Time machine to internal HDD

I'm new to mac from the windows world...can Time Machine back up to a second internal HDD in a Mac?

jimlat wrote:
I'm new to mac from the windows world...can Time Machine back up to a second internal HDD in a Mac?
Yes, but remember that if your system crashes, then the TM backup may not be available for use.

Similar Messages

OSX 10.9 and Time Machine onto WD HDD

OSX 10.9 and Time Machine onto WD HDD. Time Machine won't back up onto WDD since upgrade to OSX Mavericks. I can still access previous backups.

If you installed "WD SmartWare," remove it according to the developer's instructions.

Time Machine: Must external HDD be a large or larger than internal drive?

I have a 2TB HDD in a new iMac, and I have a couple of spare 500GB SATA drives I can liberate from my previous Mac. Before I buy enclosures for the externals, I'd like to know if TM requires an external drive the same size or larger than the internal drive it is to back up.
Though I have a 2TB internal drive, it has 1.79TB available, and I could probably use a 500GB for quite a while before I need a larger backup drive.
Thanks.
BC
driven

BCDrums wrote:
I have a 2TB HDD in a new iMac, and I have a couple of spare 500GB SATA drives I can liberate from my previous Mac. Before I buy enclosures for the externals, I'd like to know if TM requires an external drive the same size or larger than the internal drive it is to back up.
Though I have a 2TB internal drive, it has 1.79TB available, and I could probably use a 500GB for quite a while before I need a larger backup drive.
If you have only 210 GB on that 2 TB drive, then yes, a 500 GB drive will probably work fine, at least until you put a lot more data on your system.
It does vary a great deal, of course, depending on how you use your Mac. If you frequently change and/or replace a lot of large files, you may fill it up rather quickly; if not, it may not fill up for quite a while.
You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

Time Machine using external HDD docking stattion

Hi,
I have a Macbook Pro and a few internal HDD's lying around. I have found on the web some external SATA docking station for mounting internal drives using Firewire 800. I am wondering if Time Machine will recognize these the same as normal external drives and backup accordingly. Thanks.

No reason why that shouldn't work. TM knows when a drive is not available, and it will resume a backup once the drive is connected.

Restore from time machine to SSD/HDD iMac

Hi,
I had to erase HDD/SDD on my 2011 iMac with both SSD and HDD drives. The system was installed on the 256 GB SSD ("Macintosh HD) and the user accounts on the much larger 2 TB HDD ("Macintosh HD 2"). I was able to restore the SSD with the system, software etc. Also one smaller account that was previously on the SSD also made the cut. However, I didn't figure out how to restore also the contents to the HDD and whenever I've tried to use the Migration Assistant I was told that there is no need to restore the user accounts that were sitting on the HDD (in fact, Migration Assistant said that there is only "1 kb" to transfer). I've then tried to manually copy the user accounts from time machine (on a Time Capsule) to the HDD but I've waited for hours (my account is roughly 1 TB big) - only to get error messages about permissions. Same story happened when I tried to log into my empty user account and tried to use time machine to restore my folders.
How is this system supposed to work in the first place? Shouldn't the user accounts on the HDD be restored 'automatically' during a restore or when using migration assistant?
Look forward to hear from you.

samaki wrote:
"This user's data doesn't need to be transferred")
That seems to mean, their home folders aren't on the OSX drive, so Migration Assistant doesn't need to (or can't) transfer them.
We've asked Apple to address this, but it doesn't seem real common, and would make the Assistants rather complicated, especially for newbies.
I've tried out many things I had come to get used to from 12+ years on the Mac
Yeah, it ends up being a bit of a conundrum. That's why it's often best to leave the home folders on the Startup drive, but put the data on the HD.
I've made a note to try to find a better workaround for your situation (the Disk Utility thing is fine, space permitting). I tried a bunch of finagles when I wrote that page, but maybe something will turn up with a fresh start.
Retrospectively, perhaps, it was a mistake to have the time machine backup sitting on a user account specific folder on the time capsule (named after my first name) instead of the standard "Data". Both the setup assistant after flatting the drives and reinstalling 10.8 and the Migration Assistant seem to have had trouble to recognise the password protected location.
It does complicate things.
For the future I'd loved to know what one could do to streamline this should the need arise again?
What I'm thinking of is, if you still have access to the old Mac, to create default home folders on the SSD, point the accounts to them, so they can sign on. Then either transfer directly from the old Mac, or do a backup and transfer from it. Log on to each user account, copy the home folder, then redirect the account to that one. Sounds promising, but there are a couple of "gotchas" there, I think.
I'll let you know, and revise that page accordingly, if I figure something out.
Thanks for the feedback - - it gets me thinking.

