Can I time machine backup using 2 separate Ext. HD?

I have a MBP.
I have 2 ext HD.
Can I make a time machine back up on my Lacie ext HD and later make a backup on the WD ext HD?

It is a link that explains 'how to'.
http://pondini.org/TM/34.html

Similar Messages

Copy Time machine backup using a different Mac

A friend has a Time Machine backup from an iMac that he sold some time ago. He's concerned that the drive might fail so wants to make a copy of the backup, but doesn't have a Mac at the moment. So he'd like to use my MacBook to copy his backup drive. The backup is about 400GB, my HD is 256GB and he'd like to copy it to a new 1TB drive.
All the answers that I can find to similar questions assume that the Time Machine backup belongs to the Mac making the copy, in this case it doesn't. So is there a way to copy a Time Machine backup using a Mac that wasn't used to create the backup?

Hi ozRob,
If you would like to copy an existing Time Machine backup from one drive to another, you may find the following article helpful:
Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5096
Regards,
- Brenden

HT201250 After restoring from a time machine backup using migration assistant I can't log in

Hi, I recently bought a Mac Pro and using a Mountain Lion boot disk I made installed a fresh ML install which went fine. During the final part of install it gives you the option of restoring user data etc etc from a time machine backup which I have from my MacBook Pro which again in principal went fine until I went to log in when I got the message 'An error has occurred unable to log into this account a this time'.
Looking on the web I thought at first it was a password issue so restarted with command-r and reset the password, however the same error still occurs. I don't think it is password issue as if you deliberately enter the wrong password it rejects it immediately where as with the correct password it hangs for about 15secs before throwing up the above error.
Can anyone offer any advice?
The only thing I can possibly think of is that on my MBP where the time machine backup is from my home folder is on a 2nd HDD that is not the boot disk and I only have a single HDD on my MacPro.......

You might try to access the desired Time Machine backup from "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" (click Time Machine icon in the Dock).
Also, you might find some help here.

Can I delete individual Time Machine backups using Finder

I recent fount necessary to do a complete install and restore. As I was having trouble with system performance, I chose to restore Applications from Time Machine and set the system parameters manually. In the process, I wound up with some very large (50 Gbytes) on my Desktop. I neglected to turn off time Machine backup while doing the restoration and wound up with several big(!) files in the back ups taken during the restoration. There is nothing useful on the backups taken during the restoration and they have really filled up my backup disk. Looking at the structure of the backup disk, it seems you could just delete the backups after I started to restore things. Are there other considerations? Are there hidden tables laying around that might become unsynchronized?

Hi Kappy,
Thanks for the lead. I did not realize there were these capabilities other than restoration in Time Machine. I looked in the help for Time Machine and found this
"You can move, copy, or delete the Backups.backupdb folder on your Time Machine backup disk as you would other folders. You can also delete folders within the Backups.backupdb folder. You can’t delete individual items inside the dated folders."
Seems like I can just delete, with the Finder, the backups taken after I started the restore.

Can a time machine backup also be used for archive storage?

Can the same time machine backup drive also be used for archive storage from another Macbook?

The way TimeMachine works you can guarantee that anything on your computer now will be backed up and archival copies kept. But there are two caveats. First, TimeMachine trims backups. For 24 hours they are hourly (approximately). Then the most current will be trimmed and a week worth of daily backups will be kept. Then the week will be trimmed to the most current version and the weekly backups will be kept until the drive is too full. At that point the oldest weekly update(s) will be erased to make room for the next hourly backup. When trimming occurs, files that were backed up but are no longer on your computer will be trimmed. This is the second caveat.
Since this trimming is automatic rather than under your control TimeMachine isn't a good archival backup system. Two programs that I can recommend that do have true archival ability are CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSync. Both allow you to decide what gets archived and how many archival periods to allow.

