How to setup Time Machine on 2 drives in 2 different locations

I back up on 2 different drives in 2 different locations. Time Machine only remembers 1 drive so every time I go home I have to open TM pref and switch drives to backup to. Is there a way to get TM to remember the settings for both drives and make it a plug and play backup?

the following method was proposed by biovizier on this forum and it seemed to work when I tried it. you can try it and see if it works.
First, give both backup drives the same name. then enable showing hidden files in finder. you can do this using Tinkertool or using the following terminal command
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE; killall Finder
then open the TM drive at home in finder. there will be a file at its top level with the name like .001d4f56a01d. Copy this file to the main disk, go to the other location and move this file to the other TM drive.
You'll have to authenticate with your admin password to do this. then unplug and replug the TM drive and
see if TM backups work without reselecting the drive.
you also might have to change the ownership on that file - I'm not completely sure about that.

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Message was edited by: summer_laughter

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HT201250 How to retrieve external drive backups from time machine on hard drive without external drive connected

I am keeping my work files on an external drive which are backed up using Time Machine onto my computer's hard drive. I set it up this way so I can take my actual work drive with me if I need it. However, I just noticed that I can't see any of those files in time machine if the drive itself isn't plugged in, which makes this method useless. Is there any way to get to those, or do I need to reconfigure my backup system? I always thought if something happened to my hard drive I'd have a backup, but that won't work if I can't get to the files.

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http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8225748&#8225748
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8650723&#8650723
http://jamesshore.com/Blog/How-to-Accelerate-Time-Machine.html

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Hello I have been succussfully using Time Machine with my USB external drive. I have been connecting it to my MacBook Air from time to time. Manual backups as well as the hourly backups when the drive has been connected worked without any problem.
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Any similar experience with multiple drive backup when the first of them is disconnected most of the time...?
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Perhaps you should address this to Synology's tech support. Apple doesn't provide any support for third-party NAS, so your best bet is with Synology.

Time machine says my drive is full, but it's not

time machine says my drive is full, but it's not. it is a 298 gig external drive with 51 gigs available. my internal drive on my lap top (the one I am backing up) is a 148 gigs with 44 gigs available. the backup folder on the external drive is
152 gigs.
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Lisa W wrote:
Thank you both for your replies. Something is seriously wrong with a backup program that needs that much extra space! So much for incremental back ups.
It doesn't, necessarily. We still have no information on what's going on with your situation.
It's a back up for a laptop and I would like to connect it to the backup hard drive once a week or so, but from what I read time machine only works one way... for a computer to have it active all the time.
No. It works BEST that way, but isn't required.
That just won't work for me for many reasons. Most importantly, time machine slows up my computer and I have to leave it off to run my applications.
Then something else is wrong. Again, without any details, we can't help you determine what.
There is no setting to have it turn on in the middle of the night or once per week.
Not in TM itself. But there is a free 3rd-party app that will do this, Time Machine Editor: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/
It would sure be nice if I could back up when I want. Seems like time machine is just one of those ideas that apple didn't think all the way through.
You can. And TM works just fine for most people. There is something unusual in your setup, or the way you're doing things, that's causing your difficulties.
Let's be clear: if you'd like some help with this, please answer my previous questions and download and post the messages from the wIdget.

How to manage Time Machine backups

Is there any way to manage time Machine Backups?
The things I want to do are:
* Selectively trim old backups for files I longer need
* Delete whole backups to maintain a trimmer backup disk
* Restart the whole backup process from time to time (purge and start over)
I know how the backups works (read the Ars Technica article) but the file system won't give me permissions to manually purge data. I suppose I could mess with the permissions but I'm not sure the effect on TM.
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Not really the original point of the question, but since you mentioned it...
Couldn't time machine be used as archival as long as you have space? Its incremental, its fairly efficient since it uses hard links, and even archives have old data you don't need.
But it does beg another question. It would be nice if Apple could provide a list of directories that could be excluded in the event you want to run a clean install and then restore only files that effect a user and his/her preferences.
I suppose the Home directory would be the simplest answer, but even that includes a lot of Apps and Library files that really aren't necessary.
Maybe its just best to exclude nothing and buy a bigger backup drive. And then maybe periodically start over. Which was one of my original questions.
How does one start over? Just turn off time machine and format the backup drive?
Just pondering (and a bit of rambling) at this point.

How to setup Time Machine on 2 drives in 2 different locations

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