Partitioning Hard Drive for Use with Mac (Time Machine) and Windows

I have a brand new Imac on which I am also running WIndows Vista through Boot Camp (sweet, by the way). I have a large external hard drive on which I set up Time Machine easily enough. I would like to partition the drive somehow so that I could use half the drive to separately back up files on the WIndows side, but I can't seem to do this. Any suggestions? Is this even possible with Time Machine?

You can use Disk Utility create two partitions. Choose FAT for the Windows partition and Mac Extended (Journaled) for the Mac. One limitation of FAT32 is that you can't write files bigger than 4GB. You can reformat this partition as NTFS within Vista which will allow bigger file sizes but you won't be able to write to this partition from within OS X without other utilities. Also you can't write to the OS X partition from Vista without other software.
Time Machine will not be able to back up the windows formatted drive partition.

Similar Messages

  • I recently purchase macbook air with OS 10.10.2. I want to use my Seagate external backup plus hard drive for time machine back up. How to partition my 1TB Seagate back up plus hard drive for use with mac and windows pc?

    Hi All,
    I recently purchased 13" Macbook Air with OS 10.10.2. I want to use my 1TB Seagate backup plus external hard drive as time machine and my windows 7 pc. Please suggest a method. Thanks in advance for your reply.

    I strongly recommend having an external drive dedicated solely for TimeMachine. You could partition the drive but if something goes wrong you risk losing the data on both partitions. Should you decide to go ahead with splitting the drive for two different uses you’ll need to partition the drive either using the Mac’s built in Disk Utility program or Windows utility. I believe the built in Windows disk utility program will destroy the current partition and erase the data that’s on it - I use a third party Windows disk utility program for partitioning and it allows for non-destructive partitioning but warns to back up data first just in case. Apple’s Disk Utility can do non-destructive partitions but I don’t recall every trying to do a non-destructive partition on a disk originally formatted for Windows using it. Again - back up that data just in case.
    Finally, your TimeMachine drive should be at least 1.5 times (I prefer 2 times) the size of the data you expect to be backing up a year or two from now.  In other words, if you currently are using 50GB of your computer’s drive but expect to begin purchasing Mac software to replace software on your Windows computer and if you expect to be putting photos, music, and other data on it you might expect that two years from now you’ll have 100GB of stuff on the drive. So a 200GB partition is the smallest size you’d want.  TM’s backup scheme keeps multiple copies of data as it changes so the extra room is important for this scheme.

  • 2TB Time Capsule or External Hard Drive for use with Mac MINI and AppleTV

    Hi,
    My current setup is I have a 1TB Hard Drive linked to my intel Mac Mini via FireWire 400, the Mini shares my music and films through iTunes so that my AppleTV can pick them up.
    All devices are connected to an AEBS 802.11n (early model) via Cat6 Gigabit cables.
    As I have run out of space and am looking for a bigger drive, I wanted to know if I would be able to use the 2TB Time Capsule to hold my films and be able to stream them to the Mac Mini so that it may stream them through iTunes to the AppleTV.
    The theory of if should work, as the devices are all Gigabit capable and connected by high quality Cat6 leads their shouldn't be network bandwith issues, I am just unsure of how quickly the TimeCapsule can read stored data from a hard drive and transmit, some of my films are HD and run 4GB plus.
    The obvious answers is just to buy a bigger hard drive with FW400, however I would like to reduce the number of boxes I have under the TV, I plan to upgrade my AEBS to the latest one anyway so just thought it made sense to explore this option.
    looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

    Hello,
    It should work in theory, but the disk access time of the TC is much slower. I was setup like you are with an external drive connected to a Mini via FW and I had true Gigabit transfer between computers.
    When my hard drive failed I sold my Linksys gigabit router and bought a TC to reduce the number of boxes, but I soon learned that the read/write speed on a TC is a little bit faster than on a thumb drive! Not that great. All my machines are also connected with Cat6.
    It's still OK to watch a movie though, but transferring 10+ Gb is a pain.