I deleted my Time Machine backups using Finder, now the trash won't empty

Hello
I've just been to the Apple genius bar and thought this was solved, there the trash emptied no problem. But I realized that the problem has to do with two external drives that have time machine backups on them. I deleted some of the older back ups because my drive was filling up and I didn't see any other way to delete them.
Now they can't be reinstated back where they were, and the trash won't empty using any method. I've even tried the Terminal SUMO methods on here and other sites, and the Trashi It app, and Cocktail app - nothing works.
The only solutions I've found say to wipe your back up drive completely and start over but that is NOT an option as I have ALL of my photos on there. I use my external drive for my images (I am a photographer) and use time machine to back up my MacBookPro onto there as well. I had no idea deleting those was going to be an issue. Now I've tried to delete other things on both external drives and they are all stuck in the trash.
Someone please help!

photogirl67 wrote:
I use my external drive for my images (I am a photographer) and use time machine to back up my MacBookPro onto there as well.
Not a good idea, as you've learned the hard way.
And especially bad in the same partition, as you can't just erase the TM partition.
Plus, how do you back up the images?
For best results, consider getting another external HD; one for the images, and one for TM. Then you can have Time Machine back up both your Mac and the external. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for details and considerations.
But my question for Pondini is this - if I use that command will it erase that entire drive, or just the trash on it?
Just the trash folders. I've reworded those instructions a bit, hopefully more clearly and safely, and put them in #E6 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

6th Generation Airport Extreme Freezing During Time Machine Backups using LaCie 1TB Hard Drive

I recently upgraded from a 4th generation Airport Extreme (short, dual band n) to a new 6th generation Airport Extreme (tall, dual-band ac) in the hopes of having quicker backups and better WiFi performance (I also just got a 13" retina MacBook Pro).
The upgrade has gone poorly, to say the least. Initially, I set up the new Airport Extreme as I had for the old one. Then I plugged in the same hard drive I was using (a LaCie 1 TB d2 Quadra USB2 drive that I bought in June of 2009). I decided to setup my wife's Time Machine backup first (she has a 2010 MacBook Air). I removed the "old" disk (the one associated with the old base station) from her Time Machine configuration, and set up her Time Machine configuration to backup to the same disk on the new Airport Extreme. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it picked up her existing Time Machine backup and incrementally synchronized to it (the backup size was about 300 MB). A few days later, she warned me that Time Machine told her that backups were not working. When I went to look, it was indeed failing.
I tried a few things that didn't work, and I suspected that maybe the backup "transfer" hadn't gone so smoothly as it seemed, so I decided to erase the drive using Disk Utility and start the backup over again. To my disappointment, I found that the backup got about 200MB-1.5GB into the backup and "froze." I left it overnight, and it was at exactly the same place the next morning. The light on the disk connected to the Airport Extreme flashed constantly all the time, and I could hear it spinning, but nothing happened at all.
When I tried to stop the backup, it took a very long time. In the logs, I would see a message like this (this log is from my machine, not my wife's, but it looks the same):
11/19/13 9:40:59.276 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Forcing deep traversal on source: "***-mpbr" (device: /dev/disk0s2 mount: '/' fsUUID: 7356274E-D28F-3BC0-9CA8-7F1AA21830B4 eventDBUUID: 99941F9A-AD5F-4FAF-94D2-701C94CA9581)
11/19/13 9:41:57.609 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Total content size: 148.2 GB excluded items size: 17.16 GB for volume ***-mpbr
11/19/13 9:41:57.610 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Found 674166 files (131.05 GB) needing backup
11/19/13 9:41:57.611 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: 152.52 GB required (including padding), 498.67 GB available
11/19/13 9:41:57.625 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
11/19/13 9:59:22.407 PM UserEventAgent[11]: com.apple.backupd-auto launchd job disabled
11/19/13 10:00:15.103 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Cancellation timed out - exiting
Looking at the Airport Extreme in Finder, I saw that it got stuck, either "Connected as" me, or "Connecting...". The Airport Extreme wouldn't respond to the "Disconnect" or "Connect As..." buttons (depending on the context), and the eject button for the Airport Extreme itself in the sidebar was also unresponsive. Eventually, after 2+ minutes, I got a dialog saying "Couldn't connect to [my base station name]" with instructions to "check its IP" and contact my system administrator if the problem persists. During this time, Finder can seem frozen and unstable.
Through all of the above, the hard disk kept spinning and the light flashed constantly. The drive was warm to the touch in the morning.
I also found that when all this happened, I was unable to connect to the Airport device using Airport Utility. I I couldn't administer it, but the Internet continued to work for all connected devices. Unplugging the disk and plugging it back in worked immediately to bring the system back to a working state. I didn;t even have to power-cycle or reset the Airport Extreme.
I tried a number of things to correct this behavior:
Disabled Time Machine, removed disk, restarted machine, reconfigured Time Machine, and retried.
Tried backup on my 13" Retina MacBook Pro and my wife's MacBook Air.
I actually tried with TWO new 6th Generation Airport Extremes. The first one was a refurbished one. I returned it to Apple and purchased a brand new one. Both of them exhibited the behavior I described above.
Workaround:
Finally, I switched the drive out for a spare that I have (an older Western Digital MyBook and used it for a backup. This drive "Just worked."
So, I have switched to that for backup for now, and re-purposed the LaCie as a drive that I use for making periodic images of my hard drive using SuperDuper. The drive seems to work perfectly (and worked perfectly for several years with older Airport Extreme base stations), so I can only assume there's a bug in the USB driver of the current 6th-generation Airport Extreme.
I hope this helps someone else who's as confused as I was. If anyone has had a similar experience, I would very much like to read about it. I will be reporting this problem to apple right after I post this topic. Please do the same if you experience this issue.

