Backing up one external drive to another

Question

I'd like to use Time Machine to periodically back one drive up to another one, but I don't think its set up to do that. Can anyone recommend a good way to keep two external drives (or portions of them) synced with each other? Thanks!

Answer 1

Terabithia wrote:
I really like Time Machine, and I wish I could just run another version of TM that would back up drive 1 to drive 2, while still using it to back up my computer to drive 1. But I guess that's not possible,
Ah, but it is. TM will back-up your internal HD plus one or more externals, to another external. In fact, it will do that unless you specifically tell it not to. (It would back both up to a separate partition on the external, but that's obviously not the best idea.)
You have several good options:
First, simply get a bigger (or second) internal HD, and an external big enough to back up everything with TM.
Second, get the bigger or second internal HD, and a Time Capsule big enough to back up everything with TM. TC's aren't cheap, and the initial backup will take forever (although there are ways to speed it up), but as long as you're in range, TM can do it's hourly incrementals wirelessly.
Third, perhaps better than #2, get the bigger or second internal HD, and an Airport Extreme, and connect a USB drive to it for TM. That's still fairly slow, but has some advantages over a TC.
Fourth, get another external big enough to back-up both your internal HD and your current external (and delete the TM partition on it).
That leaves the off-site problem. As much data as you're talking about, transmitting it all will take a very, very long time, even with a fast cable modem. Recovering it would be faster, usually, but still quite long. And renting that much storage will cost some money.
One alternative would be a Blu-Ray disc burner. I believe you can put about 50 gb on a disc, so doing that periodically and taking them off-site might be practical.
Or a portable external drive. If you use the first option above, just get a pair of portables. Use one for a week or so, then take it to your safe deposit box, relative's house, workplace, etc., and swap it with the other one. All you have to do is tell TM when you change drives, via TM Preferences > +Change Disk,+ and don't go more than about 10 days between swaps (so TM won't decide to do a full backup).
If you do the Time Capsule or Airport thing, then get one portable, bring it to the MacBook (or vice-versa) periodically and do a backup to it.
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Which of those (or some variation, or something I haven't thought of) is really best, only you can decide.