Internal Hard Drive Backup + External Hard Drive Backup

Hi everyone and thanks for your attention.
My question is about Backup for two different hard disk.
I've got an internal 500 gb hard disk and a 4 tb external hard disk and my computer is a Macbook pro 15 Unibody 10.6.8.
I need daily (or better hourly) back up for the internal and the external. On the internal I've got system and applications, on the external my work project folders.
My solution at the moment are two other hard disk raid mounted as backup drives. They form together 5tb back up space. I'm using time machine, so it manage my internal 500 gb disk and my external 4tb disk together.
Today I had to recover my system from Time Machine. The app is recovering the documents, but I have a doubt. Before starting recovering I had to choose the hard drive where to recover the system. I had to decide between the internal and the external, and I've chosen the internal, because the OS was installed there.
Will Time Machine put the files, that were on the internal drive, in the internal drive and the ones that were on the external on the external?
My complete back up is 2.4 tb so my 500 gb won't surely be enough.
Moreover. I'm assuming that is so much better to divide the back up. One backup system for the internal and one for the external. It seems to me that my version of Time Machine (10.6.8) does not allow to assign different back up drive for different is use drive. Eg. an external drive to use for the internal drive and another external drive for the external drive in use.
What about next Time Machine versions?
Or maybe would be better to use Time Machine for the internal drive with an external drive as back up, and the use an another application such as Carbon Copy Cloner to back up the external drive to another different external drive.
To be more clear, the solution I'd like to have is:
Internal Drive (500 gb) > time machine > External Drive (1tb)
External Drive (4tb) > Carbon Copy Cloner > External Drive (5tb)
Thanks a lot!
Nicola

The best source for those questions, Nicola, is the Pondini Tips Page, and then go to the specific sections of his website which has everything there is to know about Time Machine.

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I've followed the instructions under the paragraphph 'Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility
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However I'm blocked in step 9 when I have to choose the destination. I don't have the option to select my hard drive to back up the image. I only have 2 options: root or Applications to save the image. Nevertheless, I can see my external hard on the left.
- Could it be because the internal hard drive is encrypted?
- Could it be because the external hard drive is encrypted?
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I always advise Mac users to never:
encrypt a disk
set a firmware password
In my experience they cause more loss of data than they are worth.
On Leopard I always use the latest free Carbon Copy Cloner to backup and clone disks - it is so simple to clone to either a disk or disk image. The free version may not be compatible with later OSs.
As you appear to be on the wrong forum I will follow this with my standard message.
Whilst it may not be your fault I am afraid it appears that your post is on a forum which is not the best for your OS. It will save the time of the unpaid volunteers here, and may resolve your issue faster, if you could examine the list below and see if there is a more appropriate forum to which you could direct your question.
OS X 10.9 Mavericks
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
OS X 10.7 Lion
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
OS X 10.5 Leopard
OS X 10.4 Tiger
OS X 10.3 and earlier
OS 9, OS 8 & System 7
OS X Technologies
OS X Server
iPad
iPhone
iPod
Other

The backup files for my devices are saved to my internal hard drive. I have a small internal hard drive and would like them to be saved to an external drive. How can I change where iTunes automatically backs up to?

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The current OS is Mountain Lion 10.8.3, so I if the purchase was recent, that is what you should have.
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When you download the installer from the Apple Store (MAS) it will come up with a dialogue to run it. It will then ask which disk you wish to install the system on. Is this where you have got to, before it says they are both unavailable?

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Here's one way to do what you want:
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I've followed the instructions under the paragraphph 'Instructions for backing up to an external hard disk via Disk Utility
in this article: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1553. My external hard drive is plugged in. I mount my install DVD of Leopard and restart. Press C to boot on the DVD, select the language and go to Utilities -> Disk utility.
However I'm blocked in step 9 when I have to choose the destination. I don't have the option to select my hard drive to back up the image. I only have 2 options: root or Applications to save the image. Nevertheless, I can see my external hard on the left.
- Could it be because the internal hard drive is encrypted?
- Could it be because the external hard drive is encrypted?
Note also that the button 'Verify disk' is greyed out.
Any clue?

forget about that and just use the free APP Superduper
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2. Carbon Copy Cloner APP (will copy the recovery partition as well)

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Need some help!
Background.
Almost 4 year old 24" aluminum iMac; 4 gb ram; 500 gb hard drive; OS 10.6.8.
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Not right. :~(
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Then reset PRAM and did an SMC reset on the iMac.
Then backed up to TM again. The same problem persisted.
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If I've left out any details that might assist, please also let me know.
The problem computer is at home and I'm at work, so if any logs are needed, I can post those later today (but in that event, please tell me exactly which log to post and how to isolate it from System Profiler or Console (as there are many logs to choose from and I want to provide the proper info if someone needs to see a log to assist)).
Thanks in advance!

Pondini,
Did every step in D2 (green box) - except did not reinstall Combo Updater which I did late last night.
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All apps were off.
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Just as I sent this, a new backup started, and it appears to be going through the same routine, from Preparing ....
Gotta eat.
Please post any further instructions and I'll do what I can tonight.
Thanks!
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Thanks!

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I originally posted this in the Time Machine group. It was suggested I post to the Xserve group.
We have an XSERVE running 10.6.4 server. It has 2 internal 1TB drives. The plan is to use one as the main drive and the second as a Time Machine backup. This used to work in 10.5, but since about 10.6.2 or so, it has not worked correctly.
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No, it is not always at the same point/file/bytes transferred. It will vary from a few GB (say 3GB) to quite a few GB (say 30GB). I would add amongst the things I have done was to:
Perform numerous Disk Utility Checks. Never any errors found.
Erased the backup drive on multiple occasions. Double checked the GUID and format.
Partitioned the drive and tried backing up to a new partition. (No joy there either)
Copied lots and lots of data from the root disk to said partitions to test them. All went fine.
It really is Time Machine that is causing the issue. I can use the drive all day long as long as TM does not run. When it does, I eventually get a failure message that the drive has been ejected.
While I have not tried making a partition on the home drive (I'd rather not, lots of data there, make users mad, and since TM is not working, I have no backups at present), I do limit the data that is being backed up to JUST that of the system. /Users is being excluded at the moment. So I doubt there is anything out of the ordinary in the system. And, yes, I did a disk check on the root disk and all is fine there too.

Why does dying internal hard drive stop you booting from external hd

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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