As Bob says, backing-up that way isn't supported.
It's also unreliable. It may work for a while, but this forum, and the Time Machine forums, have many, many posts like this:
*"I've been backing-up via an Airport Extreme for* <some number of days, weeks, or months> *and all of a sudden my backups are corrupted beyond repair."*
In my case, it's happened about 4 times in a year. And that's with a desktop Mac, about 12 feet from the Airport, with the exact same hardware in exactly the same place and no interference.
It is very convenient, especially with laptops. If you want to take the risk, see [Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Airport.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
But do yourself a LARGE favor and take the prominent advice to keep secondary backups, and update them frequently. Sooner or later, you're probably going to need them.

Access time machine backup using AFP

i have lion installed on my macpro and have been using an extrernal NAS by Thecus for my Time Machine backups (which has worked without issues). My OS drive got corrupted due to a poweroutage, eventhough i had a battery backup i was not around to properly shut down my mac, so now i can no longer boot to os x, its stuck on the apple logo screen. I decided to restore from my Time Machine backup but ran into some trouble since the backup is on a network storage drive folder. I found this article here: http://gigaom.com/apple/how-to-use-time-machine-over-a-network/ , where i found instructions on how to mount this external drive folder using terminal. I followed the instructions and i can view in terminal that i successfully mounted the drive/folder, however on the "select a backup source" screen for Time Machine in the mac recovery utility the mounted drive does not appear for me to select. Does the recovery utility not allow to restore from a network backup source using AFP? please help! thank you in advance!

I have done as you suggested and clicked on the show original but I get this message " The volume cannot be found. Insert the disk or connect to the server volume and wait for it to appear on the desktop, then try again." I have the external disk already connected as that is what I am trying to recover the file from i.e. where I find the aliases. Any further suggestions. Thanks

