Can I select certain drives only for Time Machine backup?

I have several internal drives and several external drives connected to my MacPro desktop computer.  If I backup everything in all of the drives using Time Machine, the capacity on my designated external drive for Time Machine backup will soon be filled.  Is there any way to selectively backup via Time Machine from  only designated drives, not all drives connected (internally or externally) to my computer?  Is so, how can that be done?  I assume that Time Machine will start deleting data when its capacity is exceeded.  If that is so, and I remove the designated Time Machine drive at that point and replace it with a new drive, will the removed drive thereafter be able to be reinserted and the prior material read and transferred as needed? Is there any way to utilized Time Machine after I insert the replacement drive to only archive new material saved after the switch of drives?

Yes, mount the drive by opening a new Finder window and clicking on your base station's name in the left column that says 'Shared'. Then double click on the drive name to mount it on your desktop. From there, open Time Machine prefs and select that mounted drive as your backup disk. Time machine will then back up to it. Theoretically.
If you want that disk to automatically mount every time you login to your computer, go to Sys Prefs Panel and select 'Accounts'. Then click 'Startup Items'. From there, drag the mounted drive's icon from the desktop in to that startup items list. It will then auto-mount from there forward.
I have had many problems backing up this way with Time Machine. It will, 9 times out of 10, fail over a wireless backup with an Airport Extreme Gigabit base station and a 1TB Western Digital My Book. Nothing seems to fix, so I have given up. When TM is finally fixed - I will use it. Until then, it's junk software as far as I'm concerned.
But - best of luck. The instructions above are how it's 'supposed' to work..

Similar Messages

  • Can two macs use same disk for Time Machine backup with Airport Extreme?

    Hi
    I use a Western Digital disk as a wireless Time Machine backup connected to the USB port on my Airport Extreme and it works great. My question is: can my girlfriend use that same disk for Time Machine backup from HER computer too? (I don't mind formatting the disk if needed.)
    If she can't, is it then possible to connect a USB hub and have two disks hooked up to the Airport Extreme?
    Thanks for helping. I am constantly in awe of all the help people like you give people like me. Thanks!!!
    Jakob

    I've gone through the manual setup and the assisted setup and can't seem to get my MacBook to use the Time Machine. Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated.
    Well, as the Jolly Giant points out....+this type of configuration is not supported by Apple+, so it's difficult, if not impossible, to provide a fix for something that Apple says that you cannot do. Reference these Apple Support documents regarding this topic:
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
    Your situation is not unlike other users who try this and find that one computer may backup...(usually for a limited time before corruption issues start to creep in)...but another computer cannot backup. Count me as one of those users who thought that because things seemed to work that I had somehow "beat the system".
    I started getting the corruption error messages after 4-5 weeks of successful backups, so I figured that it did not make sense to continue to try to get a second computer to backup (yes, I too could not setup a second Mac to backup).
    Sorry, I could not get a second machine to backup, so can't tell you how to accomplish that goal. If you want to continue to try backing up this way, you might want to also think about a second backup strategy...just in case backups become corrupted on the WD drive.
    Maybe if Apple says you cannot do this, they just may be right?
    Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

  • External Hard Drive only for Time Machine?

    I just bought a 500GB external HD and just ordered Leopard. I'm wanting to use the hard drive for my iTunes library rather than keep it on the internal HD due to the size.
    My question is, if I then use it for Time Machine, will it be only for TM or can I do both?
    And if I can do both, will it erase what is currently on there while setting it up for TM?

    Apple doesnt recommend it, but it shouldnt be any problem. Time Machine creates a backup directory in which it keeps all the backup info. As long as there's space you can use the drive for other items. I have an internal 500GB drive I use for backup, and I keep some large files on it. The problem will be sooner or later the drive will just fill up with backup info, and time machine at that point will dynamically erase the oldest backups but will not have space for storing other files. Basically dont rely on the drive to have space for storing extra stuff. Partitioning the thing will prevent this, but it will make your backup drive smaller.

  • Verbatim disk drive historically used only for time machine backups. Recently i added some other media files to use some of available space without partitioning, the disc now refuses to mount in finder despite appearing in disk utility. Repair fails. HELP

    Sorry to elaborate a bit more.
    I have used time machine since owning my mac book pro with no issues. i keep the timemachine backups on an external hard drive made by Verbatim. This has not external power source.
    Recently i decided to use up some of the available space on the external verbatim disk drive to store some movie files which were sitting on my macbook pro.
    Therefore i created a new folder outside of the time machine backup folder and stored the movie files in there.
    From then on Time machine failed... and a few days later i noticed it was not mounting in 'finder'
    Therefore i used disk utility to see if it was recognising it. Which i was. However when i try to repair it the repair process fails.
    In disk utility i am presented with 1 TB Samsung HN M10 which has a child called Verbatim HD.
    The 1TB Samsung hardware appears fine, but the verbatim disk i am unable to fully verify and fix.
    Does this mean i have lost all my back ups?
    Have I lost all the media that i put on there?
    Is there any way to fix this?
    Any help would be appreciated.
    didier07...