  • I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time  Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on  what other external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and  how to configure that disk

    I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
    Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on
    what other
    external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and
    how to configure that disk.
    A complication that I need to resolve is the fact that I am using Vmware
    Fusion to be able to use Windows on my Mac. Now it seems that Time
    Machine is not backing up my files
    on that virtual Windows without additional configuration and my question
    is whether you can advise me here or whether this is only a matter for
    the Fusion virtual machine.

    If you want to use Time Capsule you can.. you simply bridge it and plug it into the existing router.. wireless can be either turned off or used to reinforce the existing wireless.. eg use 5ghz in the TC which is much faster than your 2.4ghz.
    You can also use a NAS.. many brands available but the top brands are synology, qnap and netgear readynas  series. These will all do Time Machine backups although how well always depends on Apple sticking to a standard. There are cheaper ones.. I bought a single disk zyxel which was rebadged and sold through my local supermarket. It actually works very well for TM at least on Snow Leopard. Major changes were made in Lion and again ML so do not instantly think it will work on later versions. I haven't tried it yet with those versions.
    Any external drive can be plugged into the mac. Use the one with the fastest connection or cheapest price according to your budget. USB2 drives are cheap and plentiful. But no where near as fast as USB3 or FW800. So just pick whichever suits the ports on your Mac. Interesting Apple finally moved to USB3 on their latest computers.
    TM should exclude the VM partition file.. it is useless backing it up from Mac OS side.. and will slow TM as it needs to backup that partition everyday for no purpose.. TM cannot see the files inside it to backup just the changes.
    You need to backup windows from windows. Use MSbackup to external drive.. if you have pro or ultimate versions you can backup to network drive. But MSbackup is a dog.. at least until the latest version it cannot restore the partition without first loading windows. There are about a zillion backup software versions for windows.. look up reviews and buy one which works for you. I use a free one Macrium Reflect which does full disk backups and is easy to restore.. to do incremental backups though you have to pay for it.

  • External HDD formatting for use in Mac OS X and Windows

    I've been gifted with WD (My Passport) 1TB External HDD. On the box it says it requires reformatting for use in Mac OS X.
    I used the earlier discussions. I couldn't decipher the steps details as it was mostly by level 4 above.
    Can any honourable member advice me on how to reformat my new external HDD for use in Mac OS X and Windows (As in office and during meetings I might haveto use wwindows system)
    Also if done with formatting will this be allowing to setup Time Machine back ups.
    Please be sure that I want to use time machine exclusively for backup, some earlier discussions mention that TM can also be used for OS booting etc.,
    I would be greatful to all who will help me in these regard

    Normally the drives are formated as exFAT which could be used by both a Mac and a PC out of the box.  Connect the drive to your computer it should be able to read it.  If not then the system will ask you if you want o erase the hard drive.  Select yes, it will format the drive for use with a Mac only.  This is the required format to use it as a Time Machine backup.  As stated in our post you would like to use this hard drive on both Windows and Mac, you should reformat the hard drive as exFAT in disk utility. 

  • What is a good external hard drive for use with a macbook air?

    I am looking at purchasing a macbook air 13". What is a good external hard drive to use with it? Should I look for an external hard drive with its own a/c power or is the usb 3.0 capable of powering the external drive.

    Have a look here for the sizes and prices.
    It is however, much better to get a USB external drive that comes with it's own power adapter to avoid issues when or if your USB port can't supply enough power to your external drive.
    That issue however does happen rarely but it does happen.  Especially when connecting other devices to your other USB port while your external hard drive is connected to your other usb port.

  • Best hard drive for use with Time Machine

    Hi,
    Has anyone determined what the best external hard drive is for use with Time Machine? Is there a particular one that works exceptionally well with Time Machine, or is it much of a muchness?
    I'm looking for a Firewire 400 & Firewire 800 drive that STAYS ON all the time, and doesn't automatically spin down or spin up like the rubbish WD My Book drives do.

