Time machine iMac HD and external USB hard drive backs up to separate locations

I have an iMac 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 with 2TB HD backing up to a 5th gen 2 TB Time Capsule via Time Machine. I also have a 2TB USB external Seagate HD connected to my iMac (which contains lots of iMovies and stuff I don't have room for on my iMac) and a 2nd 2TB USB external Seagate HD connected to the USB port of the Time Capsule. I want Time Machine to alternate backing up my iMac (with the 2TB USB ext HD with iMovies etc excluded) to the Time Capsule and then backing up the USB external HD connected to the iMac (with the iMac HD excluded) to the 2TB ext HD connected to the Time Capsule. I know Time Machine can back up a single HD to 2 different back up drives alternately and it can back up multiple drives to a single back up drive. But I want it to do alternate backups of the iMac and the ext HD to two different locations. Is this possible?

Sorry no.. but there are far superior backup software like Carbon Copy Cloner to do the job..
Superduper is also popular and there are some others. Time Machine is singularly without controls.. a typical apple software really.

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I have a time machine backup file on a USB hard drive. I bought a time capsule / airport extreme, flat 3TB. I wish to transfer the backup file from the usb hard drive to the time capsule hard drive. 10.6.8

I have a time machine backup file on a USB hard drive. I bought a time capsule / airport extreme, flat 3TB. I wish to transfer the backup file from the usb hard drive to the time capsule hard drive. 10.6.8

Unfortunately, Time Machine backups that are stored on a drive that has been connected directly to a Mac are completely different than Time Machine backups that are stored on a Time Capsule.
Frankly, it is not worth the effort and trouble to try to transfer the old backups to the new Time Capsule.....my opinion....having done this in the past.
It is possible though, but I would not recommend it due to the complexity and downsides involved with this. To give you an idea of how to do this, check out this support article.
http://pondini.org/TM/18.html
Even if you transfer the "old" backups over to the Time Capsule successfully, Time Machine will not simply "add on" to the old backups.
Time Machine will make a new complete backup of your Mac and then add incremental backups from that point.
My advice.....start a new backup on the Time Capsule and move forward. Keep the USB hard drive around for a month, maybe 2 or 3 in case you need to go back to an old backup for some reason. At that time, you will not likely need the old backups at all since you will have a current 2-3 month history of new backups. At that point, you can erase the USB drive and use it for another purpose.

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How would I create a bootable duplicate OS on my external Firewire Hard Drive? Allowing me to bring my External Hard Drive to my friends home and booting to it and showing them what I have worked on rather than bringin my entire computer.

Figured it out!

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I've got an Airport Extreme (not the dual band model) running 7.4.2 and Airport Utility running 5.4.2. Trying to use it with an external hard drive I just bought. Formatted the HD for MAC and have made several backups with the HD connected directly to the Macbook (running 10.6.2). Airport Utility will not recognize the HD under "Disk" tab. Sharing is set on, and when I plug in a regular old flash drive it works perfectly. Just wont pull up the External Hard Drive.

I've hit almost the same problem. Upgraded the external USB drive to a new 2TB model: it works perfectly with the computer, but the Airport Extreme flashes its orange warning light and reports a 'problem with the external hard drive', recommends attaching it to the computer for repair. Drive checks out fine again when it's connected to the computer. Does the Airport Extreme support 2TB? Would it work if I partitioned the drive?

External USB hard drive not being recognized

Hello! I'm sure this has been posted before, but excuse my naivety with this sort of thing...
I have a mac mini 10.5.6 (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo) and I run the Time Machine function to an external usb hard drive. The hard drive worked fine (plugged into the usb port on an older keyboard), but I went out and bought a new aluminum apple keyboard (because they look so cool ^_^ ) - I plugged the external usb drive into the keyboard and it wasn't recognized, so I tried plugging the external drive directly into the mac mini, but it is still not recognized. It is not showing up in Disk Utility or in System Profiler
Help? I'd hate to have to give up this fancy keyboard...
Thank you!
Dr. E

I believe I had my external drive plugged into the (old) keyboard because with the old mac that I had didn't have a free usb port for it - so when I got the mini I just plugged things back in where they were. But I have always had the Time Machine back up to this drive (connected to the keyboard) though it has been slow (another reason I thought the new keyboard was a good idea).
I tried restarting the computer without the alu keyboard plugged in, but same problem of no drive showing up.
Here is what System Profiler has to say about my drive:
USB2.0 Storage Device:
Capacity: 93.16 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Product ID: 0x6830
Vendor ID: 0x04b4 (Cypress Semiconductor)
Version: 0.01
Serial Number: DEF107920F07
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Cypress Semiconductor
Location ID: 0x3d130000
Current Available (mA): 100
Current Required (mA): 0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Volumes:
USB:
Capacity: 92.84 GB
Available: 53.14 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk1s2
Mount Point: /Volumes/USB
I don't know the brand or model as it has 'always' been in the case that in which it currently resides and I didn't physically buy the thing :\ I do know that no software was installed with the drive as I assumed that when I put all the old info from the original mac to the mini that it was the sort of thing that would carry over.
Sorry I'm not terribly helpful - Thank you!
Dr. E

HT201250 I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

Yes you can make multiple backups on one hard drive, for example if you’ve 1TB hard drive installed in your PC and you’ve two Mac Machines with 500GB drive each then you just make two backup images with size of 500GB each.
http://www.halfspot.com/use-your-pc-hard-drive-for-time-machine-backup/

External USB hard drives working very slow and/or not recognized. Help!

