Can you use time machine to back up an external hard drive?

I haven't used Time Machine so far and setting it up now.
Because my retina MBP has the limited hard drive size of 500GB, I'll be using a 2TB G-Tech hard drive as external hard drive.
I'll be partitioning it, 500 GB for the MBP as a time machine back-up, the rest as a hard drive for photography RAW files.
Can I set up time machine to back up the larger partition (the one with the RAW files) to a second external hard drive? Or does Time Machine only handle back-up from the main computer hard drive?
thanks!

Try reviewing this information.
Time Machine FAQ
You will definitely need more than 500 GB to use Time Machine - see question 1.
Time Machine works with the main hard drive and any locally attached storage, but I don't know of any way to make it backup the second partition without resetting the Time Machine Preferences. You can do that with a cloning program.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Two backups are better than one. Drives do fail.

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I think you want to make backups without connecting a hard disk via USB. In other words, you want to have the data storage be shared in your home wirelessly.
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Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
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Using Time Machine to back up an external hard drive

Hi,
This has probably been asked a lot but i'm struggling to find an answer. I want to back up my external hard drive using Time Machine but i'm not sure how to do it?
Is there a way that I can connect my external hdd and create a back up that is stored on my mac?
If this was possible, does Time Machine take a snapshot or does it duplicate the data (in other words would this take up a huge amount of storage on my laptop)?
I don't use Time Machine as I generally don't store anything on my laptop, but my external HDD holds all my photos.
Any help is much appreciated.
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I recently began to use Adobe Lightroom 5 (I continue to use Aperture, as I have for years). All of the Lightroom image files and catalogs are on one external hard drive, which I use on my iMac, my Macbook Pro, and in the digital labs of a school where I'm taking a course.
Not yet having developed a protocoI for creating a back up of all my Lightroom image files and catalogs that I could use in the event of my Lightroom-dedicated drive's failure, I have just done a drag and drop of the whole drive's contents to another external drive (which, as it happens, I have been using for some time for my Aperture vaults).
I am thinking of removing the dedicated Lightroom drive from the excluded list of my iMac's Time Machine (which uses yet another external drive), so that I can easily and automatically create back ups of changes to the Lightroom external drive without having to do the cumberome and inelegant drag and drop at some yet-to-be-determined frequency. (The Macbook Pro uses a Time Capsule for its Time Machine; I envision using only the iMac's TM external drive for Lightroom backups.)
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Hi,
I recently upgraded to Leopard and am trying to use Time Machine. I have one external hard drive that is used specifically for the Time Machine Backup, it's called "Backup Drive". The other hard drive is called "Captured Memories" and is used to store my graphic design files. Time Machine seems to backup my iMac because there is a folder called iMac and it contains the files, but the folder for Captured Memories is blank. I was getting errors saying that the backup failed but when I clicked the "Back Up Now" option on Time Machine, it doesn't list the error - but the Captured Memories folder is still blank so it didn't back up that external drive. I also changed the Spotlight preferences so that it does not search the Backup Drive.
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The Free Agent Pro drives both have a sleep timer that I cannot adjust, does that have anything to do with why Time Machine won't backup the Captured Memories drive? If that is the case, what other software can I use to backup the Captured Memories external drive? I want it to sync to the Backup Drive because I am constantly saving and moving files around on the Captured Memories drive.
I was using a Memeo backup software that came with the Free Agent Pro drives but the problem I was having is it would make copies of files rather than move them. For example, I have a folder on the Captured Memories drive that is called, In Progress and one that is called In Proofing. So once a project is complete, I move the file to the In Proofing folder. The Memeo software would copy the file to the In Proofing folder rather than move it. So I'd end up with 2 copies of the file, one in the In Progress folder and one in the In Proofing folder.
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What do I do?
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First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

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https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201

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Linc Davis wrote:
You can't back up the internal drive of the Time Capsule with Time Machine. It will only back up locally attached storage devices, not network devices. There's no way around it. You may be able to back up the TC with third-party software such as "Carbon Copy Cloner," but it will be very slow. The internal drive of the TC is only suitable for use as a backup device. It's not suited for storing original data.
yeah well you can use the external hard drive as a data extension to the time capsule internal hard drive. like a RAID in effect...

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Linz19

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
tmutil compare | open -ef
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
The command may take several minutes to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Don't post all the output; just read it yourself. Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.
Caution: Under some conditions, tmutil may falsely flag files as not having been backed up when in fact they have been. It can be confused by multi-linked files, or by files with a modification date earlier than the one in the snapshot. This will not be an issue for most users. If the results of the above procedure surprise you, inspect your snapshots directly.

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Hi my iMac running Mountain Lion has been broken beyond repair but fortunately I have a very recent Time machine backup. I backed up the entire machine and from memory there was about 1.4 TB of data (mostly photos, movies etc)
I want to replace the iMac with a solid state drive air or MacBook Pro however 1.5TB doesn't go into 256GB.
My question is - Can I use my Time Machine backup to restore all my large files to an external drive hooked up to whatever new computer I get, and still use it to restore programs, emails, system settings etc to the new computer. Even if I can't restore system settings I can do all that manually, my main concern is getting the files from Time machine to an external hard drive.
Thanks in advance for any help!
SB

Check here if it helps you but BE VERY CAREFUL!!!
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1399
Cheers
Simon

Time machine not backing up my external hard drive

I tried removing my external hard drive from the excluded list which is available in "option"(time machine prefrences)... but it just does not back the external HD on the time machine hard disk... it does not give any message, when I open options back I still find the HD in the list which I have already removed from there... i recently upgraded to mountain lion, it all worked fine in snow leopard before... please help!

Sorry, i don't have an anwser, but i have a similar sounding issue...
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I'll let you know if i find out more.
J

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I have a Lacie external firewire hard disc connected to my iMac, containing Aperture library. Will Time Machine automatically back up both the external disc and the iMac HD?
Adrian

Will Time Machine automatically back up both the external disc and the iMac HD
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock) and open Time Machine
Click on Options
Do you see the name of your Lacie drive in the "Exclusions List"? If yes, the Lacie drive is currently not set to backup with your Mac.
Click on your Lacie drive to highlght it, then click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the "Exclusions" list.
Now, Time Machine will backup both your Mac and the Lacie drive on the next pass. Allow plenty of time for this backup, avoiding wireless if possible, and connecting the Mac directly to one of the Ethernet ports on the Time Capsule. Ethernet will go 3-5 faster than wireless, on average.

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yes, you can add those other drives to TM's exclusion list in TM system preferences->options. drives attached to the computer for the first time are placed on the exclusion list automatically.

Can you use time machine to back up an external hard drive?

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