    To summarize: You used an external Verbatim HD for your TM backups. Then, you stored some movie files on the "spare" space on the Verbatim drive. Now, Disk Utility isn't being recognized, and repair is disabled. Your home Samsung drive is working fine, but the Verbatim cannot be verified.
    The problem, I believe, is that the external Verbatim drive wasn't partitioned. There should be two partitions: one for TM backups, the other for video. That way, you can perform backups, and still retain some space for video or somesuch.
    Frankly, I don't know how to fix this except through the following. (1) Erase the Verbatim drive, (2) Create a new blank space and format it, (3) Make two partitions - one for backup, the other for video. (4) Run TM through one partition, but switch to the other for your videos.  The better solution might be to have one dedicated drive (perhaps the Verbatim) for backups, and another dedicated drive for video backups; that way, you'll have plenty of space for expansion.
    I hope someone will correct me if I'm incorrect, but I believe you've essentially lost your backups and media. I don't know how you can retrieve that clump of the now-undifferentiated data on the Verbatim drive. To retrieve any lost data, you're going to require another external drive that's larger in capacity, as well as data recovery software; don't expect encouraging results. If you're desperate, there are firms like Drive Savers that can offer a more comprehensive solution - at a cost.
    Post if you have questions, or additional concerns!

  • If using 2 hard drives to for time machine backup is it possible to exclude files from one backup only??

    Hi,
    At work we have a network system that allows backup of everyones mac via time machine is there a way I can exclude certain files and directories from this backup without removing them from the private time machine backup that I have?
    Many thanks,
    Nick

    Time Machine is one app on your Mac, thus it will exclude the files on all back-ups. 

  • How do I password protect the external hard drive used for Time Machine backup

    Can anyone help me to put password protection on the external hard drive I use to Time Machine backup my iMac internal hard drive?  I use Snow Leopard 10.6

    I think that was FileVault 1.  Starting with Lion (10.7) Mac OS X uses FileVault 2, which is whole disk encryption.
    Based on complaints seen in these forums, I would say FileVault 2's only complaint has been when people forget their password/encryption key (it seems an encrypted disk does prevent anyone without the password from accessing the data, including the real owner).  Otherwise it does not seem to be causing any serious issues.  Your Mileage may vary and objects are closer than they appear in your side view mirror (standard disclaimer).  Of course this is all academic while you are using Snow Leopard (10.6).
    There are other whole disk encryption packages available, such as PGP Whole Disk Encryption, HOWEVER, I would not advise it for your Mac OS X boot disk, as it has been known to be a problem when you try to install operating system updates or upgrade to a new version.  NOTE:  I have not seen PGP Whole Disk Encryption discussed much, ever since FileVault 2 came along.

  • Hard drive specs for Time Machine backup

    My LaCie external HD has died an ugly death.  So I am in the market for a new drive to use as my Time Machine backup.
    I am looking at two Western Digital drives.  One has NTFS file system, the other HFS+.  Does this make a difference in terms of compatibility with my iMac and Time Machine?
    I am currently running OS X 10.8.5. but I may upgrade to Mavericks 10.9.  Does that influence this?

    Thank you for your quick answer to my question.  One other question:
    These hard drives all have usb 3.0 connections.  My iMac has USB 2.0 which will work but is much slower.  It also has a Thunderbolt port and a Firewire 800.  Do you know if are there adapters that allow the usb3.0 to connect to either the Thunderbolt or Firewire ports?

  • Can i use and old ipod for time machine backups?

    i've reformatted the ipod and enabled it for use as a hard drive. will it work with time machine? time machine doesn't seem to be recognizing it...

    Generally I wouldn't rely on the iPod for backing up because of how power and caching is taken care of on the iPod. Small files is one thing. But the spin up and down of the iPod can make backups unreliable if done of a system as a whole.

  • Is a flash drive reliable for time machine backup?

    Setting up time machine. Wondering if a flash drive is reliable for this purpose. Thanks for any views. mjkjk

    By default, Time Machine makes a full backup of your entire drive. My guess would be that it would fill your entire flash drive, or within a very short time.
    You could exclude all but your data files, I suppose.
    Time Machine works on an exclusion basis, not an inclusion basis. So, you'd have to go through and exclude lots of stuff to force it to only backup your data. That's why I suggested one of the other methods.
    I guess I neglected the other part of the question because I really don't know about the reliability. I have heard that you shouldn't trust your data to them. But remember, what I've heard could be complete hogwash.

