HT201250 Backing up my Mac and my MacBook - can I do this on the same external hard drive?

Can I use the same external hard drive to be the Time Machine for my iMac and for my MacBook Air?
Thanks

Yes, if it has enough space.

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Can I use the same external hard drive for time machine and storing other files

I have a 640GB external hard drive that I have been using for over a year for time machine backups. My mac hard drive is now starting to fill up and I am looking to move audio, video and picture files to my external hard drive. How do I do this without messing up my time machine backups? Can I do both on the same external hard drive? Do I just make new folders on the external hard drive to move the files I want? Thanks for the help.

If you move the files you will need to get another disk to back the files up to. You don't want to have only one copy of certain files (personal, professional etc.).

HT1284 Can I back up my Mac and my pc to the same external hard drive? If so, could you explain how? Thanks.

Can I back up my Mac and my pc to the same external hard drive? If so, could you explain how? Thanks. I am a new user with mountain lion.

You could partition the drive into 2 partitions. One formatted as HFS+ for Mac OS X back, and one formatted as NTFS for Windows backup.
You would have to move the drive from system to system to do your backups. If there are 2 systems, I would suggest just getting separate drives for each, unless they are both laptops, then you will be disconnecting the drives all the time anyway.
Unless Windows is running in a virtual machine on your Mac. Then a partitioned drive would be fine.

I have nearly 9,000 Images on my I Mac and I wish to move them over to a 2TB external hard drive and still be able to access them from Aperture and or iPhoto?

I have nearly 9,000 Images on my I Mac and I wish to move them over to a 2TB external hard drive and still be able to access them from Aperture and or iPhoto. How is the best way of doing this?

Here is how to do it with iPhoto:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506
As for Aperture, you'll need to do a search on the support website yourself because the result is a download so I couldn't post a link - the instructions are in the user manual. I believe the settings are within Aperture's Preferences.

Can Time Machine backups for more than one Mac be sent to the same external hard drive?

It's pretty straightforward, really. We have two Macs, both running Mountain Lion. Can we use the same external hard drive for Time Machine backups of both?

It would be best to partition the HDD - one volume for each Mac (you cannot partition a Time Capsule).
Note that by doing so, you will lose both backups should the drive fail.

HT201250 can I back up two different Macs using time machine to the same external hard drive?

I have a MacBook Pro and a Intel Power Mac Tower. The Power Mac is backed up to a 4 TB external hard drive using Time Machine. Can I also back up the MacBook Pro to the same 4TB hard drive using its time machine without altering any of the Power Macs backed up files on the 4TB hard drive?
Ed

Yes, as long as the backup drive is large enough.

I have just replaced my hard drive and downloaded Yosemite and now I can't access my photos from my external hard drive

II've just replaced my internal hard drive for my desktop because it failed And installed Yosemite. I had an external hard drive but it had Mavericks and now I can't access my old iPhoto. What can I do?

backup your iPhoto and install iPhoto 9.6 - if you had iPhoto '08 or earlier then you need to download and run the iPhoto library before launch iPhoto 9.6
If that does not help then you actually need to tell us information and details - like version of iPhoto. exactly why you can not access your photos and any message you got
LN

Would I be able to use the same external hard drive for Windows and OSX?

I plan to get an external HD to put a lot of my multimedia files on and for backups but I don't know if I'll need an individual one for each operating system. I am going to be running a MacBook Pro with both Windows and OSX through Boot Camp.

jengwall,
No, you won't need more than a single drive. There are several options to meet your needs.
OS X can partition your external, and the formats for the various volumes can be HFS+ (the native Mac format) or FAT-32 (Windows format). While OS X cannot create NTFS volumes, and it cannot write to them, it can read them. Any FAT-32 volumes created in OS X can be converted to NTFS by Windows, if and when you like.
Windows cannot natively read HFS+ volumes, and only the FAT-32 format will be both read and write for both Windows and OS X. However, there are some third-party solutions.
"Macdrive" is a Windows utility that allows it to access HFS+ volumes as read/write. On the Mac side, there is "MacFuse," which gives OS X the ability to not just read, but write to NTFS volumes.
Scott

Can you use the same external hard drive for Time Machine backups and as an additional storage drive?

I have an external HD that I've been using exclusively for Time Machine backups. I need to clear space on my hard drive, so I was thinking to move music & photos to an external drive. Wondering if I can use the same one I have (which I'll aslo keep using for Time Machine) or if I need to get another drive.