This probably started after my Yosemite upgrade, but my external usb hard drives either aren't working well or not being recognized. It's taking forever to write files to my external Seagate Free Agent USB 2.0 through front ports and my thumb drives aren't mounting (they have shown up for a second or two, then nothing). Is there a fix? I'm on an early 2008 mac pro with Yosemite 10.10.2.
Thanks!

Do an SMC reset using this slightly-modified procedure:
Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve
1.Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
[2a. Press the power-on button to discharge the power capacitors.]
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
in all cases, the stated times are recommended minimums, and there are no maximums.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Mac

I just had to reformat the external hard drive that houses my iPhoto library, then restore it from a backup. Now Time Machine is telling me my backup hard drive suddenly does not have the space to complete a backup. I also noticed when I go in to Time Machine, there are only about 5 backups recorded on the ext. hard drive. There were many more before. Any idea what happened and if I have to buy a new back up hard drive?

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

2.5" external USB hard drive not recognized by my iMac

I have a small 2.5" external USB hard drive that my intel iMac will not mount or see. My 12" G4 Powerbook sees it fine and it is formatted in Mac OS Extended. My iMac is bootcamped and XP on my iMac sees the drive but not OS X Tiger on the iMac, (wierd) I have Tiger on both my Macs too.
Why does the intel based OS X refuse to see this external 2.5 HD. It sees a 3.5" USB one I have but not the small one. I know it is software.

Hey coby,
Well thanks for the star. Not sure I deserve it.
i then tried connecting the drive to each USB port again, and voila! i have found one it works in. I guess my computer's ports must be a little worn.
Hmm well try looking inside and see if there's some smutz in there, if the contacts are dirty or bent or worn.
i was starting to think i would have to go out and get a USB hub to give it some more power.
Is it powered off the USB? If so that actually might be a good idea since that puts a lot of strain on the connectors. Even if it's self powered it might be a good idea since it would take the strain off an obviously flakey USB.
richard

External USB Hard Drive not showing up on Time Capsule

Hi all,
I have a 500 Gb Time Capsule that used to be able to detect my external USB hard drives. I had to store my things for a while and have just started using the Time Capsule again. The TC works fine, however, the same USB external hard drives I used to connect to the TC are not showing up anymore :s They show up on the desktop when I connect them directly to my MacBook via USB. I have been through most of the file sharing options in Airport Utility and System Preferences but have not been able to solve this. I can't think of any settings that would have changed from when they were showing up in the past. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thx

yosemite won't work with ntfs drives for some reason, i've had the same issue with my toshiba. i thought ok lemme buy another one, and transfer it over maybe it's a driver issue which i've tried over and over, apple support can't figure it out.
here's a simple fix, but the problem is i have an external where all my photography and video files are stored, so i can't access them right now and it's making my life ****.
http://guides.macrumors.com/Formatting_an_External_Device
that does work and make the drive mountable now, but problem being i can't obviously reformat the old drive and lose everything. once the new drive is formatted for mac i can't plug it into a pc to transfer the files from. which is the only problem now. but formatting the drive for mac only DOES work. but you're just screwed and not able to use it ntfs. hope the link helps SOME people.

HT4889 Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive, it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive. Why is it looking for other computers?

I'm trying to use Migration Assistant to update my new Mountain Lion iMac from an external USB hard disk drive. I told it to look for a drive, yet it is constantly saying that it is "looking for other computers". It doesn't find the external drive ... it just endlessly looks for other computers. Why is it looking for other computers at all, when I told it not to?

Wow, the wording in Migration Assistant is misleading. I've never used it before, so I thought I would try to copy my files from the external drive ... my old iMac died, but I managed to get everything I need off it, using the 'cp' command in single-user mode. So I guess I'll just have to manually copy the files from the external drive to the new machine. I was hoping that Migration Assistant might help somehow, but obviously not.
Thanks for the quick reply!

