will only require 2 TB.
If there is not enough space on the Time Capsule, what else can I use?
One solution is to connect a drive greater than 3 TB to your Mac and cinfigure Time Machine to use that drive as the backup location.

Trouble backing up external drive with time machine

I have a small USB stick that I use to store important documents but documents that I don't access very often. I have an additional 500 GB hard drive that I use for backing up with Time Machine. I want Time Machine to backup both my internal hard drive (Macbook Air 2011 Lion) as well as the small USB stick. I've searched the forum and discovered that I needed to reformat the USB stick, which I did (it is now Mac OS Extended). The USB now appears in the list of excluded drives in Time Machine preferences, which I removed. Thinking that Time Machine would be backing up my USB stick now, I backed up and then turned the computer off. The next day, I looked at the external drive, and it didn't seem to have a backup of the USB. I entered Time Machine and the USB is "greyed out" which means it wasn't backed up. I've retried backing up several times by including the USB in Time Machien preferences, but it seems that when I click "save" it doesn't actually save because when I open Preferences up again, the USB stick is in the list of excluded items again. Have I done something wrong? Any imput would be greatly appreciated.

I don't use Time Machine but my view is that it is too dangerous for sticks which may be removed - I understand that it may delete previous backups if it discovers that the stick no longer exists.
You could:
manually copy the stick to your main drive from time to time
use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup the stick
use a utility to mirror the stick to your main drive

Does TM automatically back up external drives or only internal?

I have two external drives....one that I am backing up to (500GB) and one that will hold all my iphoto/tunes files (1TB). Will TM automatically back up the photos/music drive directly to my TM drive?
Also, the above drive I just bought is an iomega 1TB drive. TM said it was wrong formatting for backing up to, but can I still copy my files to it and will TM back up those files (to the other ext drive) without having to reformat it? If not, how do I reformat it?

ecddesign wrote:
I have two external drives....one that I am backing up to (500GB) and one that will hold all my iphoto/tunes files (1TB). Will TM automatically back up the photos/music drive directly to my TM drive?
Time Machine can back it up, if it's formatted for a Mac. Look in the exclusion list in +TM Preferences > Options.+ If the drive is listed there +*in black,+* it means it's not being backed-up, but can be. All you have to do is select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
But if it's listed +*in gray,+* it means it's not formatted properly. Time Machine cannot back it up, and you can't remove the exclusion. You'll have to reformat it (which means erasing everything on it).
Also, the above drive I just bought is an iomega 1TB drive. TM said it was wrong formatting for backing up to, but can I still copy my files to it and will TM back up those files (to the other ext drive) without having to reformat it? If not, how do I reformat it?
See #5 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum. Use the same procedure to format both drives.

Backing up external drives or connected hd of computers

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