Time Machine backup in two locations

I would like to use Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro at home and also at work. Is there any way to do this successfully?

yes, but you'll have to manually switch the TM drive in TM system preferences.

Similar Messages

Can Time Machine Backup to Two Different Drives?

I have many Apple Computers, and I was wondering if it were possible to have time machine backup to two different drives.
I want it to back up My documents, Mail, and other files/folders that I access often to a partition of my internal drive every minute.
And
I want it to back up Everything on my Mac to my external each night upon connecting it to my mac.
I take my MacBook everywhere with me and I need to make sure that the files I work on the most stay Perfectly Accessible no matter what, and I don't want to sacrifice too much space for that procedure. I would rather just be able to do constant backups of my most used files and folders, and then do a system backup each night to make sure I always have what is needed.

Let me add some more observations. I use two disks, one at home (its a mounted volume on another Mac at home) and the other is a portable disk that I attach to my MBP at work. This works fine.
About your details - TM backs up every hour. If you look around you'll find some posts that give instructions on changing the frequency (I haven't paid attention to these, so I can't help you). However, backing up to another partition on the same drive is not what I'd recommend. If the drive dies, you may lose both partitions.
As for doing constant backups of the most used files and at night doing a system backup - it seems to me you aren't "getting" TM. This sounds like the type of backup strategy one uses with "regular" backup software. I don't think I'd recommend backups every minute, but for short intervals, why not just do a default backup of everything. It doesn't really back up everything, just things that have changed. The only time it does a complete backup is the first time you use it with a specific drive. After that it no longer does complete backups, unless you reformat the drive and start from scratch.

Can I use a single external drive to maintain time machine backups for two Mac computers?

Hello
We have an older mac mini and macbook air. I have one Western Digital external USB drive. Can I use the same drive to hold and maintain time machine backups for both machines?
I already have the macbook air time-machined on the WD drive. I now want to backup the mac mini onto the same drive. Is it going to over write the time machine backup or is the software smart enough to maintain two separate files, partitions, whatever it does..?

It will maintain separate backups. Note that it's generally advisable to use separate drives for best practice backup, but yes, it will work for both computers, provided you have enough space (need generally 2-3 times the total used file space for both Macs).
Matt

How to restore a Time Machine Backup onto two Hard Drives?

Hey guys,
configuration as following:
I got a SSD, which contains all system stuff as well as apps. Further there is a HDD on which all kind of Multimedia is stored. I've put a symlink from my Home Folder to that Multimedia-HDD: Users/IceThunder -> Volumes/Multimedia.
Before my Mac crashed - I still don't know what was causing that - i backed up everything, so now I find two folders (System and Multimedia) in my .backupdb folder. If I use Time Machine to restore the state before it crashed it only offers to restore everything(?) on one specified disk, which is not what I want to.
Is there a way to get back an exact copy of the former state? How can I tell Time Machine to restore folder "System" on my SSD and folder "Multimedia" on my HDD?
Thanks in advance
IceThunder

Time Machine should restore to the disks from which the backups were made as long as each has the same name as before. For more help on this see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help.

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.

Time machine backups in 2 locations

How do I use time machine to automatically backup to 2 different discs? I would like to keep one complete backup at home and one in the office. Any possibility to do this automatically anytime I plug in one of the two different discs?

There are hacks floating around to fool Time Machine into doing this (and other tricks), but I strongly advise against it: this is your backup, treat it with respect and use as designed. I just live with the minor hassle of visiting System Prefs when switching volumes.
http://www.macosxhints.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=106493

Sharing a Time Machine backup between two Macs

Hi
So I was running my music production software on a first gen Mac Mini. I would store all of my project files on an external drive and backup that external drive to a second external drive using Time Machine. I had Time Machine set so that it excluded everything on the Mac Mini except my original external drive.
Now I've stepped up to the latest and the greatest Macbook Pro 15 inch. I'm running the same music production software on it and loading up all my files from the same external drive. When I go to back it up with Time Machine, it wants to start a separate backup for the Macbook Pro, even though it is only backing up the same stuff from the Mac Mini. The thing is that there aren't any system specific files being backed up, just my project files. For the life of me I can't get it to continue the original backup. I plan on using both Macs for music production and plan on using the same drive for both. I would like to back up every time I finish a session on either computer.
Is there anyway I can get Time Machine on each computer just continue one backup??
I know I can access the backup from each computer by "Browsing Other Time Machine Disks", but I want to backup, not restore.
If not, is there any other software you can recommend? Although I would hate to lose the backups that I already do have...
Thanks!
jg

That's probably a good option for you. It's not easy to keep a 3 way sync.
If you really want to keep certain files synced on your Mac Mini, you might want to look at ChronoSync. It appears it's a good backup-sync program. Don't know if will keep synced between the 2 computers and external drive without a little manuel effort, but would be easy to sync at least 2 devices, such as MacBook to Mac Mini, or MacBook to external.
If you don't need to keep synced files, then best option is to do a full TM backup of both computers. Since you have 2 externals, use one for each. You can still use TM to access files if you need, and if you have a hard drive failure, it's an easy replace drive and restore the whole computer from TM.
And don't overlook the option of File Sharing between the 2 computers to access each others files or a shared folder. That's a real easy way just to copy a few files when you need them.
Anyway, Good Luck and Happy Holidays

