Does time machine automatically backup external hard drives?

Hi
I have 4 external disks connected to my macPro and a 5th which I am using to backup too. In the TM prefs I have selected the drives & specific folders that I DON'T want backed up. Can I assume it will back EVERYTHING ELSE up, including the external drives?
I conducted an experiment - I unmounted one of the external drives (my main Logic projects disk), then entered TM. I COULDN'T FIND the Projects disk even though the BackUp disk was still mounted! So if there was a problem with the Projects drive HOW would I access my backed-up projects?
I don't have much faith in TM at the moment.
Cheers
Chris

Hi
Time Machine will back up the files for all users, as well as the system files.
best,
Matt

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Use time machine to backup external hard drive (not main one)

Hi all,
I've searched for information on this and getting nowhere. Not sure if it's possible, but I have two USB hard drives now as I've run out of space on my laptop. So therefore I really use one of the hard drives for my main storage and drag files across to the other one to back that up.
It would be easier if I could just use time machine to back up the one external hard drive to the other. I don't want to just replicate what's on my laptop hard drive.
Does anyone know if this is possible? Would appreciate any help.
Cheers
Paul

Thanks for your reply V.K. much appreciated.
I have gone into the options and I can see my external drives there, but for some reason I can't remove them from the exclusion list. I can add and remove the Laptop HD from this list, but for some reason the "-" button becomes disabled whenever I select the external Hard Drives.
Is there a reason for this? I've been using both drives for a while, so they are both Mac formatted.
Thanks again.

Does Time Machine support an external hard drive attached to Airport?

I was interested in setting up my external hard drive to my Airport Extreme base station and use Time Machine wirelessly. I have seen a few different answers on the forum and I'm wondering whether this is possible. (I do not have Time Capsule.) If so, can you provide an easy step by step as to how to set it up. Thanks!

Yes it's possible. Connect the drive and open Airport Utility. Click on the Manual Setup button. Then click on the Disks icon in the toolbar. Select the disk and turn on Sharing.
You can then open TM preferences where the shared drive should appear in the list of drives. If it does not show up then you will need to "mount" the drive by selecting Connect to Server from the Finder's Go menu, then double-clicking on the shared drive's icon to login as a registered user.
Note that this is not supported by Apple.

Does the new airport extreme support backing up via time machine to an external hard drive pluged into the usb port

Does the new airport extreme support backing up via time machine to an external hard drive pluged into the usb port

Yes, but you might want to note that the port on the AirPort Extreme is only USB 2.0, and that it runs at about half the speed of the USB 2.0 port on a computer, so things are going to be quite SLOW as far as backups are concerned, or anything else for that matter.

HT3275 Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough

Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough space for the current backup. It needs 34 G out of a 250G hard drive. All that is on the drive is earlier backups. I recently added memory, which may confuse Time Machine into thinking it is a new computer. How can I erase old backups and complete this one?

Walter Goodman wrote:
Time Machine says my external hard drive does not have enough space for the current backup. It needs 34 G out of a 250G hard drive. All that is on the drive is earlier backups.
See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that doesn't clear it up, how much data is on your Mac? If TM is only trying to back-up 34 GB, it should be able to delete old backups to do that (assuming you're running Lion).
It sounds like your backups may be corrupted. Try to repair them, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
I recently added memory, which may confuse Time Machine into thinking it is a new computer.
If that's all you did, no.
How can I erase old backups and complete this one?
Just erase the drive per #1 or #2 of Using Disk Utility.

HT201250 i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. do i keep my files in the portable hard disk when I connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will era

i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. Am i keeping my files in the portable hard disk when I will connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will erase all?
I would like to know if after I erase all my data, empy hard drive inside the macbook, the time machine will erase all my files that I have saved in my "WD "My passport" external hard drive

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine has to erase the external disk in order to make backups. Before setting Time Machine up, copy the files of your external disk to the hard disk of the Mac in order not to lose them, and then, set up Time Machine. The first backup will start automatically.
If you want more information about Time Machine, read the Pondini's site > http://pondini.org

Time Machine on an External Hard Drive - used with another computer or mac?

I'm planning on selling my computer but want everything that is on my Mac saved so when I can afford to buy a new computer I will have all of my files, music, pictures, etc. I hooked up Time Machine to an external hard drive last night. So everything should be saved to the external hard drive now right?...will I be able to open any of those files on another computer using my external hard drive that has my backup on it? For example, if I have my resume as one of the files can I plug in my hard drive that has my Time Machine back up on it to open edit and resave the file? Or am I better of manually saving the files to the external hard drive without using Time Machine?
Please help...I need to sell my computer but don't want to lose any of my stuff on it...
Thanks!

Time machine works great for the file you accidentally delete or modify even if you need to go back months and months. There are better solutions when you really just need to clone your existing system like CCC or Superduper. A clone is more flexible when it comes to getting your stuff. The only downside is you will lose the multiple copies time machine keeps. The upside is you know exactly what's on it and you can boot from it if needed. The file structure is definately more stable on a clone.
A time machine is OK for what you're doing. I just think a clone is better. The choice is yours.

How do I move data on time machine from one external hard drive to another

How do I move data on time machine from one external hard drive to another?

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule?

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule via the USB port? My current Time Machine has a total capacity of 1TB. I'd like to double or triple its memory. I don't want to use the external hard drive in lieu of the Time Capsule hard drive. I'd like to use it in addition to. Just don't know if/how it's possible.
This is another one of those questions that I've searched the web for answers, and have gotten tricky answers back. So now I'm trying to introduce a clean slate to the mix.
Thank you for your time!

