Multiple Time Machine backups to one external drive

I have a MacPro with an external hard drive that I use exclusively for Time Machine (the external drive is mirrored RAID).
I now have a MacBook Pro as well. Can I set the Time Machine on the laptop to backup to the same external hard drive that I currently use for my desktop? When I look at the Time Machine set up on the laptop I can see the desktop's external drive but don't know if I can have Time Machine backups from two different computers writing to the same external drive.
Thank you

yes you can do that. this is a supported configuration. although it's better to keep TM backups for different drives on separate partitions. probably not an option here though. the remote backups will be stored in a sparse bundle. while remote ones are stored directly in a folder on the drive.

Similar Messages

Transfer Time Machine backup from one external drive to another

Surely this has been covered, but I can't find it.
If you have your time machine backup on an external drive and get a new (larger) external drive, what is the best way to transfer the backup from one drive to the other (and define the new drive as the backup drive)? Straight copy ? Then to define the new drive, rename old drive to something else and name new drive the backup name?

I haven't tried this yet but a few other methods are described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071128055047339

Cannot transfer Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

Since I bought my 13 inch MacBook Pro in September 2014 I've been keeping Time Machine backups on an external 1TB Lacie Rugged. This is partitioned into three and one of the partitions contains my iPhoto library.
Last weekend I left my MBP disconnected from the power source but with the external hard drive still plugged in. Long story short - the battery level fell below the minimum needed to operate so it turned itself off and 'disconnected' the external hard drive. This resulted in a corrupted iPhoto library which is no longer accessible.
In order to restore my iPhoto Library from another backup I needed to buy a second external hard drive. Yesterday I bought a 2TB Lacie Rugged which I've now partitioned into 5.
I want to move my Time Machine backups from the 1TB Lacie Rugged to a partition on the 2TB Lacie Rugged (to take advantage of the new Lacie's Thunderbolt connection).
I read the Apple article -
HT202380: Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
and followed the instructions precisely. About 2 hours into the transfer I came back to my MacBook Pro and saw a message saying that it was not possible to complete the transfer because I did not have the correct permissions. The only option was to click the OK button which stopped the transfer.
Can anyone advise what I should do next?
Cheers
Tricia

Hi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia

My experiences copying Time Machine backups from one external drive to another

I am reposting this. The first one was rejected because it contained 'product feedback' and I was directed to the 'Terms of Use'. The 'Terms of Use' say feedback is welcome...***?!?
My 3TB external drive started to die a few weeks ago. It was still under warranty and I just got the new one yesterday. I wanted to preserve all my backups (I had every backup for my late 2012 iMac) on it.
The short of it is that there were like 20-25 million files there or something crazy like that. Finder was going to take forever to count the files. cp and rsync would take like a week. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so I just securely erased the old disk and did a new initial backup on the new disk.
The old disk would only mount in read-only mode, so I couldn't prune the backups down to a manageable size. Unless you only have a handful of backups, or you can internally mount the drives to make it go faster, it's going to take forever to do this.
Regards, Patrick

Hi Eric,
Thank you for your response. I came across another thread yesterday which suggested the Restore via Disk Utility method. It worked for me, too. This was after I had tried following the method suggested in the Apple article above three times but each time the message was the same ....
The operation can't be completed because you don't have permission to access some of the items.
I dare say that Apple would like to have us believe that it's a simple matter of 'drag and drop' but it certainly wasn't for me. From what I've read the permission problem crops up fairly frequently. Before the second and third attempts I had already amended Permissions on the Time Machine backups so that everyone could read and write, so that mustn't have been the problem. I'm the only person who uses my computer so that's not a problem.
The next problem I have is that I decided I would use the Restore route to transfer my SuperDuper clone rather than start from scratch. Unfortunately, the partition size on my original backup disk where SuperDuper clone is is 350GB and the size of the SuperDuper clone partition on my new backup is 300GB.
Of course, Apple says you can resize partitions using Disk Utility. What they don't say is you can downsize partitions but (in my experience and that of many other frustrated users on various forums) you CANNOT upsize using Disk Utility. I have 100GB spare on my external hard drive (from downsizing two partitions by 50GB each) BUT there is no way Disk Utility will let me increase the size of SuperDuper partition to 350GB :-(((
Cheers
Tricia

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

Can I move all data from time machine backup to another external drive & work from it?

