Want to use TC as external hard drive

Just bought Time Capsule, and configured it to be my Time Machine drive. That works fine. But I also want to store some large folders on there that aren't on my hard drive (as a way of keeping my hard drive from filling up.)
So I moved the folders onto the TC, but now when I open my finder I don't see the TC in the sidebar under Devices. I do see "Backup of My Computer" listed there, and in the main window, just the Time Machine backup. No trace of the files I moved there.
Should I be able to use my TC for both Time Machine and manual archiving, or is it either/or?
And if I should be able to do both, is there something I'm not doing right? I went into Disk Utility, and it doesn't show up as a hard drive ... it shows up under the line as a disk image.

Thanks for that, but I still couldn't figure it out so I called Tech Support. The problem - as he defined it - was that the backup image was showing up in Finder, but the drive wasn't. It was listed in the sidebar under Shared, but the main window said "Connection Failed". He pointed me to the "Connect" button in the upper right of the main window. I clicked that, entered the password, and now the drive shows up in Finder as an external drive.
Phew.
Thanks again.

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I have a new mini mac and i want to use my existing external hard drive but it needs to be reformated how do i do this without loosing all my old photos?

i have a new mini mac and i want to use my existing external hard drive but it needs to be reformated how do i do this without loosing all my old photos?

Formatting will erase the drive.
You need to copy the photo's to either your old computer, the Mac Mini or to a new external drive and then decide what to do with your existing external drive.
For example: You could use one External drive for Photo's and one external drive for Time Machine to backup both your Mac Mini and the Photo drive.

How do I move my iTunes music library off my computer and onto Time Capsule, which I want to use as an external hard drive?

Does anyone know how I can move my very large iTunes music library folder off the computer and onto my fourth generation time capsule, which I'd like to use as an external hard drive?

This Apple support document may help.
Do you also plan to use the Time Capsule disk for Time Machine backups? If so, that approach has problems. For one, you don't be backing up your music library. For another, eventually Time Machine will consume all the space on that disk, which will cause problems for your music.

I want to use my second external hard drive as a "flash drive"

Forgive my ignorance, but I would appreciate any input before I purchase and set up a second external hard drive....
I have a MyBook that I use with Time Machine and it has been great. However, it's approaching more full than I want it to get and I need to dump all my pictures and music that I would like to keep forever onto a second external hard drive that I can access easily, take with me to friends houses to share music/photos, etc.
My question is: do I want to set up Time Machine on the second "flash drive" external hard drive, or should I only use Time Machine on MyBook and use the manufacturer software on the second drive?
I envision connecting both very frequently -- as I load new pictures, loading them quickly onto the second drive, but then back up on MyBook and Time Machine as I do know, every few days or so.
How do other people navigate this?

Well, you can certainly keep using one for Time Machine and use the other one to back up just your photos, files, videos, etc.
If that is what you want to do, you don't need any included software at all. In fact, Disk Utility (Applications - Utilities) does a great job. Once you get the hard drive, plug it in (firewire is preferred - faster than USB), open Disk Utility. highlight the external hard drive and click on Partition tab. From there you can choose to keep it as is (one partition), or make more than one. Choose the format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and, under options, GUID partition table. Click Apply and let it do its thing.
Once finished, your external is ready. You can simply drag and drop whatever files from your internal onto the external. You can also delete them from the external at a later time, copy new ones, etc, etc.

I want to take files from my PC (using a Seagate external hard drive) then plug this Seagate External hard drive into my Mac Book Pro and move the files from the Seagate External Hard drive onto my Time Capsule. I do not want to put these files on my Mac

I want to take files from my PC (using a Seagate external hard drive) then plug this Seagate External hard drive into my Mac Book Pro and move the files from the Seagate External Hard drive onto my Time Capsule. I do not want to put these files on my Mac. How do I do this? Where do I put these files on my Time Capsule? Will it affect the functioning of my Time Capsule?

Mixing files with data is not always great idea.
See info here.
Q3 http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
Why not just connect the PC directly to the TC by ethernet and copy the files over?
It is hugely faster and much less mucking around.
In windows load the airport utility for windows.. if you have not already as this will help you access the drive.
There is more info here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1331

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4.

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I haven't checked reviews recently but there's a difference between bare drives and drives with enclosures. Western Digital made some of the most reliable drives last time I checked, though the enclosures weren't all that great. It is convenient to get both in one package but I usually buy a highly rated enclosure and then put a highly rated drive in it myself. OWC sells some good enclosures but if they put a so-so drive inside of it then the package is only as good as its weakest component. If you get a package from them, ask them what drive is inside (some vendors have no idea what's inside - went to an Apple Store recently and they couldn't tell me what was inside some of their Apple brand enclosures). My first thought if buying a new drive would be to buy a OWC enclosure with a WD drive, but chek around because I may be out of date.
10 years ago Seagate was one of the best drives. Now they rate poorly in reviews.