  • External drive use for Time Machine change to "Read Only"

    I have an external hard drive set up for backing up with Time Machine on my Mac. It has been working well. Now when time machine tries to back up it tells me the external disk is read only. The hard drive does mount to the computer and will let me open the Time Machine folder. When I am in disk utility it also sees the external hard drive but will not let me click on repair disk permissions. Under the drive info's sharing & permissions window it said " You can only read." , After unlocking everything is grayed out, but the permission is set to read & write. Any thoughts on how to get this drive back to read and write? Its a 2TB drive with 1.79TB on disk. The drive has not been ever used on a windows machine or use on any other computer and is use only for  Time Machine backups. One day it was read/write next day read only. Thanks!

    The backup drive has malfunctioned and corrupted itself. If that has ever happened before, or if it ever happens again, replace the drive. You may want to consider replacing it anyway for the safety of your data.
    You should start another backup now, on another drive, if you don't already have one. One backup is never enough to be safe.
    If you choose to keep using the problem drive, turn Time Machine OFF temporarily in its preference pane, then launch Disk Utility, select the backup volume, and run Repair Disk. This operation may take several hours. If the volume can't be repaired, you'll have to erase it and start over. Don't do that unless you have at least one other complete backup. Remember to turn TM back ON.

  • I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine

    I want to know about time machine if i can use the hard drive that i use for time machine back up as a normal hard drive too or if it's only for time machine
    and if it yes i want to know if i have 1TB hard disk to use the 500gb for time machine and the other 500gb for normal use

    thank you very much because i am considering to buy the porsche design hard disk 1TB and i want to have it for normal use and for time machine is a pitty to give 1TB for back up only again thanks and i know seperate the back and the working jobs are better but the i have to have 2 hardisks and i want only 1

  • I have a lion server set up to host storage for time machine backups. Is there a limit to how many different computers can back up to the single server to back up. I am only backing up the users folders . The backup drive is an external Drobo with 6 TB.

    I have a lion server set up to host storage for time machine backups. Is there a limit to how many different computers can back up to the single server to back up. I am only backing up the users folders . The backup drive is an external Drobo with 6 TB. Right now it seems to back up my users all day long. I set their time machine interval to every 5 hours but it still runs all day long and is very slow. Server is on a new Mac Server mini.

    AFAIK, there is no user limit.. it is simply a question of the network load. AFP is a fairly clean protocol.. but TM is not.. it does a lot of testing of the backup.. infact your setting of 5hour gap could well make it worse.
    I would sort out the clients that are doing 100GB backups to a different backup location.. no matter how fast your network.. 100GB takes time to backup.. and over wireless forever.. it will never end.
    I guess some of these clients are on wireless?? I would separate the TM of wireless to those that are wired. No more than 4 or 5 wireless clients to a target device. Otherwise you are saturating your network with backup data. And use 5ghz.. so close by.. it is much faster than 2.4ghz and you will get much better transfer rates.

  • Lion won't install can't select hard drive that is used for time machine backups

    I installed Lion, agreed to the eula but both drives are greyed out. My Macintosh HD - ( this dirve is used for time machine backups) and my external drive (this drive does not use the GUID Partition Table scheme...). Though I don't use time machine, I tried turning it on and selecting the external drive with no luck. I'm stuck - any ideas?

    "Backups.backupdb" if the file in Time Machine.  As the discussion says, you have to find that file and trash it.  Try spotlight to locate it.  If that does not work, down load OmniDiskSweeper from the Internet (free) and go through an organized search to find "Backups.backupdb".  If that takes too long or is too tedious, then if you have everything backed up, erase the HDD and start from square one.
    Ciao.

  • Select certain files for Time Machine backup?

    Is it possible to select only certain files for Time Machine backup? Or does it automatically backup everything, including what you don't want saved?

    Time Machine will backup all user files unless you select the ones you do not wish to have backed up.  see the attached from System Preferences:
    Ciao.

  • Unable to select two drives for time machine backup?

    I had a notification from Time Machine saying "This backup is too large for the disk..." and that I needed to omit items or select another drive. I've read online that it's possible to select multiple drives for Time Machine backups (so it switches between the available drives). When I go into Time Machine preferences and click "Select Disk" the drive I want to use in addition to my current Time Machine is there, but when I choose the additional drive I do not get the option to replace or "Use Both" (like pictured). Instead the additional drive is selected as the sole Time Machine and the current Time Machine drive is replaced.
    In short, Time Machine is not giving me the option to "Use Both" - why would this be and how do I remedy this?
    Thanks.

    The reason is that that feature is Only offered in "Mountain Lion" OS X 10.8; and you are using "Lion" 10.7.
    Hope this helps

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