External drive partitions for Time Machine

Questions:
     1.  Do I need to have a two partitions on my external hard drive, one each for my iMac and another for my MBPro?
   2. Do I need to partition to use both Time Machine and SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Clone.?
   3. Which is better to use for backup if you need or want to retrieve a specific file?
Thanks for your help.
Vernon

1. No. Configure each machine's Time Machine preferences separately. Time Machine will take care of the rest.
2. Yes. You must clone to a freshly formatted drive or partition on a drive. I suggest you use two separate drives. One for Time Machine and the other for the clone. This way you have a good backup in case one fails.
3. I don't understand the question. Which "what" are you referring to? If you mean choosing between Time Machine and a clone, it's better to have one of each. The more backups the better.

Similar Messages

  • External hard drive partition for Time Machine wont mount

    I have an external HD that I've partitioned half for Time Machine, and half for external storage. Today the Time Machine partition wouldn't show up on the desktop. I checked Disk Utility and it recognizes both partitions, but the Time Machine partition is greyed out. When I selected it, in the stat list at the bottom it said "Mount Point: Not Mounted." I then clicked on "Mount" at the top, and after a bit a popup told me it couldn't mount and I should attempt to repar the disk. So I clicked "Repair Disk," and after a while, I finally got the message "Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
    Why is only one partition affected? Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched? Are there any other options before I do this?
    One other item that is probably related: I've been having an issue with a flash drive that seems to constantly unmount itself, giving me "error, disk ejected improperly" messages. Earlier today I believe I had the same thing with my external HD.

    Why is only one partition affected?
    The drive malfunction that caused the problem only affected that partition.
    Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched?
    Yes.
    Are there any other options before I do this?
    This is not an option, it's mandatory: start a new backup on another drive. The one you have has lost data once already. If it were mine, it would be in the recycling bin now. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway. Apparently you have no backups at all of the data on the other partition. That means you're going to lose that data, sooner or later.

  • External drive use for Time Machine change to "Read Only"

    I have an external hard drive set up for backing up with Time Machine on my Mac. It has been working well. Now when time machine tries to back up it tells me the external disk is read only. The hard drive does mount to the computer and will let me open the Time Machine folder. When I am in disk utility it also sees the external hard drive but will not let me click on repair disk permissions. Under the drive info's sharing & permissions window it said " You can only read." , After unlocking everything is grayed out, but the permission is set to read & write. Any thoughts on how to get this drive back to read and write? Its a 2TB drive with 1.79TB on disk. The drive has not been ever used on a windows machine or use on any other computer and is use only for  Time Machine backups. One day it was read/write next day read only. Thanks!

    The backup drive has malfunctioned and corrupted itself. If that has ever happened before, or if it ever happens again, replace the drive. You may want to consider replacing it anyway for the safety of your data.
    You should start another backup now, on another drive, if you don't already have one. One backup is never enough to be safe.
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  • How to format an external drive used for time machine

    My 150 Gig external hard drive showed too full for a time machine backup. It only showed 20 gig left. So I moved the time machine backup on it to the trash to make room for a new one. This did nothing. With the files in the trash the drive still shows full even though it has no time machine backup on it.
    So I would like to know how I can format this drive again to get it to accept a brand new time machine backup. Or how do I get time machine to recognize the drive as empty instead of full.
    I now know I should have at least a 500 gig drive to let time machine make it's plethora of backups. But the 150 gig drive is what I have right now to backup an 80 gig hard drive and I would like to start from scratch.
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    With the files in the trash the drive still shows full
    You need to empty the Trash before anything is actually removed from the drive.
    If you want to completely erase the drive, launch Disk Utility, select the drive, go to the Erase pane and click "Erase".

  • Can I drag files to an external drive used for Time Machine to store them?

    Is that possible without doing partition? if so, what's the difference (with partition and without)? I'm undecided on whether to partition or not. Thanks!

    stellamaris5 wrote:
    Sorry to chip in - I'm having a similar issue.
    Aaargh.
    I want to delete about 8Gb worth of data from my internal HD on my iMac. Will I still have a copy in time machine?
    For a while, until time machine runs out of space and deletes its copy.
    Is timemachine then deleting them from the TM backup disk if they are gone from the internal HD.
    Eventually, yes.
    I have done a similar thing as the OP and cut the 8Gb folder from my MacHD and pasted it into the external disk where TM is doing its backups.
    Then you are wallowing in a state of sin.
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    No.
    or
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    Not at all.

  • Making a new external drive available for Time Machine over wireless network

    I connected a new Seagate 2T external drive to my iMac to increase backup capacity using Time Machine.  I have a 1T Time Capsule.  I am backing up to the Time Capsule wirelessly to another Mac in the house.
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    See #22 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • I am setting up a time machine backup to a external Hard drive.  I want to backup by Mac book Pro running OSX 10.8.5. I would like to Partition the disk and use one partition for Time machine backups and the other for my Lightroom backups. How to do this?

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  • External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

    Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
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    Hi Christian,
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  • External hard drive used for Time machine is full and having a hard time backing up. what should I do?

    External hard drive used for Time Machine is full and having a hrad time backing up. What is my best option moving forward? NAS?

    For All things Time Machine see Pondini's Excellent Infirmation here...
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  • Are all external FW drives used for Time Machine more prone to fail?

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  • How much should I partition for Time Machine/Backup?

    Hi all,
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    Also, I was thinking of formatting the drive so that it's both Windows and OS X friendly, but that means formatting it to MS-DOS something (I was just reading about it in another thread), will that cause any issues for the partition for Time Machine that I created? Thanks.
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  • External Drive Stolen with Time Machine Back Ups

    Hello,
    Sorry if this has been posted before. I scanned through a few pages of posts and didn't see anything.
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    Thanks!
    DH

    As Donald says, the data can be accessed.
    Your backups are as secure (or insecure) as your Mac -- if someone steals either, they can get at your data fairly easily, if they know what they're doing, unless it's encrypted.
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