Problems with Time Machine backup for two machines to one external drive

I have a brand new WD 500GB USB My Book external drive plugged into my Intel Mac Mini running 10.5.1 to use as a TM backup drive (TM reformatted it to HFS+ journaled). The Mini's connected by ethernet to the Airport Extreme. It works great. I setup my wife's MacBook Pro 17" Dual Core 2 w. 10.5.1 for TM using the Mac Mini's TM backup drive and it works fine (a little slower at 811.n wi-fi speeds, but OK). I have the Mac Mini setup in Energy Saver to shut down at night and restart in the morning. The morning after I setup my wife's MacBook Pro for TM I found a big black & white message (in half a dozen languages) on the Mac Mini saying start up failed and I need to reboot using the power button. I did and everything was cool. Now comes the problem, it's done it three days in a row so it looks like there is a problem with the TM setup. It didn't do this before I setup my wife's computer for TM.
Any thoughts on what is causing this? We've had minimal problems with Leopard setup (short of a brief hunt for an Airport Extreme Drive and a couple of network printers during initial setup).

1 mistake @ a time wrote:
I works fine over a network if the TM drive is attached to another Mac running Leopard. It won't work with an Airport drive (Apple deep sixed that feature in the final release).
We have an Airport Extreme base station, and we plan to add an Airport Express to boost the power to reach the second floor. We are ordering 4 iMacs, 20", plus I have the Macbook 13" that I have had for a few months.
We thought we could connect one large external drive via firewire cable to one of the iMacs and use it to back up all five computers via Time Machine.
Is that possible, or does everybody need their own external drive?
Thanks!
susan

Can Time Machine backup to two USB drives

Hi,
I have an iMac 250 gig drive with about 240 gig in use and own 2 250 gig USB external drives. One of which I am currently using for Time Machine to backup to, but that is now full. I was wondering if there is any way that I can have time machine make use of both external USB drives as target backup drives?
I'm guessing I need to buy a much larger USB drive, but wanted to explore this option first.
Thanks,
Kyle

No. TM can only backup to a single drive at one time. You can designate the second drive as a new TM backup drive, but then TM will do a completely new backup to that drive, not "add on" from the old backup.
There really isn't any backup utility for the Mac that will span backups over multiple hard drives except possibly Retrospect.

Time machine backup from two volumes

I have an SSD boot drive and a HHD home drive on my Mac Pro. Both drives are included in TM backup. Question, If I restore to a new HDD from the backup, does it restore a combined drive, or restore to two partitions, or two volumes?

If you're talking about restoring from a snapshot in Recovery mode, that would only restore the startup volume.

Migration Assistant Mav.: not showing ML Time Machine backup

Hi Mac community,
my own MBP mid 2010:
clean install of Mavericks
connected FireWire 800 external hard disk with recent Time Machine backup done in Mountain Lion
started Migration Assistant, selected the Time Machine disk, and transferred all user data
everything worked absolutely PERFECTLY and now Mavericks runs smoothly with all my old user data
So I wanted to do the same thing with a relative's late 2009 iMac:
still in Mountain Lion, doing Time Machine backups to TWO different USB 2.0 hard disks
browsing the Time Machine disks manually to check whether all the files are there -- they are, including the (hidden) ~/Library folder
clean install worked fine, Mavericks runs OK
starting Migration Assistant in Mavericks ⇒ and - OH HORROR - the connected external Time Machine hard disk does not show up as a source - in fact, NOTHING shows up
So I copied over the data manually, for which I had to enable the root account (how else would one delete/replace a whole ~/Library folder??)
Then I tried to fix permissions manually (because other users could now read the files in the home folder).
All the old data (mails, contacts, calendars) is still there, but the whole thing doesn't really run smoothly; each time one logs into the account, keychain asks weird questions and dock icons pointing to programs show questions marks again. Later today, I'll try to fix permissions for the home folder as a whole (Recovery Boot ⇒ Terminal ⇒ resetpassword ⇒ Reset Home Folder Permissions and ACLs), but I'd rather do another clean install and somehow get Migration Assistant to offer me the Time Machine backup as a source for user data transfer - AS IT SHOULD in an OS that 'just works' ...
Anything I could do to convince Mavericks to use my old Time Machine backup??
This is a real nightmare for me ⇒ I f*cked up a relative's system -- really hope I can fix it again.
Cheers, folks!

sorry, i don't know what else it could be then. if you have another external drive you can try doing a full system restore from the TM backups onto that drive and see if MA will recognize that drive and migrate from it. other than this there is always manual migration. slow and tedious but it can be done. see this link for help with that
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507

