Is Time Machine a good way to backup External HD?

I have a Macbook and 2 external hard drives. 1 HD has a backed up OS 10.4 and all my files on it from about a year and a half ago. I'm wondering if I should use Time Machine on my new Macbook to back this old external hard drive. Is it possible?
Or, Can't I just drag a copy/alias of my external hard drive and drop it into another hard drive? (I plan to wipe this drive clean, but want most of the files on it)

Oskar,
Does this help?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11312975&#11312975
I am not sure what you mean by the important files being protected. But, yes you do want to consider disaster recovery if the system you are setting up is a vital one. If no one else can work because your server is down for ANY reason, you have a real problem. Macs are just as sensitive to hardware failure as anyone else and you'll never know when it will happen. That said I have been fortunate to never have anything other than a hard drive fail. You do not want to come in to work to a dead drive with no recourse to recover it quickly. Building a server from scratch in the event of a failure is not the most efficient method to getting back to work.
You CAN use Time Machine to back up a server. The issue you need to address is what your server does and whether or not the Time Machine backup will get you back running quickly. Time Machine seems to be a consumer driven feature. It appears that most server operators here would not depend on it.
Search around here for "Backup" ideas. There are a lot of opinions.
-Erich

Similar Messages

Is Time Machine the best way to backup two external drives?

I only have the most basic understanding of Time Machine. I hook up an external drive to my MacBook Pro, click "backup now" on Time Machine, wait a while, and forget about it because I've never had to use it to retrieve a file - thank heaven.
Now I also have two external 2TB portable drives that are close to full and which need to be backed up. I just bought a 4TB drive that I haven't taken out of the box yet. Is it a simple matter to create two Time Machine files on the 4TB drive ... one for each of the 2TB drives?
And is Time Machine the best way to do this? Or is there some other system that makes more sense for backing up on this scale and with two drives?
-JOHN

No Time Machine is not the only way.
You can use one of the drive cloning softeare programs to clone your internal drive to an external or you can use OS X Disk Utility to do basically the same thing, IE Clone/Copy your internal drive to an external.
But in your case it look as if the upgrading of the iPhoto database has wiped out alll your images. What you are actually asking about is "Can you now get back those photos without first doing any backup of any type".
And the answer to that is No you can not.

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?

Time Machine couldn't complete the backup due to a network problem

Firstly apologies for the long post, I've been bottling these problems up and could now use some expert advice.
I have a MacPro (10.6.3) with four internal drives (320GB system/apps. + 3x 750GB data, images etc) and a MacBook Pro (10.6.6) with a 320GB internal. With so much accumulated data (Mac user since SE FDHD) I wanted a reliable means to backup all my projects, books, papers, research, images etc. I had several bad experiences using Iomega drives (Ultramax and Storcentre) which were not very Mac compatible and shifted over to a 10TB LaCie 5Big Network 2 which is promoted as Time Machine compatible. Set up Time Machine (with a few hiccups) in Sept 2010 and it ran perfectly, backing up both main computers until March 2011. I have now experienced a string of problems backing up the MacPro, some of which have been resolved speaking to people, some by checking forums and some by using my own noddle to figure it out. The latest error message I am getting is "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup due to a network problem. Make sure your computer and the backup disc are on the same network, and that the backup disc is turned on. Then try again to back up."
The circumstances of this are as follows: TM seems to be trying to completely back up everything already backed up from previous months so I am using the "exclude" option to do this in manageable chunks (5.54TB of 7.99TB is available so there is a lot of stuff on there, hence my reticence to erase and start again). I started a backup last night which said it was 242GB and when I came back hours later (I estimate 30GB and hour or 500MB a minute) it has failed with the error message above. I asked it to back up again and it said it now had 191GB to backup, at the next failure it was 142GB, dropping by approx 50GB a time (if there a maximum it can manage in one go?), the next time it was starting again with 242GB.
I checked the disc it was backing up to, discovered it was now selecting Public-1, re-selected Public which houses the macpro.sparsebundle, dropped the backup size (Options) to 73GB and set it off again and it is backing up as I write. I am hoping it will complete and permit another chunk to be backup but the fact it looses network connection (seemingly) or has a maximum backup in one go, is annoying because it means you cannot leave it overnight and trust it to do the backups.
The other problem seems to be a shut down by LaCie 5Big because several times (and once this morning) I have had this message "The file server "LaCie 5Big" has closed down, followed by a complete Lacie shut down and auto-reboot with all lights and whistles. Lacie think this could be a power supply problem and say they are sending me another power brick. They also say they do not support Time Machine (they should check their own literature) and suggest I use LaCie 5Big for 'drag and drop' backup. If I wanted to do that I could pick up a cheap and nasty HD from PCWorld, not this high end 10TB drive which cost over £1,000 !
For a while y'day I could not even find the Lacie on the network but after changing the ethernet cable from Lacie to router (Linksys) it miraculously re-appeared so that problem may have been the original Lacie blue ethernet cable had developed a fault. Checking cables is an oft-overlooked option.
A catalogue of errors, some solved, others still all pervading, so any words from the wise would be gratefully accepted.

