How do I set Time Machine to alternate between two attached external drives (so that if one fails I will have a separate backup to use)?

Hi Everyone.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Right off the bat let me say I am using Mavericks 10.9.1 on a 2011 Macbook Pro and using all Lacie external hard drives.
I am trying to get Time Machine to alternate between two attached external hard drives, trying to be safe in case one of the backup drives itself fails.
I have both drives set in Time Machine.
From what I gather Time Machine should by default alternate between drives when backing up (I would assume it does one big initial backup on each then subsequent backups are just changes).
But this is not how it seems to be working and I cannot find a straight answer despite much Googling and Foruming
Unfortunately it seems to only be backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
There have been 4 backups since I set it up, all on "External Hard Drive 1", even though "External Hard Drive 2" is also attached and set in Time Machine.
I manually clicked "Back Up Now" and it started to work on "External Hard Drive 2" (like I want it to) for a minute but it appears to have stopped and gone back to backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
Am I missing something? Does Time Machine only move on to another disk when the first one runs out of space? Do I have to turn one off in order to force it to back up to the other drive (that would be less convenient of course)?
I am hoping that I am missing something and that it will just alternate between the two. Otherwise it is not the most comforting and thorough backup system as I had hoped when I purchased the additional external hard drive.
I have a 1TB drive and a 500gig partition on another drive, both dedicated to backups (my Macbook HD is 475gig). It will take awhile for each to fill up and who knows what could happen during that time. Having Time Machine alternate between hard drives would be a nice small bit of security if the worst happened.
I realize that there are tons of other options for backing up but I just want to use Time Machine if I can.
Again thank you for your help!

You cannot use Time Machine in that way. I'm not sure where you heard that Time Machine alternates between drives automatically. What you can do is create a mirrored RAID array for the backup. This automatically duplicates whatever is on one drive onto the other drive.
Both drives must be the same size, and prefereably, exactly the same make and model. RAIDs can be configured using OS X's Disk Utility.
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server:
Hardware and Service Comparison.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

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Ideally, I would like a prompt asking if I want to include the drive in theTimeMachine back-up after I connect it. Anyone know how to set this?
or
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perranegra wrote:
It worked beautifully before and would update only when I plugged the firewire drive in and also if I left it over 10 days it would remind me to back up the computer.
Right, the behavior hasn't changed between SL and Lion.
I would have liked the option to set times / days when I wanted.
SL didn't have this, any more than Lion does.
Also now I have a greyed out icon with a warning sign and clicking on the preferences it helpfully tells me the last back up has failed.
Because it DID.
I am usually happy with the updates and tweaks but this is one I am not happy and would appreciate a solution or at least a work around.... and no I don't like having the default to Time Machine as off!
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Go to Time Machine Preferences > Options.
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If the internal HD isn't listed in the exclusions box, click the plus sign at the bottom, select it on the next window and click Exclude so Time Machine will quit trying to back it up.
And while running from the external, to view the backups of the internal HD, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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After plugging my new external hard drive into my computer, however, I am finding only alias files and I do not know how to restore my data so I can access all of the files again.
Does anyone know how to restore my time machine data from the cloned data I had transferred from my broken external hard drive to my new external hard drive?
Thanks!

morrisck wrote:
An update - I finally took both of my HDs in to an Apple store and they confirmed my fear: only alias files had been transferred from my old drive, meaning Geek Squad charged me $100 for 850 MB of unusable files.
That has been clear since early in this thread.
Geek Squad has agreed to retry the process
Why pay them to do what you don't need done??? Get a refund and buy an enclosure, which you should have anyway for backups.
but I'm now wishing that I had received more sound advice when I brought the drives into them in the first place.
Don't know who gave you that advice, but I sure wouldn't trust them with my data!
The Apple rep. informed me that my HD works perfectly fine and that it just needs a new enclosure (which I can buy for $20 online, as opposed to paying $100 for a data transfer).
Ummm, the action to take seems very clear to me . . . .

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I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up, but I have no idea what I'm doing. The first time I backed anything up I just copied and pasted again, from both the first drive and my MacBook, which is ridiculous and took hours and is pathetic.
I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have. Any advice on how to set this up without losing my data would be appreciated. Thank you!