Hi all, the harddrive on my macbook died (2nd time in a year) & I had a new one put in that's much smaller than the old one. Can I move everything from my time machine backup onto a seperate external drive and work directly from that on my laptop/imac? At the mo. I don't think time machine will recognise my computer as it's a new drive etc. Thanks Jenny.

What exactly do you want to do?
Is it that you wish to extract an older version of some documents to edit, but leave the original intact?
You can Restore an older version from TM and choose not to replace the current one.
Or, do you wish to install the OS on your new drive, and migrate all the information from the TM backup to the new isntallation?
EDIT: Ok, re-reading your question, I think macjack probably has the right idea.
However, see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ # 16

How do I move time machine files from one external drive to another?

My original external drive isn't big enough. So I've bought a second larger one. How do I move the earlier Time Machine backups from Ext Drive #1 to Ext Drive #2 so I can access my full history, and leave Drive #1 for other backup items?
Ext Drive #1= SimpleTech 120 GB
Ext Drive #2= WEstern 500 GB

When you are ready to pass the 320GB drive on, I would format it. That will make the entire drive available to him to use as his TM. I would be sure that each drive has a unique name so that there will be no confusion for TM as to which computer goes with which drive. If you want to start fresh with the 500GB drive, I'd format it as mac-extended-journaled. When you connect it the first time to your computer, you will be asked if you want to use it as your TM. If you are not prompted to select it as your TM, you can configure TM by opening system preferences, click on TM, click on "change drive" and choose your new drive.
Another choice is to follow the steps in my previous response for restoring your current TM to the new drive by booting from a Leopard start up disk and accessing Disk Utilities from there so you can restore the drive. It is essential that the new hard drive is the exact name as the old TM hard drive. In this last scenario you would continue adding to your current set of backups.

Limiting Time Machine backup size onto external drive

I have a 6TB RAID LaCie external drive that I would like to use with Time Machine. My mac has a 1TB HD which is not full. I do not want Time Machine to fill up my external drive with multiple backups. Is there some way to limit how much space Time Machine will use on an external drive? My understanding is that Time Machine will fill up the drive completely, then start overwriting the oldest files.
I do not think that I could partition the drive. But I am not sure how to do that, if it works with mac, and if I can do it now without reformating the drives. I am looking to see if there is a solution on the Time Machine software side.

Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
should work to limit Time Machine backup size on any NAS or external disk (or not...)
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize500000
to return to ilimited
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
if you want to reclame deleted files space shrink it use
hdiutil resize -size 500g -shrinkonly /Volumes/TimeMachineYOURNAME/YOURNAME.sparsebundle/
Regards

Time machine backup with 2 external drives?

i got myself an external hard drive to use with my MBP. I do a lot of filmwork in imovie for my artwork, and have found my internal hard drive filling up fast.
So i bought a second hard drive yesterday. I'm hoping to backup my files on the external drives so i can erase the files on my MBP and keep it fairly free to record more film.
Is there a way to simultaneously backup to both external drives? or to move files from one external drive to another quickly? I am a complete newbie to macs (and technology for that matter) so simple words work best smile
thanks!

dman8950 wrote:
Hello
Does anyone know if it's possible to use two separate external drives in Time Machine to backup different parts of my mbp hard drive? That is, I want to use ex.drive1 to back up work files at work and ex.drive2 to back up personal files at home. In time machine options, I can set the folders for exclusion, but currently have to set those each time I back up at home/work.
There's no easy way to do that with Time Machine. As you see, it only has one set of exclusions and one destination drive at a time.
In theory, and if you're careful, you might be able to manipulate the preference file where all that's stored. Set TM up for home, say, then copy or rename that version. Then set it up for work and do the same.
The file is at the top level of your drive, not in your home folder:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
You could probably write an Automator workflow or AppleScript to simplify swapping the files.
Otherwise, two alternatives:
Back up everything in both places.
Use Time Machine at home, and a different app, such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, at work, or vice-versa.

Can I use a Time Machine Backup (on an external drive) as a "start up" drive? I need to do a disk repair.

I am upgrading my MacBook Pro (17"; Intel Core Duo; Speed 2.16 GHz; 2 GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM) from Leopard (10.5.8) to Snow Leopard (10.6.8). I successfully Time Machine to make a backup to an external LaCie drive. Some issues appeared when I ran a "disk verify," and need to change the startup drive to boot up and use "repair disk." When I tried to change the startup drive (in System Preferences) the drive with the Time Machine Backup was not recognized. Can I even use Time Machine to create a bootable drive? I use Carbon Copy Clone with my iMac (and can boot from the clone), but that is not an option when running OSX 10.5.8.

