Backing up external hard drive (connected to time capsule) using time machi

hi. don't know if this is possible or not - am now using an external hard drive to store all my movies as my macbook pro's hard drive is filling up and i'm running out of space (it's 250gb). have created a separate itunes on the external hard drive and stream these movies to my apple tv. the external hard drive is connected to my time capsule and access it on the macbook pro that way wirelessy. is there a way to now back up my movies on the external hard drive to the time capsule using time machine (that it's already connected to)?

Welcome to the discussions, squire78!
If your external drive is connected directly to your computer, you can have Time Machine backup both your computer and the external drive.
If the external drive is connected to the USB port on the Time Capsule, Time Machine cannot backup this drive.

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I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. suggestions to complete backup please?

I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. the same thing happens when just trying to save my pictures from iphoto to a flash drive. suggestions to complete backup please?

Sounds like you'll need to access that drive while it is not booted. You need to replace it anyway, so do that, then one way or another (ext enclusure, et), access it and copy files.
If you keep trying to boot it, you might kill it for good and not get your files, so just swap it out first.

Time Capsule - Backing up external hard drive connected to MacBoookPro

I've just bought a time capsule, but have not yet opened it, because I wanted to make sure what I want to do is possible (so I don't have to exchange it). So here's what I want to do:
In the past I have tried to connect an external hard drive to my airport extreme, and then download videos, pictures, music directly to the hard drive. The problem was that the wireless ability of the airport extreme and MacBookPro just wasn't up to it - took forever to work on videos, download pictures, music jumps fairly regularly etc. So I've kept everything on my MacBookPro which has now filled the hard disk completely. My plan is therefore to have all the video/music/pictures on an external hard drive connected directly (with FireWire) to my MacBookPro and then have the time capsule back up the MacBookPro as well as the hard disk connected to it on a regular basis. Will my Time Capsule be able to back up both the MacBookPro and its connected hard drive without having to rebuild my entire MacBookPro?

Unfortunately, Time Machine will not back up a non-HFS+ formatted drive. If it's important to have TM back them up, you need to format it to HFS+. You will then need to pick up a third party app such as MacDrive for the PCs to read the HFS+ drive. If this is the route you want to go, you will have to move the data off, re-partition to GUID and format the partitions to HFS+. Or go with a different backup program to back up these partitions.

How can I backup an external hard drive connected to my mac with time capsule?

The hard drive on my IMac is 500GBytes. It is just about full. I have purchased an additional drive to attach to it permanently through the Firewire 800 interface. My plan is to move my photographs and iTunes to the attached drive. I currently use 2TB time capsule to backup my hard drive. Can I get time capsule to back up the external hard drive as well?
Thanks,
Herb

Can I get time capsule to back up the external hard drive as well?
I assume that you are asking about Time Machine backups to the Time Capsule here, correct?
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Time Machine
Click Options
Here, you will see list of items that are excluded from backups. By default, the hard drive attached to your Mac will appear here.
Click on the name of the hard drive to highlight it
Click the - (minus) button to remove the drive from the list of items that are excluded from backups
Now, the drive will be backed up along with your Mac on the next pass that Time Machine makes, and any changes that you make to the hard drive will be backed up as well in the future.

How big should my external hard drive be for me to use Time Machine?

i am a student and dont have a significant amount of files and that on my computer so how big shuld my external hard drive be?
I will be using a normal external hard drive so will i be getting the full and the important features out of time machine if i do this?

There are two questions you should ask yourself:
1. How long will it take me to fill up my internal HDD?
2. How far back chronologically do I realistically expect to have go to retrieve data?
I submit that in the vast majority of cases, a HDD of the same size as you have in your MBP will be ample. If things change, adjustments can be made well in advance. Its the very rare user that will generate multi GBs of data and file changes every session.
As an example, I have a 750GB HDD in my MBP and a 750 HDD dedicated to Time Machine. The oldest backup goes back 7 months. At the rate that I update Time Machine, I expect the Disk to be filled and start deleting old data in about 3 months. For me, that is more than sufficient.
There is another aspect of backup strategy you should consider. I would highly reccomend that you have a second external drive to store your most important files that may be duplicates of those in Time Machine. All HDD will fail. You just never know when that will happen. If your Time machine disk expires, this way you are not left in a calamitious situation.
Though some of my views may be in the minority, the final decision is always yours.
Ciao.

Can I share an external hard drive across 2 machines both using Time Machine?

I have an iMac on Leopard and a MacBook on Snow Leopard and I want to use Time Machine to back up my iMac before migrating to Snow Leopard.
To do this I'm going to buy an external drive but before I buy it I want to check whether I can share this drive across my 2 machines both backing up using Time Machine.
Also from a drive capacity perspective is it sufficient that the external drive has the same capacity as the machine(s). If no then is there a multiplication factor that should be used.
Paul..

Hi Paul, you'll want to partition it into 2 Partitions, & ech {artition should be at least twice te size of the drive it's backing up, so 2*iMac's drive + 2*MacBook's drive for size.

How can I restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. Using Migrat

I would like to restore files from a time machine back-up of my iMac to an EXTERNAL hard drive connected to MacBook Pro. When I tried using Migration Assistant it only gives me my internal hard drive as an option to restore to. The internal hard drive on my macbook isnt large enough to store the files.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
OS X can only restore data to the drive where Time Machine backed up files from.
If you want to restore files from the Time Machine backup onto an external drive, your only option is to access to the Time Machine drive manually (open a Finder window and choose your Time Machine drive in the Finder sidebar), navigate through its folders and copy the files you want to the external drive

HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

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.

Do I need to keep my external hard drive connected at all times for time capsule?