1980qt50 wrote:
I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up
That may not be large enough. It varies greatly depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. So add-up the space used on your MacBook's internal HD and the amount used on the other drive. If that's less than 500 GB, you'll probably be fine. If it's between 500 GB and about 750 GB, it might work, at least for a while.
I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
Most likely, piece of cake.
After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have.
No, Time Machine won't wipe out your data.
First check the Format of the media drive. You can do that via +Get Info+ in the Finder. In the General area of the Info panel it will show Format. If it's any variation of +Mac OS Extended,+ then Time Machine can back it up. If not, your best bet will be to switch drives -- format the new one for your Mac, copy the data to it, then erase and reformat the old one to be used for your backups. Post back for instructions if you need to do that.
You should erase and format the Time Machine drive with a single partition, per #5 in the FAQ.
When you're ready to start Time Machine, click the Options button in Time Machine > Preferences. See if the media drive is listed in the exclusions box; if it is, select it and click the minus sign. Then Time Machine will back it up.
You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial

Time Machine running on Linksys WRT600n with external drive.

Hey Folks,
After searching the internet for the answer on how to setup OS X Time Machine on my Linksys WRT600n with storage link, and finding nothing or only parts of what I needed, I finally got it to work. Hopefully this will help you in your setup.(this should work for any linksys routers with storage link.)
1) First you will need to attach your external USB drive to the Linksys Router, and format it using the linksys utility. This will format the drive as fat32 so it can be access by the mac and the router.
2) You now need to create a share on the drive using the Linksys utility (I called mine "TimeMachine") and grant R&W permission to it. I found and article that said you have to create a group called "root" and a user called "root" within that group, then grant the group R&W access to you share. I did this but I am not sure if its required. you may be able to edit the default "admin" account.
3) Once you have the share created you should be able to access the share from your mac by logging into it using your (Linksys) "root" account and password. Make sure you can save a file here. You maybe able to create a folder but make sure you can save a file (.doc for example).
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defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Hit enter, and close terminal.
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parameters:
- Volume name: "Time Machine" (has to be this to work)
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled);
- No partition map
- sparse bundle disk image
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(eg. "joe's MacBook Pro_000000000000.sparsebundle")
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I have found the wireless backup to take a bit of time to prepare and run but it seams to work nonetheless. The slowness could be caused by the difference in mac addresses from wired to wireless. So you may want to change the sparse bundle file name depending on how you are accessing time machine.
Hopefully this will work for you as it did for me.

I am afraid I have to pour some cold water on your enthusiasm.
Yes, what you say can get TimeMachine working, but there is a nasty snag:
WRT600N uses FAT32 for its external harddrives and (regretably) understands nothing else. FAT32 has two restrictions:
1) Maximum file size is 4GB
2) (a lesser-known one) Maximum number of files in a directory of 65,535.
The first restriction isn't really a problem because Time Machine organizes its data in 8MB "bands", which are files within your sparsebundle directory.
The second restriction, however, will cause Time Machine to eventually hit a brick wall: The sparsebundle bands are given a sequence number in hexadecimal and there isn't really a limit to how many you can have. If you run Time Machine on a large harddrive attached to the WRT600N, you will eventually run into a situation where you are hitting the 65,535-files-in-a-directory limit. Time Machine will, therefore, run for a while and then suddenly fail for no apparent reason.
Given the parameters of Time Machine, you can't run Time Machine reliably on a WRT600N with an external harddrive larger than 8MB * 65535 = 512GB. If that's good enough for you, then great. If not, you can do one of two things:
1) Get something that doesn't format its harddrive in FAT32.
2) Install DD-WRT on your router (thus voiding its warranty), fight with it for a while in order to get SAMBA running on it, and gain the ability to format your harddrive in Ext2.
I hope this helps somebody.

Time machine has losing contact with my external drive, connected via a USB port.