I want to use my 1TB Seagate Hard drive for time machine and transferring files from Mac to PC.

For about a year I've been using my 1TB external hard drive for only time machine. To be honest, it wasn't until today that I tried to connect my hard drive to a PC and realize it isn't compatible. I read about partitioning the hard drive so that it can work both for time machine and transferring files between pc and mac. I'm not what you would call tech savvy, so I was wondering if I can get some advice on how to do this.
Thanks in advance.

To do it, you have to partition the hard disk, so you will have one partition for Time Machine and another one to store files and use them in a PC and Mac. To create the partition, follow these steps > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html
In order to read and write in the external disk on the PC, you have to select "MS-DOS (FAT)" as "Format". If you choose any other option, the PC won't be able to read your external disk. Apart from that, note that you can't use files bigger than 4 GB with FAT. If you want to use the external disk with files bigger than 4 GB, you have to format your new partition in exFAT, and you have to do it on a PC

Using a Maxtor external hard drive

I am using a Maxtor external hard drive for time capsule. I have recently re formatted it to use with my new mac and want to know if i delete something off of the hard drive on my mac - will this mean in will be removed from my hard drive too?

Charlie, Welcome to the discussion area!
Do you really mean Time Capsule
or Time Machine?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
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Can a use a partitioned external hard drive to create a disk image? I tried, doesn't seem to work using disk manager.

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OK, it's very bad computing to use a backup disk for anything but a backup. The reason being is if/when the HD crashes you will have lost not only all your backup but the data files. While I commend you for wanting redundant backup, you really need separate EHDs for doing so. Format each EHD using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using the GUID parttition. When you connect, OS X will ask if you want to use that drive as a Time Machine backup drive, select yes and then let it backup. On the second EHD format the same way however do not use TM as a backup, this time I'd suggest an app such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a clone of the internal HD. Leave both EHDs connected and TM will backup new or changed files automatically on a hourly basis. The clone you will need to set to backup on the schedule you want. For example I have my SuperDuper EHD set to backup only changed or updated files at 2AM every day.
The advantage of a clone is that if the computers internal HD crashes you can boot from a clone and continue working, TM will not do that but it's great for keeping an archive of all files. So if you want a version of a file from many months ago, TM will help you locate and restore it.

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Can I use a 250G external hard drive with and 500G unfilled internal drive with time machine? Or will time machine require I a 500G? I don't plan on filling the internal drive for a long time and don't want to buy a new external drive right now.

Yes, but you are very likely to get in trouble very quickly.
The problem is that TimeMachine saves multiple versions of any file modified, and if that file happens to be large, you can quickly fill up your TimeMachine drive such that it is throwing away older versions faster than you would desire.
Also if your boot drive's storage usage gets even close to the 250GB external drive's capacity, TimeMachine is likely to stop working.
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I guess you could repartition your boot drive so it is smaller than your external disk so you would be less likely to use more space than could fit on the external.
Personally, my opinion about backups is that much of my data is impossible to replace (family pictures, etc...), and spending money on backup hardware is a small price to pay for securing those memories. I also try to have it backup in more than one location in more than one way.

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Thank you for your quick response. I can then use a ZIP drive for data storage. I want to keep as much of my hard drive free of data as possible.

I am semi-retiring my old mac mini and want to use it as a hard drive for my macbook pro. Does anyone know how to do this?

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I have one folder on my desktop, i want to copy it on external hard drive so how can i do this?

I have one folder on my desktop, i want to copy it on external hard drive so how can i do this?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Connect the external drive and open a Finder window pressing the Finder icon in Dock. Then, drag the folder to Finder, so it will be copied to this external disk.
If you can't copy this folder, probably you have to format the external disk or use an app that allows you to write in that external drive. Mac OS X can't write in NTFS external disks

If I were to drag and drop files from an OSX 9 onto an external hard drive (1 TB), assuming there is still plenty of space left, will I be able to use this same external hard drive to back up my iMac (Mountain Lion)?

If I were to drag and drop files from an OSX 9 onto an external hard drive (1 TB), assuming there is still plenty of space left, will I be able to use this same external hard drive to back up my iMac (Mountain Lion)? And would it ask me if I want to initialize (thus erasing it) or eject the hard drive like the OSX 9 did?

I was trying to follow this thread because I was curious about the OS 9 installation - until I realized you have another thread going about the very same subject, albeit with a different subject line.
FWIW: it is best not to double post - things get far too confusing after a while.
@ Kappy (in case you hadn't seen the other one):
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5054178?tstart=0

Want to use TC as external hard drive

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