Can TM be set to backup an external drive

Let's say I want to store all my digital photos on an external, instead of an imac's internal drive. Can TM be set to back that volume up to a second external (or, I guess, to another partition on the same external)?
Thanks,
Corey

Yes. Open Time Machine Preferences. Then click options. You will see a window that says *Do Not Back Up*. Find the hard drive or partition you want to be included in your back up and remove it from the list. It will come up in your Time Machine window when you use it. I use it to back up my storage drive where I have important stuff.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backup on external drive no longer working after upgrade to Yosemite

Can anyone explain why, after upgrade to Yosemite, Time Machine is no loger working? Backup on external drive stops few seconds after it has started. What can I do?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Try running a DVD Lens Cleaner disc through it, a little bit of dust or dirt is all it takes to throw them out and it might just be co-incidental with the upgrade.

Using Time Machine to Backup an External Drive (RAID 1)

Is it possible to backup an external drive to another external drive using Time Machine in Mountain Lion?
The following diagram describes what I want to do. I am basically trying to use Time Machine as an external RAID 1 system. However, I don't want to buy a RAID 1 box. I want to have control of TWO OR MORE time machine setups. I don't want to backup my OS every time. I simply want to backup one external drive to another external drive. The drives are 2TB each, so the advice to buy a big hard drive to back everything up on won't work. Also, I am often swapping drives and would like to use this system for all of my projects and all of my drives. Any help would be great. Thanks for your time.
NOTE: I am on Lion and wanted to know if this was possible before upgrading.

To be clear, TM can back up your external drive perfectly well, provided it's in MacOS format. What it can't do is back up the external drive alone to one destination, and everything else to a different destination.
As for what you should use instead of TM, I don't really have an opinion. SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner are well regarded. You need to make some decisions about backup strategy before you choose a backup method. TM makes incremental backups, so you can revert to any of several earlier versions of a file. Those third-party products can do that too, though not as efficiently as TM. Also bear in my mind that a single backup is inadequate. You need more than one backup to be safe, and to be truly safe, at least one backup must be stored off-site at all times.

Can you edit fcpx directly through an external drive?

Hello everyone,
So I've been wondering recently but can't find much in the way of answers on the internet. Are you able to hook up an external drive and actually edit the project directly on the drive through Final Cut Pro x? I have been considering getting a couple g drives with thunderbolt to speed up my backup process but wondered if it's possible to edit right there. Don't know if it's practical or not. Has anyone done it? Thanks all!

Videorock1 wrote:
I'm trying to do just that, but I can't get FCPX to acknowledge any external drive, other than to import from one. The drive I want to use exclusively for FCP projects is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). But it won't show up in FCPX. What am I not doing right?
Are you using 10.1.1? Hard drives don't appear in the interface as they did in previous versions.
When you create a new library, you choose where you want to store it.

Can Disk Utility get SMART status from external drives?

I recently updated my backup plan with a NewerTech quad-interface dock and a WD Caviar Green hd. I'm using the FW800 interface to connect to my iMac (10.6.7) Everything works perfectly, as expected. I noticed, though, that Disk Utility cannot report the SMART status on the new WD drive. DU simply says "Not Supported" under SMART Status.
Is Disk Utility telling me that it doesn't read SMART status from external drives? Or is it telling me that the new drive doesn't support SMART (which I would find highly unusual)? And, if it's Disk Utility that can't read the status, are there any third-party apps that can report the SMART status on an external drive?
Thanks,
JimC