I verified the macpro.sparsebundle and Time Machine backups in Disk Utility and it said both appeared to be Okay in green type. So that did not solve the issue. I did a Disk Utility repair a day or so again (despite Verify saying everything was fine) and said there was nothing to repair. I suspect two problems, the power brick may be faulty producing intermittent power and maybe causing the drive to close down (hopefully Lacie will send me a replacement to try) and second, I am thinking the network connection is getting dropped causing crashed backups without the Lacie shutdown/reboot sequence. The 73GB back up failed, I started it again at 54GB and it failed again, just started it again at 45GB - this is no way to progress!
Perhaps the relatively new (last year) Linksys router is the problem, I find my MBP says AirPort is active but it fails to appear in Go>Server unless I switch it off and on again and perhaps a similar problem drops the connnection to the Lacie.

"Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not availab

I have a Seagate 750 MB external disk connected to the USB port of my Airport Extreme Base Station. It worked fine with Time Machine under Leopard but it's not working the way it was under OS X 10.6.2. I'm hopeful someone can help me solve the problem.
Let's say the name of my Airport Extreme Base Station is "Airport." If I remember correctly, under Leopard time machine would start a wireless backup not long after I turned on the Seagate drive. That no longer happens.
I've erased and re-formatted the Seagate drive with 2 GUID partitions, one for my 24" iMac and one for my 17" MacBook Pro. Both computers are about 3 years old. In order to do the re-partitioning, I had to unplug the Seagate drive from the base station and plug it into one of the iMac's USB ports. If I didn't do this, nothing other than the iMac's drive appears in the left pane of Disk Utility, although the name of my base station, i.e, "Airport" does appear in the Finder and PathFinder (a replacement for Finder that I use).
In fact, Time Machine works under 10.6.2. as long as the Seagate drive is plugged into the iMac's USB port. As soon as I plug the Seagate drive into the USB port of the base station, Time Machine no longer works. The backup is "delayed." When I click on "Back Up Now" a few seconds go by and I get the following dialog box: "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
In my Airport Extreme Base Station setup (Airport Utility version 5.4.2), the "Disks" pane sees both partitions on the Seagate drive. File sharing is enabled on the "File sharing" pane and "Secure Shared Disks:" is set to "With a disk password." "Airport Disks Guest Access:" is not allowed, nor is "Share disks over WAN."
When the Seagate drive is plugged into the base station and I click on "Airport" in the Finder or PathFinder, I'm prompted for the password I mentioned above because the shared disks are secured with a password. Once the password is typed, both partitions on the Seagate drive appear in Finder and PathFinder. When I try a Time Machine backup at this point, I get the same error I described above, i.e., "Time Machine could not complete the backup. The backup disk is not available."
One last thing, I did an "Archive and Install" when I upgraded to Snow Leopard since I thought the changes were relatively minor as compared with past OS X upgrades. Normally, I do a clean install but didn't feel like it this time. I also tried deleting the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist to no avail and restarted my iMac to no avail.
At this point I'm completely stumped. As I said, Time Machine works as long as the Seagate drive is plugged directly into one of the iMac's USB ports as opposed to the base station's USB port. But doesn't this defeat the purpose of having wireless backup? Once again, the wireless backup worked fine under 10.5.8.
I hope my message is clear and a solution would be most welcome.
Thank you,
Richard

I'm having the same problem. If my TimeMachine drive is not connected, I'll get the "Time machine could not complete the backup" "The backup disk is not available" warning a couple times a day. This is extremely problematic if I'm giving a presentation. I have tried changing my TimeMachine drive, removing that drive, repairing permissions, and have not been able to solve the problem.
Please help!