Times Machine backup scheme

I run a small office with three machines:
new Core i5 iMac, just purchased, (refurbished from Apple) running MacOS 10.8 (1 TB HDD)
Macbook, first generation, running MacOS 10.6.8 (160 GB HDD)
G4 iMac, used as a file server, being slowly phased out of use, running MacOS 10.4.11 & 9.2.2 "classic mode" (300 GB HDD)
I also store a common iPhoto library on a LaCie Rugged 300 GB hard disk, which will go back and forth between the new iMac and the MacBook.
My Time Machine questions:
I plan to use LaCie's SilverKeeper backup utility to back up the G4 iMac and the LaCie iPhoto drive, so they are not relevant.
My concern is with the newer iMac and the Macbook. Currently, the greatest capacity I have on an external hard drive is 500 GB. If I plug the new iMac into a 500 GB hard disk and start up Time Machine, will the Time Machine back up process really work? I do not have anywhere near 1 TB of data to back up. In fact, up until recently, the new iMac's predecessor was a (now dead) MacBook Pro and I was able to back up both laptops, the G4 iMac and the iPhoto drive on one 500 GB hard drive.
The other concern I have: I studied Time Machine on both Lynda.com and on my old MacBook Pro before it died. (It ran MacOS 10.6.8) I'm a little confused. Can a single backup drive be used to store Time Machine backups between two or more computers? It looks like Time Machine wants to use an entire hard drive per computer. Can I partition an external drive to have more than one mountable volume available for periodic Time Machine backups? Also: has the Time Machine interface changed significantly from MacOS 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") to today's 10.8 ("Mountain Lion")?
I've been hunting for deals on the internet for new backup hard drives. Does anyone here use cheap, USB-only portable bus-powered hard drives (like LaCie's Rugged drives) for easily carried, easily stowed Time Machine backup drives? If so, what brand and model do you use and how well does your drive-of-choice work? Does anyone here buy empty USB enclosures and laptop drives to assemble their own cheap Time Machine backup drives? If so, what is your preferred scheme?
Thanks in advance!
--WA

Walt_Atwood wrote:
Do I need to partition an external backup hard disk for use with more than one computer?
That's usually a good idea. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4.
Should I at least put folders on the hard disk for each backup to be separate, or won't that matter?
You can't. Time Machine automatically creates a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of a directly-connected drive, and will only back up to it. For backups made over a network, it creates a sparse bundle disk image named for the Mac it's backing-up at the top level of the drive, and will only back up to that.
Since you have an iMac and a MacBook, you have a much better alternative than switching the drive from one Mac to the other: Connect the drive directly to the iMac and let the iMac back up to it directly. Then back the MacBook up to that same drive (preferably a separate partition) over your network. That way, both can back up hourly as long as they're awake (and the MacBook is in range of your network) automatically. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #22 for setup instructions.

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.

Old time machine backup partition erased, but new partition failed

I had a defective time machine backup and had to start over. My disk has 4TB. The original time machine backup contained two backups from different laptops and was in the largest partition of 2TB. I then had two addition 1TB partitions. I remade new time machine backups to each of the 1TB partitions for each of the mac book pros. When I went to delete and change the original 2TB partition I found I could minus it out to create free space, but all attempts to try to repartition it as 2TB or as 2 1 TB pieces and even a piece as small as 200MB failed and asked me to resize closer to the original partition.
I have seen many similar issues, but not quite like this. I have already shut down the external drive and unplugged it and the restarted my machine, but to no effect. I now have 2 1 TB partitions and a 2 TB empty space.
Any suggestions?
I'm a little afraid to copy the Time Machine backups to a new drive as I heard that is NOT a good idea.
Is this a problem created when a partition is used for a Time Machine backup?
Han

How are you looking for the backup?
Time Machine will only show the active backup.
You can hold down the Option key while selecting the Time Machine menu and you will have the option to Browse other Time Machine backups.
Here is some good info on how Time Machine "thinks:" http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Time Machine backup to remote shared external HD

I've read through a lot of posts about this and I'm stuck.
I have a MacBookPro and a Mac Air.
Both are on the same WiFi network.
The MacBookPro has a firewire drive attached.
The MacBookPro has File Sharing on and a "TimeMachine" partition on the external FW drive is "shared".
From the Air I can "Connect As" a standard user account on the MacBook Pro.
I can "Mount" the "TimeMachine" partition on the Air
Problem: When I use System Preferences...TimeMachine and search for a drive to use for backup it does not see the mounted remote partition.
Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated!
-- Randy

It might help to backup and tell you what I'm trying to accomplish, overall.
I am trying to use Time Machine backup for two computers on a large external FW drive. The FW drive will be connected to my MBP and the Air will use the WiFi shared connection. Earlier you answered another question of mine about merging Time Machine backups and I realized that the best approach is to start fresh with a new external HD that I can reformat, etc.
I use SuperDuper and Drive Genius as my HD tools.
So, I'm able to take my new LaCie drive and partition/format it anyway that will work best with Time Machine.
I'd like to attempt to use my Time Machine backup from this last month (on "TimeMachineBackup") by moving it to the "TimeMachine1" partition and then have the two machine send both of their backups to that drive.
My steps this morning were aimed at verifying that WiFi Time Machine backup works, but, maybe with your guidance and suggestions I can just move directly to a suggested configuration.
Thanks for your help. It is appreciated.
-- Randy

Time Machine backup in two locations

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for