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I use a little app named EasyFind - free at the App Store. It will allow you to search individual volumes or all volumes.
Download it and see if it will help.
Clinton

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PROBLEM SOLVED.
Recap: Time Machine would not back up an external data drive despite being correctly formatted and settings correctly applied.
Problem was either: a) the Mac, b) the external data drive, c) the Time Machine drive, or d) the data.
I replaced both the external data drive (cloned) and the Time Machine drive, but Time Machine would back up that external drive either.
Finally, instead of CLONING (SuperDuper) the external data drive, I COPIED the data to a new HD -- root folder-by-folder. Now Time Machine again backs up my external hard drive.
SOLUTION: Problem was not hard drives or Mac, but within the data itself. Cloning the data simply passed on the problem to the new hard drive. For this problem, the solution was copying the data rather than cloning.
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How do I set Time Machine to remind me to backup?

I don't keep my external hard drive plugged into my computer all the time. I just plug it in every few weeks to backup my hard drive; however, I have been forgetting lately because the reminders stopped popping up on my desktop. Before I upgraded to Yosemite, the Time Machine icon on the top bar would pop with messages to remind me it's been so many days since my last backup and then an exclamation mark would be in the place of the hour and minute hand in the icon. Now, it's stopped reminding me to backup, and I can't find anything in preferences about reminders for Time Machine. Has something changed with Yosemite, or can I set a reminder to backup for Time Machine?

shyamala14 wrote:
Before I upgraded to Yosemite, the Time Machine icon on the top bar would pop with messages to remind me it's been so many days since my last backup and then an exclamation mark would be in the place of the hour and minute hand in the icon.
Now, it's stopped reminding me to backup
If Time Machine under Yosemite is not responding as expected:
Apple Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback/
Bug Reporter https://bugreport.apple.com/
google for options:
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_create_time_machine_backup_reminder_al ert
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26704/timemachineeditor

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The Time Machine backup is not bootable
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Time Machine reverts to Macintosh HD after external drive is ejected

I've seeing a problem with Time Machine with one of my external drives. Here's my setup:
MBP 15"
OSX 10.7.4
Work external drive - Seagate GoFlex, via USB
Home external drive - Western Digital Green, via USB
I had been using both home and work drives as Time Machine backups, and things were working fine. I would have to re-designate the appropriate Time Machine backup drive when I changed locations, but everything was working.
The problem:
When I attach the work drive and point Time Machine to the drive, it works. When I eject the work drive, the Time Machine prefs panel shows "Time Machine - work" in greyed out text as the target drive, reflecting that the drive is not available.
When I attach the home drive and point Time Machine to the drive, it works. But when I eject the home drive, the Time Machine prefs panel shows "Macintosh HD" in normal text as the target drive. Worse, I think it actually attempts to back up to the internal drive, because at the next Time Machine backup interval, I get a "The identity of the backup disk has changed" error from Time Machine.
I've tried a full reset of Time Machine by deleting the prefs file. I've also tried verifying the home external disk. The problem persists. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

stevekim wrote:
I did indeed have the /Backups.backupdb folder, but deleting it did not solve the problem. I thought that was the local backup folder (disabled by executing "tmutil disablelocal")?
No, Local Snapshots are in a hidden .MobileBackups folder. The /Backups.backupdb folder was created by Time Machine trying to make actual backups to the internal HD.
EDIT: See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #30 for the gory details.
Reformatting the WD Time Machine partitiion and resetting Time Machine (turning off TM, deleting the prefs file, restarting) seems to have fixed the problem, though.
Curious. Keep an eye on it, especially when the backup drive isn't available, and a backup is scheduled. That seems to be when the trouble starts.
From your first post:
I had been using both home and work drives as Time Machine backups, and things were working fine. I would have to re-designate the appropriate Time Machine backup drive when I changed locations
Stay tuned on that one. The rumor sites say that can be automated in Mountain Lion. See the last point in the How it Works section here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machine_(Mac_OS)
Message was edited by: Pondini

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Thanks for the message.
What I mean is that on my current drive, I can click a button that reads "purge" and the software will either "mass delete" all files no longer present on my computer or it will allow me, one by one, to approve their deletion. It does then when I want (not only when the drive is full).
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How do I set Time Machine to alternate between two attached external drives (so that if one fails I will have a separate backup to use)?

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