Time Machine Error Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while ...

Hi,
I've looked all around the forums for the answer to this one and I'm still unable to get it. So I'm getting this error "Time Machine Error Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while linking files on the backup volume". This started happening after I turned off and on FileVault. I was having a problem with it and turning it on an off got rid of that problem, but created this one. I've noticed that when I shut down the computer and filevault accesses the TM hard drive, it can back up.....but then when I'm logged on, or I want it to back up I get the error. I've tried fixing the drive, removing the in progress file and resetting the PRAM (i think that's what it was called). I'm starting to run out of options and have no other drive to back all this info on to reformat it.
I really don't want to loose all my stuff.
Please help!
Daria

nautical_stars wrote:
Hi,
I've looked all around the forums for the answer to this one and I'm still unable to get it. So I'm getting this error "Time Machine Error Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while linking files on the backup volume". This started happening after I turned off and on FileVault.
Usually this message happens when you replace an external disk that was being backed-up by Time Machine with another one of the same name.
Since File Vault works by making a sparse image of your home folder, and it's treated as a volume just as a HD is, that's probably what's happening here: the new sparse image has the same name as the old one, but isn't the old one.
First, consider whether you really need File Vault. It doesn't work well with Time Machine: you can't see or restore individual items in your home folder, and it only gets backed-up when you log out.
If you have a lot of other things, say photos, videos, and/or music that don't need to be encrypted, perhaps there's an easier way to secure our sensitive data. You can create an encrypted disk image via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder), then copy the sensitive documents into it. Then the rest of your home folder is backed-up normally, and individual items can be viewed and restored in the usual fashion.
But if you do continue using FileVault, you may have to use TM to delete all backups of it, via the instructions in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum. That should then allow the new version of your encrypted home folder to be backed-up by TM.

My time Machine keeps saying, "Time Machine could not complete the backup. This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 345.74 GB but only 289.80 are available." I have already excluded files. I have a 1tb external drive. HELP!!!

For over two weeks now I have been frustated and not having my TIme Machine back up to my 1tb external drive. I dont understand why now its a problem. It keeps saying
"This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 345.74GB but only 289.80GB are avialable. Time Machine needs work space on the bakup disk, in addition to the space required to store backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a large backup disk or make the bakup smaller by excluding files." So I have already excluded almost all of my files, and even deleted the backup disk yet, that quote still keeps popping up. I am truly at a wall with this. I have a Mac OS X version 10.7.5. CAN SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE????

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

"....To Improve Reliability, Time Machine Must Create a New Backup for You"

I bought the new Apple 2 TB Time Capsule thinking it would be a great way to get a powerful wireless router and handle file backup for both me and my wife's iMacs. She is running an up-to-date version of Snow Leopard and I am on the most recent update of Mountain Lion. The Time Capsule was installed and running by the first of August and we had no problems until this monday (7 weeks later) when I got the message that "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability Time Machinge must create a new backup" My wife's back up was still ok but I had to go though the 5-6 hour process of re-copying all my files(using an ethernet connection) to the device. All went smoothly for a few days until I got the same message again about creating a new backup. Also my wife cannot enter her time machine files even though the computer is still being backed up. We have a stable internet service and both computers recieve a strong signal from the router. Is it possible that the Time Capsule Drive is defective? Is there any sort of maintenance such as zpping the PRAM that would help? This is really frustrating as it looks like the timemachine backup is totally unreliable and not worth fooling with. Is there any way to use the storage capability of the time capsule without going through time machine?
Thanks,
Reid McCallister