Time machine multiple internal hard drives to multiple external hard drives

I have four internal hard drives that I back up to four separate dedicated external hard drives. I have upgraded to leopard and would like to use TIME MACHINE but I don't see how I can set up this unique back up system. Up until now I have been using BOUNCEBACK software and that has handled this multiple sources/destinations no problem. Can TIME MACHINE do the same?

This is the Final Cut Pro forum. The Time Machine forum is here: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
-DH

Time Machine ejecting internal hard drive during backup

I originally posted this in the Time Machine group. It was suggested I post to the Xserve group.
We have an XSERVE running 10.6.4 server. It has 2 internal 1TB drives. The plan is to use one as the main drive and the second as a Time Machine backup. This used to work in 10.5, but since about 10.6.2 or so, it has not worked correctly.
Time machine will come on, begin the backup, and then error off with a message that the drive has been ejected. I have erased the drive, but still no joy. I have partitioned the drive, still no joy. I have verified the drive repeatedly, and all is fine. I can copy files to and from the drive until the cows come home, and all works fine, which means I do not think it is the drive itself. Activate TM, however, and it will fail before the first backup is completed. The only way to get the drive back is to do a complete power down and then power up. Needless to say, that is not a good thing for a server that we rely on.
Any ideas?
10/14/10 10:41:27 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Backup content size: 542.8 GB excluded items size: 474.1 GB for volume Server HD 10/14/10 10:41:27 AM com.apple.backupd1230 No pre-backup thinning needed: 82.46 GB requested (including padding), 930.13 GB available 10/14/10 10:41:27 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Waiting for index to be ready (101) 10/14/10 10:41:27 AM mds70 (Normal) DiskStore: Creating index for /Volumes/backup/Backups.backupdb
10/14/10 10:47:38 AM kernel FusionMPT: Notification = 22 (SAS Discovery) for SCSI Domain = 0 10/14/10 10:47:38 AM kernel Discovery condition = 0x000f0001 10/14/10 10:47:38 AM kernel FusionMPT: Notification = 18 (SAS Phy Link Status) for SCSI Domain = 0 10/14/10 10:47:38 AM kernel SAS Phy Link Status: PhyNum = 0, old link rate = 8, new link rate = 0, SASAddress = 50080007002e8c04
10/14/10 10:48:10 AM kernel SCSIPressurePathManager: Timed out waiting for inactive/error path to become active, loops = 0 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM kernel  10/14/10 10:48:10 AM kernel disk0s2: media is not present.
10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Stopping backupd because the backup volume was ejected!  10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:: Input/output error 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:: Input/output error 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:: Input/output error 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Copied 13416 files (4.0 GB) from volume Server HD. 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM com.apple.backupd1230 Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:: Input/output error 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM servermgrd64 servermgr_backup: TimeMachinePostBackupHook called. 10/14/10 10:48:10 AM servermgrd64 servermgr_backup: TimeMachinePostBackupHook done. 10/14/10 10:48:11 AM kernel jnl: disk0s2: close: journal 0xffffff8012b15d20, is invalid. aborting outstanding transactions  

No, it is not always at the same point/file/bytes transferred. It will vary from a few GB (say 3GB) to quite a few GB (say 30GB). I would add amongst the things I have done was to:
Perform numerous Disk Utility Checks. Never any errors found.
Erased the backup drive on multiple occasions. Double checked the GUID and format.
Partitioned the drive and tried backing up to a new partition. (No joy there either)
Copied lots and lots of data from the root disk to said partitions to test them. All went fine.
It really is Time Machine that is causing the issue. I can use the drive all day long as long as TM does not run. When it does, I eventually get a failure message that the drive has been ejected.
While I have not tried making a partition on the home drive (I'd rather not, lots of data there, make users mad, and since TM is not working, I have no backups at present), I do limit the data that is being backed up to JUST that of the system. /Users is being excluded at the moment. So I doubt there is anything out of the ordinary in the system. And, yes, I did a disk check on the root disk and all is fine there too.

Can time machine backup internal hard drive and external hard drive?