Unfortunately I cannot speak to the NewerTech enclosure, but in principle it appears to be possible to have SMART information displayed even for external drives if the enclosure's bridge controller chip allows it.
My experience:
I've used two MacPower Pleiades FW800/400/USB/eSATA enclosures for several years and I've now supplemented them with two additional inXtron enclosures. They all work as expected daisy-chained to the iMac.
The interesting thing is that the inXtron enclosures came with a CD with some software on it ("Smart AP") which is not available for download, notably a Dashboard Widget for displaying actual and maximum temperatures, total hours of operation, start/stop cycles, drive model and serial number.
This widget is complete garbage, though – it is a nauseating nightmare of extreme over-design at the expense of even basic usability:
http://www.inxtron.com/information-center/smart-ap-for-external-hard-drives
To make matters even worse, it can only display the above information for the first external drive connected.
BUT: This Widget internally calls a command line utility which does the actual parameter retrieval, and that one can be called from the terminal as well.
So after installing the software from CD and effectively discarding the Widget, I checked out the command line utility in the Terminal and found that this utility actually reported data about ALL my enclosures, both the inXtron and the MacPower ones (there seems to be firmware compatibility across these):
(The '$' is supposed to be Terminal's bash prompt – type in only the rest of the respective line.)
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 1
29 50 13 8
53 67 645 15829
52 53 90 7105
51 52 18 13
Each line reports the following for one connected enclosure:
[temp] [maxtemp] [cycles] [hours]
The drives are reported first USB, then FireWire drives, each in the order of first connection / mounting.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 2
WD-WCA**************
WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
WD-WMA**************
WDC WD30EZRS-00J99B0
Each drive gets two lines reported, first the drive's serial number ("***" blocking out my exact ones), then the drive model.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 3
29 50 13 8
WD-WCA**************
WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
53 67 645 15829
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
52 53 90 7105
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
51 52 18 13
WD-WMA**************
WDC WD30EZRS-00J99B0
This combines both of the above.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 5
disk4
disk1
disk2
disk3
This reports the mounted disk names (referring not to the volume names but to the internal Unix names as in /dev/[drive]); Numbering is in connection / mounting order, the actual sequence is as always USB drives, then FireWire drives.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 6
USB
1394
1394
1394
This reports the connection interface for each drive in the same sequence as all other commands.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 7
MPT934DS1.20.0104.00
MPT934DS1.20.0104.00
This might report the firmware revision or something like that.
These are the commands I know about, and they apply only to the "Smart AP" software supplied with current inXtron enclosures, but it may be possible that other brands use it as well.
I have not been able to identify information about the self-test (early(?) failure warning), but it might be contained as well in the data reported above.
As always, your mileage may vary and you should never do such experiments without FIRST making sure you've got backups of your data and that such backup is not connected during experimentation!
Maybe this can help some people getting the information they need; And maybe there are similar capabilities with other enclosures. At the very least it demonstrates that with the proper firmware in the enclosures themselves and some software on the Mac it IS possible to get at least some of the SMART information from the drive in an external FireWire- or USB-connected enclosure.
None of that is fed into the system's "official" SMART mechanism, though, so no luck using standard mechanisms or applications for it. It's strictly a command-line affair (deservedly disregarding the mishappen Widget).
Good luck!

Updated to Mavericks OS X but can't use my external drive by WD My Passport. The Mac reads it but I can't add/remove files to the external drive. Help?!

Updated to Mavericks OS X but can't use my external drive by WD My Passport. The Mac reads it but I can't add/remove files to the external drive. Help?!
The WD My Passport, I purchased back in early December 2013 & I just used it the other day after I updated my Macbook... & of course it says in the online manual it works for Mac Lion, Mountain Lion, Snow Leopard but not this new Maverick update. Is there anything I can do?

I like the free demo of SuperDuper to make clones. It's free, Tiger and Leopard ready and is easy to use. If you buy the full version you can do incremental backups.
You should use Disk Utility to do a Disk Repair, as shown in this link, booted up on your install disk, before you make a clone of it.
I then partition my external disk, in Disk Utility, with a partition that is the same size , actually a tad bigger, as my system disk. I then use SuperDuper to clone my system disk over to that partition.
With a clone on an external FireWire drive (USB drives are not bootable on some Macs) you can bootup on it to do your repairs or just run your Mac anytime you have trouble with your main drive. Be careful, there are a few external FireWire drives out there that are not bootable on Macs. Check the drive's manual to be sure.
 DALE

ITunes Error Code -36. Unable to BackUp to External Drive.

iTunes Error Code -36. Unable to BackUp to External Drive.
As of yesterday 9th Jan,2009, I am unable to backup up all
my 79Gb iTune tracks unto my external Iomega MiniMax Hard drive.
Which is very odd, as I never had a problem doing likewise
in the past.Each time it went smoothly and as planned.
Drag and drop procedures.
Here is the error message I keep getting every time I
try to execute the transfer:-
The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data
in"FBCIndex" could not be be read or written.
(Error code- 36)
Tried all previous soloutions including repairing and fixing
Mac Hard Drive using Disc utilities.
Should I do an Archive and Install or perhaps deleting the
iTunes preference files...all possible soloutions will be gladly
recieved.I'm in your hands.
My Music is my life... you probably
can relate to my level of anxiousness in this one?
CJ

*I should have been a Genius!*
Problem solved; I can now drap and drop to update
my itunes folder without any error messages etc,.
Memo to self and others.
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS when updating your OS
install the COMBO update and not what Software Update selects
for your particular Mac in Software Update.
CJ

What is the best way to backup my external drive?