Hi Jossydtaylor,
Time Machine can use either an entire external disk or a partition of that disk:
OS X Mountain Lion: Disks you can use with Time Machine
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11171
You can use Time Machine with a Time Capsule, and with USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt disks. The backup disk can be directly connected to your computer or be on a network. If the backup disk has been divided into partitions, you can use one of the partitions.
If the disk is partitioned using the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition type, some partitions may not be available for use with Time Machine. The GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition type is recommended.
For more info on partitioning, see this article:
Disk Utility 12.x: Partition a disk
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5845
Cheers!
- Ari

How to use the same external hard drive for OSX and XP

Hello to all. First off, thanks for all of the helpful comments that have been posted in the discussion board, they have helped me a lot with my problems and curiosities. My question has been touched on in the past, but nothing concrete so I figured I'd ask a bit more specifically.
I recently loaded Windows XP (FAT32)onto my MacBook. Everything is running smoothly, but I was just curious how I could format my external HD so that both operating systems can read it, i.e. I only have 20 GB's partitioned for Windows XP, and i'll be using it to download music and movies. I would like to be able to play these straight from my external rather than use up the disc space. Let me know if anybody can help! Thanks.

Unfortunately, Disk Utility doesn't just move everything around. It has to erase everything, and then resize. I find it a little odd, seeing as other disk utilities can resize everything just fine. Anyway, yes, you will have to erase your drive to reformat it as FAT32. What I usually do is try to copy everything from the drive to free space in the internal drives. I haven't had too much data on my drive yet, so I've been lucky so far. I don't know if you have enough free space on whatever drives you have, but that's probably the best way to do it.
1) Transfer everything over to a folder on the internal drive
2) Use Disk Utility to reformat the drive as FAT32
3) Transfer everything back to the external drive
2.0GHz MacBook 1st Gen Mac OS X (10.4.8) 2GB RAM

Using same external hard drive with two Macs

I use two Lacie external hard drives and Time Machine to back-up my iMac, swapping over the drives each week to have one off-site.
I am soon to buy a MacBook. Can I use the same external hard drives for the MacBook's Time Machine back-ups, whilst continuing to use them with the iMac, or will that cause problems?
Thank you.

As Kappy says, Time Machine will put both sets of backups in the same Backups.backupdb folder. That may not be a good idea for the future; your best bet may be to partition the drive.
See #4 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

ITunes from Macbook Pro not connecting to iTunes Match unless external hard drive plugged in Macbook Pro?

Hi,
I uploaded my entire iTunes library from an external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro and now it seems anytime I want to play music from iTunes on my MacBook Pro the same external hard drive has to be connected? What am I missing so I can play my music library on my MacBook like I do on my iPhone?

juanmateus wrote;
I uploaded my entire iTunes library from an external hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro
How did you do this?
What exactly was copied?

I have macbook pro 13" I want to know how to copy files from my mac to the external Toshiba Hard Drive. I can't even delete files from my external hard drive. please help me my macbook HD is almost full and I have to copy my images to the Toshiba HD

I have macbook pro 13" I want to know how to copy files from my mac to the external Toshiba Hard Drive. I can't even delete files from my external hard drive. please help me my macbook HD is almost full and I have to copy my images to the Toshiba HD

To delete files from your external HDD, attach it to your MBP and drag the unwanted files to trash and then empty trash.
Then you select the files that you want to transfer by 'drag and drop' to the external HDD and trash the files on your MBP.
Ciao.

I have a 2007 macbook and I am wondering what is the best external hard drive for my Mac?

What is the best external hard drive for a 2007 Macbook?

The Apple USB superdrive would be a great choice for you, ( http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MD564ZM/A/apple-usb-superdrive?fnode=5f ) I am not certain but I am pretty sure that it has the same form factor as the MacMini (Not thickness but all the other dimenetions) so it fits just under and looks like an extension of your mac.

I just upgraded my operating system on my MacBook Air and now my laptop won't detect my Toshiba 1T external hard drive

I just upgraded my operating system on my MacBook Air and now my laptop won't detect my Toshiba 1T external hard drive, how to solve this problem?

Try some of the troubleshooting steps outlined below:
Troubleshooting an external hard drive
> Unplug the hard drive, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in
> Restart the computer
> Unplug any other peripherals from the computer
> Plug it into a different USB port
If none of those steps work, see if it is recognized in Disk Utility.
Checking a disk with Disk Utility
To check a disk using Disk Utility, launch the Disk Utility application in any of the following ways:
> Type the first few letters of its name into Spotlight. Select it from the results.
> Go Launchpad > Utilities > Disk Utility
> Go Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
Once Disk Utility is opened, check to see if your external HD appears on the sidebar. If it doesn't appear at first, try the troubleshooting steps above again while leaving Disk Utility open, each time checking to see if the external HD appears.
Austin

HT201250 Backing up my Mac and my MacBook - can I do this on the same external hard drive?

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