    I can't tell you if it is the "best" hard drive for you to use with TM, but I'm quite happy with the 500 GB Buffalo Technology DriveStation Combo TurboUSB I bought recently. It is quiet, quite inexpensive for the capacity (I paid about $120 for one on sale at Fry's), & completely compatible with OS X & TM.
    Best of all for me, it automatically powers down when my iMac sleeps. It also spins down after a time if the Mac's Energy Saver preference "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is checked; otherwise it remains spun up until the Mac is put to sleep or switched off.
    It comes with "Turbo" USB & Memeo "AutoBackup" software, neither of which I installed. (The box didn't claim these extras came in a Mac version but both Mac & Windows versions were included on the CD.) Out-of-the-box, I reformatted the drive with the Apple Partition Map scheme & two partitions, a 160 GB one for cloning my internal drive & the rest for TM. The drive works perfectly for both uses & seems quite fast, as one would expect from a 7200 rpm SATA drive.

  • Question about Formatting Buffalo USB 1TB external drive for use with Mac Book Pro Mountain Lion HD

    Hi there, Have Mountain Lion HD operating system (not sure if it is 10.8 or 10.8.1. or 10.8.2)  and have a Buffalo USB 3.0 1TB hard drive. When go to utilities to try and format with Mac OS extended, following 3 files show. DriveNavi. exe, Slm.exe and Mac. The option to left click and erase menu is not there. Or at least not as shown in all the help videos.
    It is USB connection so will take ages but want to use drive to store video footage and also partition to back up Time Machine. ( travelling in South America and no other Ext Drive option available too buy) how much space should i assign to Time Machine when partitioning?  Is there anything else i need to think about? as new to formatting. Any thing else i can do to make process of transfering footage to Buffalo quicker?
    Final question is if it is finally reformatted am i going to have to spend so long accessing footage from hard drive when back home and editing that it really is not worth if, and i should just write this off as an inappropriate purchase, and try and buy more memory cards and not bother with transfering/storing? Thanks in advance for time spent trying to assist.

    Use Apple's Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder to format the drive.
    The programs on the drive given to you by the manufacturer is likely backup software (or malware) and essentially worthless, it will be wiped when you format the drive.
    I do NOT advise you partition that drive for TimeMachine, rather I advise you not to use TimeMachine at all for your purposes because TM is just a backup, not a bootable drive.
    Rather do this.
    Get another hard drive that is equal to or slightly larger than your boot drive.
    Format the drive in Disk Utiltiy > 1 Partition, option: GUID, Format: OS X Extended journaled, click Erase and move the slider one spot to the right and click Erase. This will take some time as it's going to map off any failing sectors it can BEFORE you lay data on the drive corrupting it.
    Next, pay for and download Carbon Copy Cloner, use the default settings and simply clone internal drive to the external drive. this will also take some time the first time.
    Next use Disk Utility to Repair Permisisons on both drive. Now reboot the machine and hold the option key down, you can select the external drive clone to boot from!!
    You can update the clone the same way by using CCC, but it doesn't take as long, only copying changes.
    This is better than TimeMachine as a bootable clone is bootable in case your internal drive fails to boot the machine.
    Use the first drive for storage and be very gentle with it while it running, like you should do for all hard drives as they are subjective to shock damage.
    The objective with the clone drive is you keep it safe, and not carting it around where it can be more subjective to damage like the other drive will be.
    Remmeber you need 2 forms of hardware backup at all times.
    Most commonly used backup methods

  • FORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR USE ON MAC AND WINDOWS

    I'm going to start working on scanning a lot of old family photos and getting them put on an external hard drive for my parents.  I'd also like to eventually put old VHS family home movies on the hard drive as well.  However, I'm not sure what to do about the hard drive.  I know if I format it to be compatible with my Mac it probably won't be compatible with their PC.  I read about the FAT32 option but I saw something about a file not working if it's over 4 GB in size.  I'm thinking maybe some of those home movies will be larger than 4GB.  I also saw an exFAT option.  If I go with that will I be able to scan the photos on my Mac, get the home videos converted and put it all on the hard drive will all of it be visible and usable on their Windows PC?
    Thanks for your help!