Since it seems you cannot backup an external drive via Time Capsule (as far as I can tell) does anybody have a good solution for backing up an external drive? I keep all of my media (roughly 230GBs) on an external drive but I am not backing it up as of now for lack of a solution.
Thanks in advance

If the data is from your computer then you have a copy with your Time Machine. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone the hard drive.

How can I export a project on an external drive in the latest version of iMovie?

Before the latest release of iMovie I easily managed to export a project on an external usb drive and re-import such project on a different Mac... In the latest iMovie version, however, I cannot see my drive any more..
So, how can I export a project on an external drive in the latest version of iMovie?
Thank you in advance

I'm not sure this is the best way, but you could create a new iMovie Library, move your project to that Library, then close the library. Then move the Library to your USB drive. Then, on the other Mac, in iMovie open the Library.

Can I create a full backup on google drive by moving my user folders to Google Drive Folder?

Can I create a full backup on google drive? Google suggested I simply move my folders (Pictures, Music, Downloads, Documents, etc) into the google drive folder. But these seem to be automated files involved with Mac's organization... will this create problems for my computer? Ie. if I import new photos, or download music, will my computer know where to put it if its in google drive?
If this is a problem, how else could I possibly create a full backup of personal data on google drive (or any similar syncing service, for that matter). iCloud is prohibitively expensive, and programs like crash plan and carbonate run so slowly and bog down my computer so much that they are not worth it. Google drive seems simplest and most competitive in price, but I am worried about moving my folders.
Help?

Google Drive also installs a client--a google drive folder on my hard drive that is programmed to sync changes automatically to the cloud--that allows me to drag and drop. I suppose my original concern was about dragging files from my hard drive (such as "pictures" that would contain my iPhoto library, etc) into it. Would that mess up Mac's internal organizational system? If I drag and drop my pictures folder, music folder, etc. into the google drive client folder in Finder, will those applications still function correctly? Will my mac still be able to figure out where to put photos I import from my camera, etc?
I am only as tech savvy as I have to be to survive professionally as a traveling teacher, so I am looking for something pretty straightforward that will free up some of my brain waves for other activities, rather than remembering which folders I have made changes in and need to sync.

Leopard. Did a full restore from Time Machine. Now I can't access my other internal and external drives. I get the following error: The folder "Capture Video" can't be opened because you don't have permission to see its contents.

Leopard. Did a full restore from Time Machine. Now I can't access my other internal and external drives. I get the following error: The folder “Capture Video” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents. I have repaired permissions pn the main harddrive. When I try too click on a disk I get the previously stated error. I can't even open up information to see what permission/access there is. It simply will not let me see the content. It shows the content of my main hard drive when I have clicked the other harddrive's name.

Solved:
sudo chflags 0 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chown 0:80 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"
sudo chmod -N /Volumes/"FCP Time Machine BU"

How can transfer images from lightroom to LaCie external drive?

How can i export images from lightroom toLaCie external drive?

Hi welcome!
It's possible that your description of what you want to do is a bit ambiguous.
Are you wanting to move your images from an internal drive to an external drive?
Are you wanitng to actually export images out of Lightroom with the destination being an external drive (a very different propostion to the above option)?
Is there something else that you are actually wanting to do?
Also Lightroom does not hold the images themselves.
Lightroom has a database (called a catalog) that references the location of images that have been imported.
Tony Jay

I have a macbook 2007, os 10.6, can i load 10.7 to an external drive because it wont load on my mac say i do not have enough memory

i have a macbook 2007, os 10.6, can i load 10.7 to an external drive because it wont load on my mac say i do not have enough memory

If your computer doesn't have enough disk space, yes.
If your computer doesn't have enough RAM, not without installing more.
(123435)

Can I register a seagate wireless plus external drive as one of my iTunes devices to fix storage problems

Can I register a seagate wireless plus external drive as one of my iTunes devices to fix storage problems?

And or use it at the same time my ipod is using a public wifi source for the internet doing my homework?

I seem to have a corrupted iTunes library. I can't transfer the library to an external drive. The transfer hangs up on a specific tune. Anybody have any ideas. I am running OS 10.6 w/ a 2Ghz Duel core processor.

I seem to have a corrupted iTunes library. I can't transfer the library to an external drive. The transfer hangs up on a specific tune. Anybody have any ideas. I am running OS 10.6 w/ a 2Ghz Duel core processor.

Old Barry wrote:
via a usb connestion
So you are copyinbg the entire /Music/iTunes? folder to another drive by copying in a Finder window?

Can TM be set to backup an external drive

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for