Time machine back up external too?

Will the TM back up my external drive as well as internal? I have all my music and pictures on an external drive currently. Will TM back up the external drive that contains all my music and picture files provided the external is always plugged in and "on" throught the USB port on the imac. (I will have a seperate External drive for TM) Thanks.

kroes wrote:
It reads Master Boot record and Fat 32 (MS-DOS).
I have been using this for two years with my macbook with no problems and have it hooked into my imac with no problems but it seems to be formatted with windows? How could it even write or read files? What do I need to do to format it GUID? Do I have to wipe the drive? What do I do with all my photos and music that is already on the drive?
I thought I'd read that TM would only back-up Mac OS Extended partitions on GUID or APM drives (even though OSX can read FAT32 partitions on MBR drives), but now I can't find that documented anywhere, so I'm not sure. (I don't do Windoze.)
Perhaps Kappy or V.K. (the "gurus" of such things) will clarify this.

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Time Machine back-up disk too small

Recently I had to restore my system from a Time Machine back-up, all seemed to work fine. Now I have a situation where time machine gives me an error when I attempt a back up, saying there's not enough free space on the back-up drive. The drive I'm backing up is max 500megs, the external BU drive is a TB. I fixed all the prefs but it seems as though Time machine is not deleting old files from my BU drive to make room for new ones. Any ideas?

OrangePanda wrote:
Hi, I have the same problem.
My backup drive (G-Tech Q 500Gb) has 465Gb of space and my Pro has only 434Gb,
Your backup drive is much too small. To work well (and keep a reasonable number of backups for you), TM usually needs roughly 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. See item #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
yet when I tried to update it says I still need 63Gb of space??? I downloaded the Time Machine buddy recommended here, the message said that some old copies were deleted but still need 64Gb, only had 40Gb.
Did I miss something? should I just wipe my G-Tech and try again?
Short-term, probably. Without the actual messages, we can only speculate, but most likely you've made a lot of changes or for some other reason TM is trying to back-up about 54 gb (the 64 includes about 20% extra for workspace). Copy and post the TM Buddy messages here and we can be sure.
Long-term, you need a bigger drive.

Time Machine Back-up Taking Too much Space

I have only been a Mac owner for a little over three months.
I set up Time Machine with an external hard drive three months ago. My Mac hard drive has used 64.16 GB of space out of 249 GB. Ny external drive (300 GB) however was full and deleting on its own in just 10 weeks. Three days ago I erased everything on the external drive and started over. After the first full back up, 50.61 GB of space was taken. Now three days later it is up to 102.54 GB. What am I doing wrong, or what do I need to do to correct.
This is a 'home use only' computer and daily changes are minimal.
Thanks for any feedback.
Roger

Hi mahlquist,
I have exactly the same problem on three macs running SL. Sometimes it simply wants to backup the whole drive instead of creating an incremental backup. The worst thing is that it deletes old backups first (when there is not enough space for an additional complete backup) without asking you if you want it to do that. So, the best solution is to deactivate the automatic backup in TM and start it manually only. Watch at the TM window, see what it is doing when the backup starts. When it starts to delete old backups, cancel the backup, restart your Mac and then try again. In most cases, TM then works again and creates incremental backups. Another bug is that sometimes it backups even folders that are in the list of excluded folders. I didn't manage to break TM of doing that. So I decided for a reinstall of SL on the machine that was affected.
This is one of the most annoying bugs in SL. TM is nearly unusable in SL. I also tried a complete wipe and install of SL to make sure that it wasn't the upgrade from Leopard that causes the broken TM. But this didn't solve the problem. In general, there are lots of bugs in SL. In the meantime, I would say that SL is one of the most annoying versions of OS X that Apple has ever released. Lots of bugs in such a manner are really new to me as a Mac user for many years.

Does Time Machine back up external NAS devices?

I'm on a small business network and recently added an external NAS device that stores all customer files. I have another external HD that I use for Time Machine back-ups that I disconnect at the end of the day and place in a fire safe. Before adding the NAS I plugged the back up HD into my G5 via USB. If I continue to do that will Time Machine also back up the mounted NAS? If not, how do I go about scheduled back ups of the NAS?

no, TM can only back up directly attached drives. no network devices. you need a different backup solution to back up a NAS. see this post by kappy for options
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7495315#7495315

Time Machine Back up is too slow

I just bought a WD 1 TB hard drive for my Macbook Pro. I put files on but for some reason the Time Machine's first back up is taking forever for only 54 gbs. Is this normal? It took me just a few minutes to put in the 25 gb of itunes data on it but the Time Machine back up is so slow. Plus the encryption is very slow too.