Well, what you mentioning is possible. However, I don't know whether it's supported (as in, "easy to set up."). Time Machine officially supports backing up to a locally attached drive, to a machine running a Time Machine server (i.e. running OS X Server software), and to a Time Capsule. I don't know that it officially supports a drive attached to an AirPort or to a Time Capsule. Though I know some people have gotten it to work.
Best I can say is to try it. Plug the drive into the Time Capsule, ensure it's shared on the network, and then try and set it as a backup target from a machine in the Time Machine backup panel (you'll need to ensure it's mounted first). If it works, you're all set.

How do I use my Time Machine as an external hard drive to just dump files no longer needed on my computer?

How Do I use my time machine as an external hard drive?

Time Machine is software that allows a Mac to backup to a Time Capsule or other hard drive, so I think you are asking about the Time Capsule here, correct?
http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/
How do you plan to connect the Time Capsule to your network, or is it already connected and configured?
When you have it configured on the network, you can use the Finder to copy/paste or drag/drop files from your Mac to the Time Capsule disk.

HT1553 DO I HAVE TO HAVE THE ORIGINAL INSTALLATION DISCS IF MY HARD DRIVE IS REPLACED BUT I MADE A BACK UP WITH TIME MACHINE TO AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ?

I have an imac from late 2009 and received an email saying the seagate hard drive may fail and apple is going to replace it free of charge. I will back up using time machine to an external hard drive but do I absolutely have to have the original installation CD's or is there a way around this to restore the computer once they replace the hard drive??

Yes, you can partition your 2TB drive that way. In fact, I have an external hard drive with 3 partitions: one for a SuperDuper! clone of my Snow Leopard partition, one to clone my Lion partition, and one larger partition for Time Machine (which only backs up the Lion partition).
I would expect the authorized reseller to have a complete set of OS X disks.

Time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line

can anyone help
time machine not seeing external hard drive in time line
before 2013
information say in 2009 is not accessable to view this
i must select external drive from finder
the time machine icon not recognising

thanks for reply
when i open time machine the time line on right side of page
has date ranging from 2014 back to 2010 but only highlight date from 2014 back to 2013
anything before 2013 is greyed out and cannot not be selected
when i touch the pages they only rush towards me a limited amount then stops
also why it shows date as 2014 is strange

Using Time Machine to restore external hard drive data

I have been using a Mac Mini running 10.6.8 for years as a media server. I have always been very careful to maintain backups of everything, and the inevitable did happen - the hard drive containing all my media did fail.
To clarify my set up, my Mac Mini internal hard drive is insufficient to store all my media, so I have been using an external 2TB drive to store it. I then set up Time Machine to back up both the Mac Mini and the 2TB external drive to a second 3TB external drive. Now that the 2TB drive with my media has failed, I seem to be having problems restoring all the media from 3TB drive. This is because the Time Capsule interface is designed to display finder windows at various points in time so you can go back to when your missing files existed and restore them. The problem is that I need the entire contents of the dead 2TB drive restored to a new drive, but I can't open a Time Capsule window that shows the contents of the old drive. I have tried opening /Volumes in a finder window, then invoking Time Machine, but my dead hard drive does not show up in the list of volumes. When I open the 3TB drive in a Finder window I can clearly see that it has backups of the 2TB drive, but they are spread out among 83 different snapshots of various dates.
How can I use Time Machine to easily restore the entire contents of the dead 2TB external drive to a new external drive?

This web site might answer all of your Time machine questions:
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Ciao.

Using Time machine with an external hard drive and AEBS???have a

I have a 500GB external hard drive that I have connected to my AEBS by USB. Recently upgraded to Leopard but cannot get time machine to see my hard drive.
The base station is 802.11n.
Is this possible?
Have read a few other threads and can't seem to get to the bottom of it.
Thanks,
T

In addition, when you get Time Machine to be able to see your external drive connected to AEBS, in TM prefs exclude all but one small folder from your hard drive (say, /User/Library) and allow TM to do its initial backup. This will create the sparsebundle (resizable disk image) that TM uses to back up to a network drive.
Then turn off Time Machine, unmount the USB drive and reconnect it directly to your Mac, mount it, set TM prefs to use the sparsebundle that newly-mounted drive, remove previously excluded items from TM's exclusion list, and turn TM back on. TM will then back up everything much more quickly than if connected wirelessly.
After that, you can return the USB drive to the AEBS. Incremental backups take much less time, so the slower connection won't matter as much.

My 5 year old iMac's hard drive is at the point of failing. I'm trying to save al files on it, but it wont allow backup via Time Machine to an external hard drive. How can I keep from losing all the files and programs if the hard drive fails?

I'm concerned that my iMac, purchased 5 years ago, is about the crash and I can't back up my files and programs to an external hard drive via Time Machine because the computer freezes after only a couple hundred MB and gets nowhere near the required amount.
How can I save these files and programs if the computer hard drive fails or has to be replaced without the backup being able to be done? I need to do something quickly, but I'm not sure what I can or should be doing.

Get an external hard drive, some good ones that I like are the OWC, http://www.macsales.com Mercury Elite Pro drives...they are very good and reasonably priced.
Get the drive, connect via USB or FireWire, then use Disk Utility to format the new drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), and then use Disk Utility to Restore the current drive to the new drive. Restore actually clones the drive so you will have a bootable backup on the external drive.
After you have formatted and named the external drive, click Restore in the main Disk Utility window, drag the name of the old hard drive to the Source box, and drag the name of the new external drive to the Destination box. DU will make an exact clone of the internal drive on the external drive.
That clone will be a complete backup of the operating system and all of your data.
You can test it by restarting the iMac and hold the Option key. That will give you a grey screen showing all bootable drives. Just click the external drive, then click the upward pointing arrow under it and the iMac will boot from that drive.

Does time machine automatically backup external hard drives?

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