hi
rest assured you are not alone. i have the same problem and i hate it with a passion. in fact, i am the victim of this message as of 20 minutes ago and doing a full backup as I am typing this. I am so overly ****** that I actually posted here and will be calling or emailing apple next because I cannot take this anymore. the problem lies in time machine and unfortunately, there is no fix for that. time machine is the best idea of apple with the worst implementation ever. you have no obligation to use time capsule to benefit from time machine as this would not be legal anyway. i will give you 2 temporary solutions and let you decide which one works best for you:
1) open time machine preferences and turn automatic backups off. create a new full backup from scratch and only backup manually whenever you remember, preferably every day. the automation process is the problem that lies within time machine. also make sure that your system does not go to standy or sleep whatever that may be called. Power nap, despite all claims, is not compatible with time machine. install CAFFEINE, an app that keeps your mac awake and prevents from going to sleep while back up is in progress. use it like this and pray it will all go fine for a long time. you may wish to duplicate the first full backup to save time in case this should happen again so you have a base to start on
2) install CCC (carbon copy cleaner) I have not used it myself yet, but probably will be installing it after finishing this post. it is claimed to be better, yet it is yet to be seen by me personally.
unless time machine can be trained without any addons to use a specific wifi only for backup, these issues will persist.

Hello I bought a G-Raid GR4 4000 4 TB and used it for a backup with my new Imac27. Now this is all I get. "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "G-RAID". to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.

Hello I bought a G-Raid GR4 4000 4 TB and used it for a backup with my new Imac27. Now this is all I get. "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “G-RAID”. to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
Any idea what I should do?

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the search box.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Time machine restores a really old backup!

Time machine makes regular backups of my system. Last night, I had to restore my system and used the installation discs to do this (and selected restore from Time machine, and selected the latest backup).
When the installation was complete, a number of files and applications were missing, though I can still see them on the Time machine drive under the latest backup. When I looked through the backups, the latest backup (23 June 09) says that the date modified was 2007! This 2007 date matches up with the applications I got upon installation.
Any ideas on what happened? The plan is to start from a fresh installation and grab the applications I need from the lastest backup, but I would really like to know what happened so I can avoid it in the future! How can I restore my system from the latest backup?

Hello again:
That would be the only way to see if a corrupt preference file causes your problem.
FWIW, I have not seen any other post with a problem like the one you describe. Something in your system is causing the issue - what, I do not know.
There are other things that could be attempted, but they would take quite a bit of your time.
Barry

WD MyCloud - Time Machine Couldn't Complete The Backup; how to fix?

I use Time Machine to backup my 3TB iMac (v. 10.8.5) with a 4TB WD MyCloud drive. It has worked fine for a few months, until I one day received the message "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “*******”. An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.".
This happened despite there being 1.3 TB of free space, and the firmware being up to date (v04.01.02-417).
I've tried turning off Time Machine on the hard drive's dashboard and rebooting it, hoping it would solve the problem. Instead, when it looked as though it was going to back-up ("Backing up 0 KB of x GB"), I got that message again.
I also tried connecting the network cable directly to the computer so I could use Disk Utility (Version 13 (450)) to repair it, but the application kept freezing.
It's not the first time this has happened to me. I originally fixed the problem by simply erasing the entire hard drive and starting again from scratch, only this time by following the MyCloud manual carefully step by step. I never thought I'd have to see that message again.
I don't know if it has to do with the way I turn off the hard drive; I usually do it every time I'm about to switch off my computer. I once tried to do so via the menu bar, but despite waiting, the HD is still switched on and running. Instead, I usually disconnect the cable as long as there's a blue light showing (having read the WD manual on this matter).
Please let me know if you have any solutions.

Start with C3 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Getting this error: Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.

I keep getting this error on my new Macbook Pro w/ Retina.
"Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."
Connected to a wifi network and QNAP storage system. There are 5 computers on this network, and each backs up just fine. The issue is isolated to this one machine.
This error shows up every week or so.

A third-party NAS is unsuitable for use with Time Machine, especially if it's your only backup. I know this isn't the answer you want. I know Time Machine accepts the NAS as a backup destination. I know that the manufacturer says the device will work with Time Machine, and I also know that it usually seems to work. Except when you try to restore, and find that you can't.
Apple has published a specification for network devices that work with Time Machine. None of the third-party NAS vendors, as far as I know, meets that specification. They all use the incomplete, obsolete Netatalk implementation of Apple Filing Protocol.
If you want network backup, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external storage device connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
Otherwise, don't use Time Machine at all. There are other ways to back up, though none of them is anywhere near as efficient or as well integrated with OS X. I don't have a specific recommendation.
If you're determined to keep using the NAS with Time Machine, your only recourse for any problems that result is to the manufacturer (which will blame Apple, or you, or anyone but itself.)