Do I need to keep my external hard drive connected at all times for time capsule?

Hi,
I have a similar question. I have backed up my external hard drive through my computer, onto my TC. When I go into TM, it doesn't show the external hard drive unless it is connected to the computer. Can I access the info from the external hard drive that is on the TC if I don't have the hard drive plugged in? If so, how can I do that?
Thanks,
Bernadette

Time Capsule can't backup external hard drives connected to it. Got that.

Hello Apple Support Communities! This is my first post. Hope this finds you all well My first year as an Apple user. I bought a 2-Tb TC and am running my first backup to my MacBook as I write this.
Problem statement: TC can't backup external hard drives connected directly to it, but the ones connected to the Macs that are connected wirelessly to it. Duly noted. However, the Spotlight will reindex the hard drives connected to the Mac and that will take hours; the whole backup will take days. Thus, excluding the hard drives at "System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy tab" will probably help reduce the time of backup, or just ejecting them will do too. That itself has not proven effective coz it's still taking forever (50Gb in 2 days, still going).
Questions:
1) Do I wait until my first backup to my MacBook's internal hard drive is done before I connect my hard drives to my MacBook and attempt another backup? If yes, how do I go about the excessive time Spotlight reindexing takes if I intend to backup my hard drives connected to my MacBook?
2) Is there any other way of speeding up the first-time backup?
*Note: All versions of OS and firmwares are up-to-date. TC is connected to an external wireless router. TC is intended to be used as backup device and / or file server only.
P/S: Apologee if this has already been discussed before, thus, a link to previous discussion thread would highly be appreciated)
- Shook Hashem, Malaysia.

How do I backup the externel hard drives connected to my MB. I was under the impression that that has already been done, because I've read it somewhere in a discussion that said it's done automatically unless I exclude it from a backup, which I didn't. So it's supposed to backup the external hard drivestoo because I had them connected to my MB the entire time during the backups.
By default an external drive is excluded.. the list is odd.. if I plug a drive into the mac.. it immediately is listed as excluded.
This is not the list of included.. this is the list of excluded.. remove it from the excluded list to include it.
It is kind of reverse polish notation in backups.
If I want to enter the Time Machine, should I enter it with the TM turned on or off?
Not sure what the question means. If you use the star wars display and want to recover files then use TM off.. but read up pondini.. how to do restore etc.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
15A in particular on the how to use TM.
When do I uplug the ethernet and use the wireless connection instead?
Once you have finished the main backup you can go back to wireless. The incremental backups are mostly very small.

Backing up external hard drive to time capsule?

Hello,
I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro and am quickly running out of space on my internal HD. I currently back up my computer regularly to a simple usb-connected external hard drive (MyPassport; 500 gb). I would love suggestions for externally expanding my memory and for backing up both what is on my internal and external hard drive. I was thinking I could use my 500 gb external hard drive currently working with Time Machine as my place to store more things (thus I would erase all the backups on that disk and use it for more storage of new things) and get a new hard drive to back up my computer and external hard drive. I was thinking of getting a Time Capsule for this (to backup both my computer and an external hard drive). Can this be done? Can I back up both an external hard drive and my computer to a Time Capsule, and if so would I have to plug the external hard drive directly into the capsule, or how would I back up the external hard drive to the Time Capsule? Because I can not use a Time Capsule as a place to store new material and a place to backup that new material and my computer, I would appreciate any suggestions for expanding my storage and backing up that expansion and my internal hard drive.
Thanks in advance!

TM is no problem working with external drive and backing up both to the TC.. the external drive simply has to be available when TM is doing the backup.. and ensure it is not excluded in the TM preferences.

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule?

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule via the USB port? My current Time Machine has a total capacity of 1TB. I'd like to double or triple its memory. I don't want to use the external hard drive in lieu of the Time Capsule hard drive. I'd like to use it in addition to. Just don't know if/how it's possible.
This is another one of those questions that I've searched the web for answers, and have gotten tricky answers back. So now I'm trying to introduce a clean slate to the mix.
Thank you for your time!

Well, what you mentioning is possible. However, I don't know whether it's supported (as in, "easy to set up."). Time Machine officially supports backing up to a locally attached drive, to a machine running a Time Machine server (i.e. running OS X Server software), and to a Time Capsule. I don't know that it officially supports a drive attached to an AirPort or to a Time Capsule. Though I know some people have gotten it to work.
Best I can say is to try it. Plug the drive into the Time Capsule, ensure it's shared on the network, and then try and set it as a backup target from a machine in the Time Machine backup panel (you'll need to ensure it's mounted first). If it works, you're all set.

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and i can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help

I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and I can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help? I can find the mail folder in my libraries, but the Restore Button is grayed out

OSX treats the reformatted drive as a different one; it's the same as replacing it, and the old one is no longer connected.
See #E3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see and restore from the "old" drive.
And, you may not want to restore via the Finder; see the blue box in #15 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Time Capsule also backup an external hard drive connected to Mac?

My internal hard drive on my iMac Intel 2.4 20" is filling up so I'm looking at getting an external Firewire 800 hard drive to connect directly to the iMac. Can my Time Capsule back up my internal hard drive as well as an external hard drive connected directly to the iMac? I've searched for the answer but can't find a clear yes or no or how to set this up.
Thanks...

Yes, it's pretty much automatic. You can also control what gets backed up, as follows:
o In Time Machine preferences, Choose Backup Disk, then click Options. A list of locations that are backed up appears.
o To add a new "do not back up" location to the listing, click the "+" button below the list, navigate to the location you want to exclude and click Exclude.
o Click Done to return to Time Machine preferences.

Backing up external hard drive (connected to time capsule) using time machi

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