Only if the backup was created by Mac OS X 10.8 or newer. Use the Mac OS X 10.6 install DVD instead.
(121333)

Deleting Time Machine backup folder from external drive

I'm trying to delete my Time Machine backup folder off my external hard drive, but the system won't let me because it says [my computer name] folder is in use, when it clearly isn't; I've turned off Time Machine and deselected my drive as backup.
Additionally, it takes about an hour for my trash bin to count the number of folders it needs to delete, and only after this does it say it is unable to delete these folders.
How can I delete my backup folder?

This is a picture of my Disk Utility display showing my internal drive (labeled 750.16 GB...... & below it the name ROBESPIERRE). Below that is an external drive I have connected (labeled 160.04 GB..... & below it the name untitled).
Note that the external HDD, 160.04 GB...... entry has been selected (shown in blue). That will open the 'Partition' window. If you select on the name, the 'Partition' window will not be an option.
Make certain that you have selected the correct entry.
Ciao.

Time Machine backup with firewire external drive

I am having issues with a brand new firewire external drive and I am not sure if it is a drive issue, a configuration issue or what.
I have a 6tb Firewire hooked up to my machine. This is the drive which is being used as the destination for Time Machine. I have had this drive for awhile and seem to be having no problem with it and have not had an issue with Time Machine previously. I have a new added a second firewire drive (2tb) in daisy chain to the first (the 6tb). Whenever this drive is included in my TM backup profile, TM fails. Whenever I remove it, TM seems to work. I am wondering if the issue is the sequence of the drives (the TM drive perhaps needing to be the last in the chain), an issue with TM or perhaps an indication of a hardware problem with the new drive itself. Anyone got a clue?
Thanks.

Okay,apparantly no one else seems to be having this issue. That being the case then, how do I find a log file to get an error code so I can try to determine *why* Time Machine is failing?

Time Machine backups to two external drives?

Hi,
I'm wondering if there is a way to use Time Machine to back up the same data to two or more external drives?
For that matter... I only have certain folders I need backed up. Can it be set up to do this?
I don't have it yet and couldn't find a definitive answer.
thanks,
Andrew

I'm wondering if there is a way to use Time Machine to back up the same data to two or more external drives?
You can use Time Machine to backup to multiple drives, but you'll have to manually switch target drives in Time Machine Options when you want backups to go to a different device.
For that matter... I only have certain folders I need backed up. Can it be set up to do this?
Not easily. Time Machine backs up everything unless you exclude each item that you +do not+ want to be backed up. SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner may do what you need to do a lot more easily.

How do I recover another computer's time machine backup to an external drive

I did much searching on this and came up dry on how to clone a new drive on one computer (A) from a Time Capsule backup from another computer (B) for the purpose of installing on that other computer (B).
Specifically, I want to replace the drive in my wife's MacBook Pro (Snow Leopard 10.6.8) with an SSD. I have a drive Dock that can be attached to the iMac (Mavericks 10.9.3) with FireWire 800 (and also to the MBP using a much slower USB2). I wanted to allow her to use her MacBook Pro (browsing only, no new documents or emails) while I used my iMac to create her boot drive from her Time Capsule backup, but couldn't figure it out. Migration Assistant assumed I was migrating to my own Mac or to a remote Mac running MA. I couldn't figure out how to get CCC to just see one backup on Time Machine as input rather than the entire volume with all the backup versions. Everything I found with Google assumed I was using the MBP for the restore. CCC won't clone to a remote drive either--local only.
This is academic at this point as I connected the dock to the MBP over USB and am now using CCC to the attached drive, which will take several hours during which I assume we shouldn't be using the MBP. Maybe that was the only way all along? I suppose another way would have been to install the SSD in the MBP and boot from a DVD and use Migration Assistant. I'm just curious for the future as I help friends upgrade from time to time.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

HT5096 cannot move time machine backup from one ext drive to another. pls help!thanks!

my time machine file is about 390GB and it is on a 1TB external harddrive. I have been trying to move the backup to a new 2TB external harddrive. it stopped copying any more files after transferring 466MB. I repeated the same procedure several times,but with same result. any advice? thanks!

Apple support article:
Time Machine – Transfer Backup to a New Drive
Another good source of information:
Time Machine Troubleshooting

Multiple Time Machine backups to one external drive

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