Airport Extreme and Time Machine backups using a USB drive

Hi there,
I checked through the threads/FAQ's for an answer to this but couldn't find anything...
I have an AE set up with a USB drive attached as my Time Machine backup drive. When I start my MBP up and initiate a forced backup, Time Machine will go and find my drive (via the AE), mount it and carry out the backup without a problem. However, if I start my MBP up and wait for the scheduled hourly backup, TM doesn't see the drive (or perform the backup) unless I go and manually mount the drive first.
I realise I can put the drive in my login items to auto mount on boot but I wondered if there was a way to get the scheduled backups to work without doing this (as with the forced backups).
Thanks

mattschenker wrote:
Pondini,
Actually, I wasn't thinking about theft. I was just thinking that for security in a possible data-loss "event," it was better to have the backup drive physically separated from the main computer. But maybe that's not necessary.
That's unlikely. A power surge could take out both your Mac and connected external HD. You do have your Macs on good surge protectors or, better yet, U.P.S. systems, right? If not, see [Using a U.P.S. System with a Mac|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/UPS.html].
But wherever the external HD is, unless it's on a surge protector or U.P.S., it's still exposed.
Other things causing data loss are even less likely to affect your Time Machine drive (especially if there's no other data on it).
Yes, I could hook something up to my Mac Mini. Good point! And that would really keep it separated, since it would be in an entirely different floor. But then again, Time Machine backups done wirelessly would probably take forever.
The first one, yes. But if you have a good WIFI connection, subsequent ones shouldn't take too long or be too obtrusive, except when you've updated a lot of data (like installing an OSX update).
See #22 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for setup instructions.
But this just shows that there are a lot of options.
Yes.
I do wish Apple would solve the problem of Time Machine working via the Airport Extreme. That would be my favorite option.
Not likely. Time Machine's been out since Leopard, about 3 years, and backups via an Extreme have never been reliable or supported. Just why they work well on a Time Capsule, or even a USB drive connected to a TC, but not an Airport, is a mystery, but that's the way it is.
But it's always a good idea to keep secondary backups. See #27 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some suggestions.

Time Machine Backup using Active Directory account

I have two macbook pros (running 10.6.4) using Active Directory accounts and I am trying to backup them up to an Active Directory integrated XServe (running 10.6.4) with a shared Time Machine backup point. I open Time Machine preferences, select the disk, entering username and password, and it starts trying to make the backup disk available. However, it quits and gives me the following error - the network backup disk could not be accessed because there was a problem with the network username and password. The username and password are correct. I have tried three different accounts and they all produce this error.

This happened to an issue AFP. I had AFP authentication set to use Kerberos. I changed it to use "Any Method" and it is working properly.

Can the Time Machine backup drive be Internal?

Does the backup HD for Time Machine HAVE to be an external drive?
I want to install an 2nd internal drive into my 2006 Mac Pro and use that as the Time Machine backup for the main boot/storage drive.
An internal drive would save space and eliminate the extra cables and power supply.

Kappy is correct, of course.
But I'd add a strong recommendation that you also do some sort of secondary backups, so if something truly awful happens to your Mac, you don't lose everything.
See Kappy's post on Basic Backup, complete with links to the web sites of each product.

Can a Time machine backup be moved from one hard drive to another.

Hello
There are a few questions tucked away in here...
1
My Mac crashed due to a Kernal Panic (screen was flashing) this was happening over 2 weeks so I decided to restore from Time Machine. During a restore the Mac crashed again. So I aborted the restore. When I sparked up the Mac again the Mac's drive had been wiped So I used the OS Snow disc to restore again. When I went to my Iomega back up drive it's power had failed. The upshot is, is that right now i have lost everything. No Backup and no Mac. My external drive is with a data recovery company. I am hoping that they can access the drive and drop the backups onto another external drive (very expensive). Before I commit to this expenditure, if they are successful in accessing the drive, can the TM backups be moved in that way (from one HD to another) and will my Mac recognise these as backups for my machine and thus successfully restore?
2
If all else fails can my Mac be recovered
3
Once that is done i am hoping that the Kernal Panic is resolved, if not I may seek advice also on this. Right now i need my data..
Thanks for any advice
Mark