My Time Capsule/Time Machine has been showing Preparing Backup for past 48 hours continuously!

My Time Capsule reported Full the other day. I now have only 26.8MB of 497.96 GB available. Since then it seems to backing up continuously. The Time machine preferences window shows "Preparing Backup" andnothing else, and it has been doing so for at least past 48 hours. Any ideas as to the problem?
Stuartyboy

Yes, the problem is the drive is full.
If you have other files or TM back from other computers, TM on your computer having issues will not be able to delete enough to get sufficient space to backup.
Read how to clean up and delete parts of backups.. http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Not a good idea though.
Solution.
1. Buy a new bigger TC.. cheaper (Than the original 500GB at least), faster and now the smallest is 2TB.
2. Plug in a USB drive.. archive the TC.. then erase it and start a fresh set of backups.. April 1st great day to do it.
3. Open up your old TC.. remove the 500GB drive and install a 2TB (if Gen1 a 3TB might even work). Google for how to do a hard disk upgrade.
Problem.. old power supply could die the day after and then the total cost would approach 1. Better to backup, wipe the 500GB and sell it on ebay and buy a new TC with 2 or even 3TB (2TB is better value IMHO).
4. Plug in a USB drive .. formatted to HFS+ and use that as the target.
Very slow. much slower than the same drive plugged into your computer.

Time Machine always prompting to Inherit Backup

Setup:
1 x iMac A with External Hard Drive connected via Firewire (New iMac / Migration Assistant was used from Mac B)
1 x iMac B on the LAN (Old iMac been formatted and os reinstalled since MAssistant used)
Both running Lion - Both using Time Machine
I want to be able to back up two different machines to the same External Hard Drive.
From iMac B I can start Time Machine and it sees the External Hard Drive attached to iMac A. The backup performs (seemingly) successful and if I look at the External Hard Drive back on iMac A I can see a sparse bundle created for iMac B.
The problem comes when iMac A goes to back up it always seems prompts with the "Do you want to Inherit the Backup from iMac B or Create New Backup".
I have to respond with create new backup as I don't want it to inherit. The Macs have different names so it's not a clash.
Does anyone know if there is a way to resolve this - I was hoping it was a one-time prompt but it comes up at every interim backup (hourly).
Thanks in advance

The problem is the way Time Machine works on local drives vs. over a network, combined with what I think is a (long-standing) bug:
Backups made locally are in a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of the drive; those done over a network have that folder placed inside a sparse bundle disk image.
When you try to use backups that were made locally on a network (by moving the drive), Time Machine won't see the Backups.backupdb folder at all, and will make a new sparse bundle.
When you try to use backups that were made on a network locally, however, Time Machine won't let you view the backups in the sparse bundle normally (you must manually mount it first), but it will back up to them (seems like a bug to me). Then, when it sees that the sparse bundle is for a different Mac, you get the "inherit" prompt.
And it's better to partition anyway, for the reasons outlined in #4 of the FAQ post.

Time Machine won't use existing backup folder

Time machine gave me the can't find back up drive error. I did what the support site says, went into the preferences, and reselected the appropriate drive, but now it won't use the existing backup folder. It keeps making a new one called 'user's MacBook Pro 2'. How do I force it to use the old folder, so that I can access my old back-ups?

gilesrulz,
First, you need to determine WHY it's not choosing to continue using the previous backups.
Has your computer changed in some way? Logic board replaced by Apple?
You reinstalled the Mac OS X system software?
*_Time Machine Always Performs a Full Backup After a Full Restore_*
Actually, this is normal. Anytime your hardware has changed, or you have reinstalled the operating system again, Time Machine will perform a new full backup. Consider the following according to the KB article below:
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. [http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338]
So even on unchanged hardware, if you reinstall your system software and restore your user data, Time Machine starts anew, and you will not be able to resume backing up with the same history as the previous backups.
While there may be ways to fool/hack Time Machine into recognizing previous backups without performing another full backup, they are likely rather elaborate.
Ultimately, though, in a couple of months, all the effort to preserve old backups may seem pointless. After all, Time Machine will eventually purge away that data anyways as it replaces it with new files.
It may simply be easier to begin a fresh series of backups while saving the previous backups until your satisfied that you have enough history built up. Then delete the old backups.
Hope this clarifies some things.
Cheers!

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