    matahari_1946,
    if you’re not yet backing up your Mac’s internal hard disk, I’d recommend first that you purchase an external hard drive for yourself for exclusive use as a Time Machine backup destination; that way, in case of a disk problem, you won’t permanently lose all of your scanned photos and imported movies.
    A 4 GB file limit does apply to FAT32 filesystems. If their version of Windows allows, the external disk which will hold those photos and videos should be formatted as NTFS from their PC, so that they can watch video files over 4 GB. (It’s unlikely that an individual photo file would be over 4 GB.) However, OS X doesn’t come out of the box with NTFS support. The exFAT filesystem is able to hold files over 4 GB, and it is supported by Mac OS X 10.6.5 and newer, but it’s optimized for flash drives; it’s more “fragile” on hard disks than other filesystems are. As a workaround, you could format a flash drive to have exFAT, copy videos over 4 GB onto the flash drive, and then use your parents’ PC to copy the videos from the flash drive to their NTFS external disk. Other alternatives would be to look for third-party software for OS X which supports reading from and writing to NTFS disks, or third-party software for Windows which supports reading from and writing to journaled HFS+ (the default OS X filesystem) disks.

  • Hard drives for use with Logic

    Anyone have any opinions on the best hard drives for both the project files, as well as extra external drives for keeping samples on? I'm pretty sure that at this point, my hard drives are creating more system locks than my processing speed.
    According to the "activity monitor" my processing and RAM are definitely not working to capacity.
    Is there a threshold where drive capacity gets too big and starts to affect performance, or does it really not matter?
    Thanks,
    -jeff

    I've used a lot of lacies but I don't recommend them anymore and won't buy one the next time I get a drive. too many things have gone wrong with them over time, I have a hard time trusting them. I currently use a lacie 500GB d2 drive (the long one with triple interface) for my sound library and project files using FW800. so far so good, but it will be relegated to backup drive as soon as I get a g-tech drive.
    I'm probably going to go for a G-RAID 500GB. I'm even considering getting an e-SATA one to use with my MBP using an e-SATA card.. I like the idea of having desktop-class data throughput. and also I've been eyeing off the liquid mix for my MBP, so having the firewire bus totally free for that would be not a bad idea at all..
    I've head nothing but good reports about g-tech drives, the only bad thing is that there never seems to be any stock available, you always have to back order. maybe this is a good sign?
    I'd second the opinion already posted that as far as firewire goes, g-tech are the best choice for serious work.

  • Hard drives for use with FCP HD/G5

    I've been looking to get a new 500 gig hard drive for storing media for FCP HD. There is a big price difference between "G-Force" and "La Cie" drives. Does anyone recommend one over the other?

    "G-Force" is a cartoon with heroes that dress up as birds. G-Technology is the company that makes the best external hard drives out there. G-Raid being the drive of choice.
    BUT, what you are looking for is a drive to dump the p2 footage onto in the field, THEN you import from that drive to your media drive on your G5, right?
    Acomdata drives are what I use. Specifically the Ondago one.
    www.acomdata.com
    Now, watch my P2 import tutorial while you're at it:
    http://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/pagewrapper.cgi?forumid=8&page=http://www.creativecow.net/articles/ross_shane/p2workflow/index.html
    Shane

  • How do I re-format an Apple 3TB Hard-Drive for use as a Time Capsule?

    I have an Apple Time 3 TB Capsule that is also a WiFi Router - I've removed all backup data (from my iMac Time Machine) and I wish to reformat the drive and reset it as a Time Capsule (I wish to rename it besides "Data" if possible). This Time Capsule and Router is the earlier flat version Apple produced before the current vertical standing Time Capsule and Router. Any help, greatly appreciated.

