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Silly John Fatty

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
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Hello,

I have an external hard drive (3TB) with two partitions — one to store random stuff (2,5TB) and another one for my backups (500GB).

The problem is the one for random stuff is way to big, while the one for backups is too small, which means I can't do a backup right now.

I've managed to resize the one for random stuff to 2TB right now, but the problem is it's the top partition and from what I've read you can't make the bottom one bigger (which would be the backup partition in my case).

Anyone know what's the easiest and most secure way to enlarge my backup partition without deleting anything? I thought I could make the other partition even smaller, like 500GB, then make a third partition of the 2TB that are left, copy everything from the backup partition to this new partition, delete the backup partition, and then enlarge the new partition to 2,5TB.

I'm really scared of all of this and have no other way to save my stuff! All help is seriously appreciated guys. :confused:
 
Nov 28, 2010
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You cannot resize the 500 GB partition, only make it smaller, as you cannot change its beginning.
But you could add a third partition after the first partition, as you resized that first partition from 3,5 TB to 2 TB, thus you have 1,5 TB of unformatted space before the 500 GB partition.
Create that third partition and make it 1,5 TB and clone or copy the contents of the 500 GB partition to that 1,5 TB partition. When done, delete the 500 GB partition and extend the 1,5 TB partition.
 

Silly John Fatty

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
1,733
456
Yeah that was my thought. How do I copy everything from partition 3 to partition 2 though? Is there a way to do this with disk utility? It seems like the answer is no. I don't want to use any third party apps if possible…
 

Silly John Fatty

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 6, 2012
1,733
456
Since I have Mavericks I guess it won't work anyway :p

And as for the first method: Does it have any down sides or why did you suggest CCC then? That method sounds like it will be the answer I think, I'm just always scared of these kinds of things you know…
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
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California
Since I have Mavericks I guess it won't work anyway :p

And as for the first method: Does it have any down sides or why did you suggest CCC then? That method sounds like it will be the answer I think, I'm just always scared of these kinds of things you know…

The Disk Utility method is the official Apple method to copy a volume and will work just fine. It is just that some people find CCC a little easier to understand/use. Nothing at all wrong with the Disk Util method though.

If you want, the current version of CCC has a free 30 day trial, so you could use it to get this done then just delete it after if you don't want to pay to keep it.
 
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