Hi there Balhabib,
I would recommend taking a look at the troubleshooting steps found in the article below.
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275
-Griff W.

Time Machine Back Up (External)

Hey Guys
Love the time machine back up feature but I cant get it to work outside my network. I can access the TC outside my network and see the items and make changes etc. However when I try to back up Time Machine it says it cant find the disk, even though I can access the disk??
Thanks
AC

Apple may have removed the ability to backup over remote access in Time Machine.. even when you could do it on earlier OS.. Apple strongly recommended not doing so. And do not support it. The reason is the backup is easily corrupted beyond repair.. and the amount of data that is required by TM to function makes local network access the only viable one unless you have high speed dual direction fibre on both ends.. !! Don't even bother attempting this with 1-2Mbps uploads at either end.
From a previous post I did.
You are doing this against Apple's explicit advice not to do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3486
Can Time Machine remotely back up or restore data from Time Capsule or its attached hard drive via Back to My Mac?
Backing up or restoring Time Machine backups remotely (that is, via Back to My Mac and the Internet instead of your local network) is not recommended. If you want to back up or restore with Time Machine and Time Capsule, you should do so while directly connected to your Time Capsule's local network.
The possibility of corrupting the backup already on the TC is very high.
You can apparently force it to happen.. but I think apple made it harder in the latest updates to help you follow the advice.
Good luck if you do it..
You will need to manually mount the disk in Finder.
Type in Finder main menu, Go, Connect to server.
AFP://TCpublicIPaddress (the IP wan address of your TC)
And give the disk password when asked.
Good luck with the corruptions.

HT201250 Can time machine back up external hard drives too?

I'm new to Time Machine. Can I set it up to back up both my internal HD and an external HD?
Thanks,
Carol

Yes but it's poor advice by Apple for the reason hardware fails just as often as software, if you drop that drive, you have ruined all your backups at the same time.
If you get malware, you have just infected all your backups at the same time.
Apple created TimeMachine and didnt provide a Windows version, in my opinion it's to trap as much as your data as possible so you can't decide to later to switch to a Windows PC without a great deal of pain and effort.
So the more drives you backup with Apple's TimeMachine the more data is trapped in it when the hardware or software fails.
The best advice is to have a multiple backup system and match each piece of hardware with two of it's own seperate hardware backups.
So if you have a boot drive, you need two external backups of it.
If you have a storage drive for extra space, then you need two more drives as backup of that.
Drives are cheap, data is not.
If you drop the only backup, get a power surge, or a criminal breaks in or a fire and it's dead or gone, or get malware, you won't know until it's already infected the first backup restored that it's still on the loose and need ot take stronger measures, your going to wish you had the second backup safe and sound someplace.
Most commonly used backup methods

Time Machine backing up external hard drives?

I have a Macbook Pro connected to two external drives. One is a simple 2 TB drive and the other a 6TB RAID1 drive. Before I switched from OSX 10.6.8 to Mountain Lion, Time Machine appeared to back up both the MacBook Pro and the external 2TB drive to the RAID1 drive. After switching to Mountain Lion, Time Machine seems only to back up the Macbook Pro but not the 2TB external drive to the RAID1.
I have read conflicting information on various discussion groups about whether Time Machine indeed backs up external drives or not.
If Time Machine does NOT back up external drives, i'd be grateful for advice on how to otherwise back up this drive.
thanks very much.

By default, it will exclude all externals.
To have one backed-up, you must remove it from the exclusion list
System Preferences > Time Machne > Options > remove the drive you want backed up from the list

HT201250 Can time machine back up external drives to external drives?

I was wondering if I can use Time Machine to back up external drives. I know it backs up just my Mac, but need to know if
it will back up an external drive to an external drive.

Open your Time Machine drive. Open the Backups.backupdb folder therein. Open the Computer Name (e.g., Adam Smith's iMac) folder. Open any folder there whose name contains a date later than when you attached your (other) external drive. You should see a list of folders representing the drives that are being backed-up. One is typically Macintosh HD, your internal hard drive. There should be one for your other external drive.

