DON'T want to designate ENTIRE external harddrive to Time Machine

Hi I have a LaCie Porsche 250GB external harddrive for my MacBook Pro and it's in HFS+ format. I've already used up a lot of it and I have only like 73GB left on it.
My questions are:
1. Would 73GB be alright for Time Machine to use and;
2. Would Time Machine format and overwrite my other stuff which are ALREADY on the harddrive? Because I do NOT wish this to happen.
Thanks!

V.K. wrote:
The Random Sniper wrote:
Hi I have a LaCie Porsche 250GB external harddrive for my MacBook Pro and it's in HFS+ format. I've already used up a lot of it and I have only like 73GB left on it.
My questions are:
1. Would 73GB be alright for Time Machine to use and;
that really depends on the amount of data you want to back up. I would recommend to leave for TM at least 2-3 times more space than the total amount of data you are backing up.
I've heard other make that suggestion, and it's certainly appropriate for some users, but not all, maybe not even most.
The 'correct' size for a TM drive depends on a) the size of your drive, b) the rate at which your drive is being filled or changed and c) how far back you want your backups to go.
For example: I have a 160GB drive in my Macbook, that's mostly growing from email. I have an external 160GB drive for TM. My main drive is only about 60% full, and that's not increasing quickly. My TM drive has plenty of room to hold years of backups at the rate I'm going.
For users who are consuming disk space at a much faster rate, a larger TM drive makes sense. But I wouldn't depend on TM for long term storage of data which has been removed from your main drive, as it's not unheard of for TM to just stop working with an existing backup set, requiring it to start again from scratch.

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pitou wrote:
P.S. Stupid question: If my computer crashes, and I reboot from Time Machine
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DON'T want to designate ENTIRE external harddrive to Time Machine

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