Rescue and Recovery 4.3 on Win7 doesn't see a backup on external USB hard drive - Model W510

I've run the Rescue and Recovery utility within Windows 7 on two different external USB hard drives thinking that maybe it was a usb drive issue. When I open the R And R utility in expert mode I can see that both backups exist on their respective drives. I planned on updating my hard drive so I made a full hd backup and the R&R startup disc to boot the laptop from. The bios recognizes either external hard drive at boot with no problems. It shows the names and "+" sign next to drives. So I booted the drive at startup off the DVD drive with the R&R startup disc after I was sure that the bios recognized either external drives. Then when I choose a "Full" restore is of course asks me if I want to use hd, cd/dvd, or external usb drive which I choose the later. It then should show me the backup that I created earlier just as it did when I ran the utility from the Win7 environment so I can choose it to restore from. But I get a blank box showing no backups when I run the 4.3 R&R Startup disc. Again if I boot to Win7 and go into the R&R utility I can see the backup on the exact same USB external drive. Then boot off the CD startup recovery disc and it shows NO BACKUP! Help please! I want to shelf my old hard drive "as is" and create the Restore onto the new hard drive but the utility isn't working for me.
Thanks for any help.

Hmmm,
Seems like that _should_ work. Here's a way you might be able to finesse it: go to the advanced R&R menu in Win 7 and create rescue media on your USB drive. It's essentially the same process as creating the CD - it makes the USB drive bootable and puts a copy of R&R there.
There _should_ be an option to "preserve existing data" but be prepared to lose your existing backup and make it again.
Then just boot the external USB drive and see if R&R recognizes a backup image on the same drive from which you booted.
That's the way I usually migrate to new drives. Maybe it will get around your mysterious problem.
Z.
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How can I do a complete Time Capsule backup on an external USB hard disc with the new AirPort utility V6?

How can I do a complete Time Capsule backup on an external USB hard disc with the new AirPort utility V6?
It was possible in the AirPort utility V5, but in the new V6 I can't find this option.

Download and use 5.6.. the other non-toy version of Apple's Airport Utilities.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482

I put my macbook to sleep and unplugged my external USB hard drive, now It

does not show up on the desktop and can not be verified in Disk Utility. This is my first mac but have been running linux for a while now. Any help would be appreciated.

rustytiger wrote:
I put my macbook to sleep and unplugged my external USB hard drive, now it
does not show up on the desktop and can not be verified in Disk Utility. This is my first mac but have been running linux for a while now. Any help would be appreciated.
Well I hate to ask the silly question here but... did you plug the external hard drive back in?

AirPort Extreme and shared USB Hard Drive

I received an AirPort Extreme for Christmas with the intent of using it to share a network Hard Drive and Printer between the multiple machines on our home network. I've finally gotten it set up with Bonjour on the PC's, and the AirPort Utility on all machines. It's connected via ethernet cable to a Dell PC, and wirelessly to an iMac, a Dell Laptop, my iPhone and a PS3. Internet functionality is great for all devices.
My next step was to connect a Seagate 750GB External USB Hard Drive to the APE. This drive was previously connected to the Dell PC, and was formatted as NTFS. I went through the hassle of converting it to FAT32, I connected it to the router, and both Dell's and the iMac can see the drive. I haven't checked if the PS3 can see it yet, but since I haven't found Bonjour for the PS3, I'm not holding my breath. The iPhone - well, mine isn't jailbroken at the moment.
A few quick hints I learned from doing a lot of web surfing and trial-and-error. These could save people a LOT of time...
+ Don't format a external drive as either an Apple Drive (HFS+) or as a Windows Drive (NTFS) if you plan on using data off it on both a Mac and a PC. Windows won't read HFS+ without a converter, APE won't accept NTFS. It needs to be FAT32 as this is nearly universal.
+ Windows will only format a maximum of 32GB as FAT32. It's a stupid limit, and you have to jump hoops to get it to do a larger drive size.
+ Use the Disk Utility on the Mac to erase the drive and reformat it as an MS-DOS partition. It will work up to a drive of about 2TB according to what I've read. On the Mac, MS-DOS partition = FAT32, and it formatted my 750GB drive as a single 750GB partition.
Now, I've begun the task of copying all our media to the drive. Copied a few pictures, no problem. Copied a few MP3's, no problem. Where the problems start is in trying to copy movies to the drive. We have ripped most of our DVD's to DivX / H.264, to keep the kids from destroying the DVD's (trust me, DVD's scratch EASY in the hands of a 5-year old). So I have about 50 movies to transfer, each around 1GB in size.
Each time I try to transfer a movie to the drive, I get an error "*Error Copying File or Folder*" which displays the message "*Cannot copy BlahBlahBlah: The specified network name is no longer available.*" This also results in the HDD becoming unavailable to the other machines on the network. I've had to un-plug and then re-plug the APE a few times to get the HDD to work again. Sometimes, the copy actually does work, even though I get this message. I know the easy work-around is to connect the HDD directly to the PC with the files on it and transfer them that way, but I shouldn't have to do that - it should just work.
I'm wondering if anyone else has any kind of a similar experience? It appears that I can stream music and video from the drive easily enough, it's the writing to the drive that seems to be the issue. Thanks in advance...
Best Regards,
Jeff

I would think you would have better luck formatting it as HFS+ (Macintosh Extended File System). You'll still be able to see it from your non-Mac PCs.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6370006#6370006

Time machine iMac HD and external USB hard drive backs up to separate locations

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