Time Machine backing up way too many files

A little while ago I noticed Time Machine was taking forever to perform its hourly backups on my work computer (MacBook Pro, 10.6.8). I downloaded TimeTracker and Time Machine Buddy, and compared TM's performance between my work and home Macs. Let me lay out my observations and the problem for you:
- Regular backups routinely take 20-30 minutes on the work computer; sometimes longer; they usually take about 1 minute at home.
- My wife works at home so both Macs are used about the same amount during the day.
- According to TimeTracker, these normal backups basically have the same makeup on both Macs. Around 40-60 MBs of data, and the biggest single file tends to be something in a web browser "Application Support" folder, e.g. Firefox's places.sqlite file at 40 megs.
- When I noticed this, I even excluded that browser file from TM. Didn't have an effect.
- The biggest difference between the two Macs that I can glean from Time Machine Buddy is the sheer number of files being prepared and copied. At home, it's a few thousand, maybe 3-4. At work, more like 100,000. In fact, all of my overnight backups were identical: 60,744 files copied (14 KB) followed by 28,176 files copied (9 KB). So, it's clearly not linked to the size (data-wise) of the backup. (Again, this was less data after I excluded that FF folder. I've since re-instated it.)
- I don't see anything in the TM Buddy log about a "deep traversal."
- Can't imagine it's an external HDD issue since (I assume) all the TM preparations should be happening on the Mac side, but for what it's worth, this started with one drive (USB 2.0) that I then restored to a larger partition of another drive (FW 800), and the issue persists.
I've seen lots of other threads about endless TM backups and regularly copying mountains of data, but hadn't come across anything that seemed to match my peculiar situation.
Thanks for your help!

GFIVE wrote:
Same problem here!
There is a new "me too" feature in Apple Support Communities. Check the bottom of the initial post:
I will however upgrade to Lion in a few days. I'm hoping this will fix this annoying problem.
Be very, very careful with that strategy. Installing an operating system update to a system already exhibiting flakiness is usually a bad idea.
I suggest a good backup using a cloning tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Time Machine is best for backups, but if you know you are going to need a backup, a clone is a good thing to have.
Once you have that backup, erase your hard drive, install Lion, reinstall the latest version of your applications, and then migrate over only your documents.

Time machine back up taking too long

Why is time machine taking so long to back up? I just downladed the update and it's still dragging

You are entitled to 90 day telephone support from Apple. Try contacting them.
Apple Support Contact
Apple Support contact - Telephone

Can Time Machine back up external hard drives?

I have an older Mac Mini with a fairly small hard drive -- I think it's 80G. Most of my data needs to live on a separate 250G external hard drive . I would like to use my brand new 1TB hard drive to back up both the 80G Mini HD and the 250G external hard drive.
Is this possible?

Thanks. I had my suspicions about that, but I'm glad to hear it's an easy fix.
And special thanks for the quick answer. It came so fast, I think I felt wind blowing over my keyboard.
Jack

Can I use my time capsule for time machine back ups and as an external storage device?

I have a time capsule and have set it up so that my time machine back ups are saved on it, but I would also like to use it as an external hard drive. Is this possible?
I know nothing about computers so please tell me in very basic terms. thankyou!

By external hard disk we usually mean one plugged into the computer by USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt.
None of those works on the TC.. it is plugged in by ethernet or use wireless connection.. that means it is a network drive.. not an external drive. The difference might not mean much to you.. but it is totally different to the computer. In the former case the computer has full control of the disk. In the case of the network drive, the disk is controlled by the TC firmware and the files are stored and accessed by network. This has large implications.
So here is my standard response.
Store files on the TC.
This is asked several times a day.. obviously people are struggling with their latest SSD being too small.
The TC is not suitable for network file server.. but many people having no choice press it into service as such.
Major issues.
1. No backup.. no way Time Machine can backup a network drive. No place to backup to.. So all your files will be at risk. And you will need to buy a third party like CCC to do backup.
2. The TC cannot be partitioned and mixing TM backups and data is not great. It was and is and ever shall be a backup device for Time Machine.
3. The drive is slow to spin up and quick to spin down.. there is no control. In fact the TC is so lacking in controls for even the router side.. that you cannot do more than the most basic of setups.
The following are controls on the hard disk side.
Reformat it. You can name the share. You can do a full archive of the whole disk. This will go at a speed of aprox. 30-50GB/Hr so calculate how long an archive of a full 2TB will take.
4. iPhoto in particular can easily corrupt its entire library with wireless networking causing a disconnection to one photo. Even if you do this;;; do not move your photo library... you have been warned!!
Even apple btw say don’t do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32 it adds network drives.
5. iTunes can constantly lose connection to the library. The disk is slow to respond.. itunes on the computer will constantly spit out errors. Even in the midst of streaming the TC can spin down the disk due to caching.
6. Do not use any live files on the TC no matter what else you do.. if you edit files in whatever program the file must be on the local hard disk.
7. The only suitable location for most libraries is a computer. You can plug in an external hard disk.
Read pondini for some work arounds.
Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

Just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??

Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd.
Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set.
1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price.
I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there.
Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB?
Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopard
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009
where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings.

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

Time machine back up external too?

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