Pondini Wrote..
the first folder shown (343775 - rycaft DATA) doesn't belong there. I'm guessing it contains some of the "loose" files that the recovery software couldn't figure out where it came from. And/or, it may contain the system files and folders that are normally hidden on a Time Machine drive.
Hi there, the first folder is where the recovery company dropped the recovered hard drive (root) - In an attempt to put the backups at the 'top of the tree' so TM could see the files i pulled the backups file out of there..so what is left?..... I believe it is other files I had on the BU hard drive before it failed. You can see that I have an apvault on there. This is aperture's internal back up. I have not yet tried installing aperture to see if these files can be recovered into aperture. It's an old vault but the best I can get so far. As you can see though, my Itunes folder seems to be a carbon copy of what was on the original HD. I've included a screen shot of this structure also.
Pondini wrote
Did you get the original Time Machine drive back? If so, it's a very long shot, but if it wasn't tried before, see if you can repair it with Disk Utility, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
funily enough I have requested it and since paying the fee to recover this HD they wont respond to emails or calls requesting (My) hard drive back.....
So i tried right clicking the iPhoto Library and Aperture Library and I cannot see Show Package Contents.
ds store wrote:
Just thought I'd mention this software, if it assists in your TM recovery efforts or not, may have special abilites or assets to recover your files.
http://www.tri-edre.fr/english/backintime.html
Now then.... here is a screen shot from your suggestion.........
Looks like we've cracked it..... after i've stopped shaking I will let you know how i get on.....

Time Machine backups using a non time capsule drive.

Hello
I have a western digital My Book Essentials 2Tbit external hard drive which is partitioned 1/2 formated for Mac 1/2 for PC. When the hard drive is directly connected to the Mac time machine and the backup work just fine. But once I connect the hard drive to my wireless hub (Netgear N600) Time Machine does not seem to want to use it for back ups.
I can find the drive and folders with the mac. Infact time machine can tell there is a back up on but it still seems to not want to use it for the backup.
I have done the hack of using terminal and typing
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1.
With this it seems ready to perform the back up but once it tries i receive 'disk image could not be created (error 45)'
Does anyone know how to get this to work??
thanks

I used the same hack for a while but when the drive got full it deleted everything - so I went out and bought a NAS that supported Time Machine. There is another way to do it using a sparse bundle but I've not tried it myself, more about that here: http://pdaddy.wordpress.com/2009/04/04/my-take-on-the-unsupported-time-machine-h ack/
or here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071108020121567

After upgrade to Mavericks I can do Time Machine backups but I cannot have access to them

After upgrading my iMac 20" (early 2008) from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I can backup with Time Machine and I can see that the copies have been made. But when I enter to Time Machine mode, all these copies in the right bar goes from pink to translucent in some few seconds, and I cannot have access to them.
I have a dedicated external 400GB HD for the copies, formated in Mac Os Plus, and I can go there and open, copy, etc. any file "manually", so, the copies are right (I guess).
Any idea about why I cannot "go back" in Time Machine, although it "sees" the disk, and the copies exist?
Thanks in advance for your help.

After upgrading my iMac 20" (early 2008) from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, I can backup with Time Machine and I can see that the copies have been made. But when I enter to Time Machine mode, all these copies in the right bar goes from pink to translucent in some few seconds, and I cannot have access to them.
I have a dedicated external 400GB HD for the copies, formated in Mac Os Plus, and I can go there and open, copy, etc. any file "manually", so, the copies are right (I guess).
Any idea about why I cannot "go back" in Time Machine, although it "sees" the disk, and the copies exist?
Thanks in advance for your help.

I can see Time Machine backups for only last 10 days.

I lost majority of my Documents content.
To my surprise Time Machine has partial backup of that folder for only last 10 days.
Can I somehow access previous backups (that are not visible)?
thx

When you Enter Time Machine, do the older backups appear in the timeline on the right at all?
If they do, but the little "tick marks" are faded-out and you can't select them, see the pink box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #15A.
If the backups don't appear at all, Time Machine probably ran out of space on the backup disk, and had to delete old backups to make room for new ones. If so, your backup drive is probably too small. See #1 in the above link.

Can I time machine backup using 2 separate Ext. HD?

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