Hi, I have an iMac that I recently bought Leopard for specifically for Time Machine, which I heard rave reviews. I have a 160gb internal drive that I use for the OS and a 750gb external drive that I use for storing all my media (pics, music, movies). I recently bought an additional external hard drive, capacity 1tb. The original intention was to backup both my internal drive and my external drive to the new 1 tb drive through time machine.
When I go into the Time Machine preferences/options, it lists that the 750 drive is not to be backed up and I cannot remove it from the list. I called Apple support and they stated that you cannot backup an external drive through Time Machine which I think is ridiculous.
Both drives are connected to the computer via Firewire. Is there something I'm not doing right? Does anyone have a possible solution?
Please help as I incredibly annoyed with Apple if this is actually the case. Thanks

Andrew Graceffa wrote:
Hi, I have an iMac that I recently bought Leopard for specifically for Time Machine, which I heard rave reviews. I have a 160gb internal drive that I use for the OS and a 750gb external drive that I use for storing all my media (pics, music, movies). I recently bought an additional external hard drive, capacity 1tb. The original intention was to backup both my internal drive and my external drive to the new 1 tb drive through time machine.
When I go into the Time Machine preferences/options, it lists that the 750 drive is not to be backed up and I cannot remove it from the list. I called Apple support and they stated that you cannot backup an external drive through Time Machine
they told you that?! unbelievable. that's quite false. TM will back up any directly attached drive (external or internal) provided it's properly formatted. it has to be formatted mac os extended. how is your drive formatted?
which I think is ridiculous.
Both drives are connected to the computer via Firewire. Is there something I'm not doing right? Does anyone have a possible solution?
Please help as I incredibly annoyed with Apple if this is actually the case. Thanks!!!
Message was edited by: V.K.

Time Machine: changing external HDD

Dear All,
I'km kinda new to mac, just recently made the switch so if my question has been answered already for like a hundred times I'm really sorry.
I started using time machine a week ago using my smaller External HDD, a 160GB one.
I have bought a new, bigger one (1 TB) which I'd like to use since I think the smaller one will be full in a couple of days. I was wondering however: is there a possibility to transfer the updates I already made (on the smaller one) to the bigger one so I can switch external HDD without losing the old back ups?
Thnx 4 ur help!

FeroX6,
You will get a quicker and better answer by re-posting your question at http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
,dave

Does Time Machine backup External HDDs?

Hello everyone, I plan to use a Mac-Mini as an HTPC, and want to use a large external HDD connected DIRECTLY to the mini as my storage (call it HDD-A).
If I connect a second external HDD dedicated for TM (HDD-B), will it backup content from HDD-A as well as the OS?
Q2: Are there any special settings in TM necessary to accomplish this?
Q3: Separate TM question: Anyway to get TM to backup an External HDD that's connected to an AEBS?
Thanks much in advance!

I am in the same situation, riesar. I have 2 time-machine-enabled macs connected to a 500GB Time Capsule. My Mac Pro has 4 drives (boot, bootClone, Video Archive, Video Archive Clone) I use Time Machine to backup my Main boot drive, with a couple of exclusions including all other HD's. I excluded my Parallels folder since Each windows installation is about 10GB and the ENTIRE file changes each time you open your virtual PC. I also exclude my parallels installation from my iMac Time Machine file as well.
Every couple of days, My Boot drive clones itself (using SuperDuper!) to the BootClone and the Video Drive clones itself to the Video Clone. I don't have incremental backups of my video (or Windows installation) but I save SIGNIFICANT space by excluding certain things from time machine. My iMac clones itself to an external firewire drive as well.
If you were REALLY cramped for space on the Time Machine volume, you could simply include only - say - the User folder. You'd sacrifice the ability to restore your system to a previous state, but you'd have incremental backups of all your regularly changing data files. Your clone could restore your system, but if you ever had to restore your system, your recovery is only as good as you last clone. YMMV.
Tom

Problem with Time Machine or ext HDD?

I am using a Western Digital Firewire800 ext HDD for my Time Machine back ups. In the past the ext HDD will turn on by itself when my iMac is turned on and the light remains on. Of late I notice sometimes the light turns off and the ext HDD icon on the desktop disappears. I would need to press the power button on the HDD for the light to come back on and the desktop icon to re-appear.
More importantly, in the past Time Machine will auto back up every one hour. It no longer does that. I made an effort to pay close attention yesterday. TM said that the next back up was scheduled for 2.54pm. When it was 2.54pm, even though the ext HDD light was on & the desktop icon was there, TM did not to an auto backup. And the wierd thing is, when I went into TM properties, it now said that the next back up was scheduled for 3.54pm as though it had already done a back up at 2.54pm.
I had to do a manual backup. Do you think something is wrong with my ext HDD or with TM? I still have ample space in my ext HDD btw. Thanks in advance!