    All Time Capsule drive formatting is done via Airport Utility under the Disks tab. You can find more by clicking on Airport Utility Help in the Help menu and searching for "erase."

  • I am looking to buy an external hard drive for my maced to time machine.

    I am looking an external hard drive for my mac and I do see one in PC world that is compatible with time machine. I do not want it connected to time machine and wonder if I can use it without connecting.

    In my view you need to have one external drive connected to Time Machine all the time in order to receive the true benefits it can give.   Do not use your internal HD for this purpose.
    Having said that, to double up on back ups is a very practical thing to do.   I would advise you get a portable HD, say 1TB, from WD or the like, back up your system, disconnect, then top up by connecting it every couple of months or so.
    You can then store the portable away from the machine, perhaps with a trusted relative, so adding safe keeping against fire, theft or power disasters
    Message was edited by: seventy one

  • Quiet external hard drive for use with Time Machine?

    Few questions related to Time Machine:
    1- what external hard drive that would be good to use with Time Machine, that also runs relatively quietly? Since TM runs 24/7, am looking for one that is quieter than my current G-tech.
    2- Please confirm what size is optimal relative to the size of the internal hard drive.
    3- I currently use a separate external hard drive as my bootable disc.  Is it possible/preferable to have these be on one and the same drive?
    Thank you.

    1. I like these (have three of them) - literally whisper quiet:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
    2. You should allow 2 - 3 times your internal drive's size for TM.
    3. No, it'd be best to be on another drive - you can create separate partitions, but if/when the drive fails, both of your backups would be gone. So, keep your clone on a separate disk. In fact, it's good to have two different backups.

  • External Hard drive help: use with mac and pc? how to backup everything etc

    Hello! I need some help regarding a new external hard drive I got from OWC. It is a 500 gb firewire 400 + usb 2.0 7200 rpm hard drive. I am running it from firewire. The software suggests the first thing you do is make a clone of your macbooks internal hard drive, that way if it fails later you can use the external to back everything up. If I do this ...
    1. do I have to make the drive "Bootable" ? I have software called Data Backup 3 by Pro soft I think. It came with my external.
    2. Can I still back up other stuff like my audio recordings and record onto that drive to a seperate folder?
    3. If I make a bootable copy will it try and boot from the drive everytime I turn it on or something?
    My other question is... how can I use this drive with a pc? I have a pc as well and I heard that the only way it will work is to format it in ms-dos mode (fat32?)
    If I write it to fat32 will it slow down my drive or make it worse? I heard that you should format external drives specifically for mac if you have a mac; so it will only work with macs...
    (sorry this is going on and on; it's like a chain reaction of questions)
    so If its formatted to mac drive format then can I do this with my current situation:
    1. I have wireless internet, the router is on a pc downstairs
    2. Can I send files over a network somehow from the pc to my mac
    3. then store it on my external?
    If so can someone point me in that direction with a link?
    Thank you for reading, sorry for making this so long.

    1. No, you don't have to make a bootable clone.
    2. If you use the drive for a bootable backup, then you cannot use the drive for other types of storage unless you partition the drive and make more than one volume.
    3. No, it will not try to boot the computer. You must designate the startup volume using Startup Disk preferences.
    If you wish to use the drive on both a Mac and a PC, then either you make two partitions - one for Mac and the other for the PC or you must format the entire drive using FAT32 so the drive can be used for read//write by both operating systems. If you do this then you cannot use the drive for a bootable backup nor can you use it with Time Machine.
    FAT32 is slower for read/write on the Mac than using Mac formatting.
    Optimally, I would suggest you partition the drive into two volumes. One volume formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32.
    You can send files from a PC to a Mac and vice-versa using File Sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "file sharing" or "sharing" to find help articles. Also see,
    Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Mac computer to share files with Windows users
    Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Windows computer to share files with Mac users
    Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Sharing with Windows computers

Maybe you are looking for