It's hard to tell whether it's the drive, the connections, or something in Time Machine.
The 2:54 backup may have been "delayed," due to the drive not being available. See #A1 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for a handy widget that will display the backup messages from your logs.
See if there was a backup attempt at that time; if there's such a message, that's the reason.
If so, check all the connections to be sure they're snug and secure. Try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 there. If that doesn't help, try repairing the backups, per #A5 in Troubleshooting.
If still no help, try removing the check from the +Put the hard disk(s) to sleep . . .+ box in +System Preferences > Energy Saver.+ Not all drives respond to that setting, and some WDs have a proprietary "spin down" feature that's near-impossible to remove, but it's worth a try.

Time Machine w/ external HDD question

Hello all! Just started using Time Machine with an external HDD. So, here is my question, if my HDD (USB) is not attached for a week, and Time Machine is running, will I get some sort of error message letting me know that the backup volume cannot be found? Also, when I reattach, say one week later, will Time Machine pick up and backup those items over the past week? Please advise. Thanks!

Time machine might give you an error but its very unlikely. And as for unplugging the drive, yes time machine will pick up were it left off and update the changes you have made. I usually only hook mine up every couple weeks cause I don't make very many changes.

Time Machine vs Ethernet HDD

As many of you already wrote I bought an externa ethernet HDD (WDC MyBook World II - 1Tb) and I frankly didn't checked if Time Machine could back up my system on it as it seemed obvious to me.
Now I realized that the HDD I bought is quite unuseful as Time Bachine doesn't recognize it as an external HDD and the bundled software is awful.
Isn't any way I can set up Time Machine to work with my HDD ? Maybe some trick to avoid this lack.
If there's a solution please let me know, otherwise Apple's people come on and provide me a solution
Thanks

Here's what works with TM:
An external FireWire or USB 2.0 drive
Time Capsule
Drive shared by another Mac running Leopard
Drive shared by another Mac running Leopard Server
A SAN volume managed on an Apple Xsan cluster
If you can convert what you have to one of the above then you're in business. Probably your best shot is to remove the drive from the NAS enclosure and put it in a Firewire enclosure.

Time machin backup external hdd Problom

hi
Unfortunately I've got a problem with my external hdd which i used as time machin backup. when i atache the hdd to my mac a warning say this disk is not readable and in disktools after verifing it said that disk need to be repaired and there is an issue with boot sector.
what should i do to fix this issue without data loss ?

Open Disk Utility>First Aid and run Verify and Repair. Data should not be lost.
Ciao.

Time Machine Backup After HDD Upgrade

I recently updated my drive on my MBP with a larger size where I successfully cloned the system from the old drive over the new one with Carbon Copy Cloner to safe me the hassle of the migration. The task was flawless and transparent to the system and me--as a user, except for Time Machine.
I've maintained a regular backup with Time Machine on a 500gb external drive, instead of transparently picking the backup where it left off, Time Machine is attempting to redo the backup as a complete new set for the new drive where I no longer have enough space?
So the question is:
- Is this behavior by design?
- Is it possible to trick Time Machine to continue backing up without starting over? So the 6 months old worth of backup data is intact since this is the same set of data?
Thank you.

wiriawan wrote:
I recently updated my drive on my MBP with a larger size where I successfully cloned the system from the old drive over the new one with Carbon Copy Cloner to safe me the hassle of the migration. The task was flawless and transparent to the system and me--as a user, except for Time Machine.
I've maintained a regular backup with Time Machine on a 500gb external drive, instead of transparently picking the backup where it left off, Time Machine is attempting to redo the backup as a complete new set for the new drive where I no longer have enough space?
So the question is:
- Is this behavior by design?
yes.
- Is it possible to trick Time Machine to continue backing up without starting over?
no. TM will do a full backup after hard drive cloning. there is no way around that. you have to either delete some old backups (this can be done from TM interface) or reformat the TM drive and start backups from scratch or use a different backup drive.
So the 6 months old worth of backup data is intact since this is the same set of data?
Thank you.

Time machine to internal HDD

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