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Sharing a hard drive between 2 Macs for Time Machine?

Huntn

Huntn

Suspended
Original poster
Other than switching the backup hard drive between 2 Macs is there way the hard drive can be shared over the network for the purpose of using Time Machine? My external 1TB drive has two partitions. I'd use each one for a different computer.

Right now I'm pulling the plug and switching it to the machine I want to back up. It would be nice if I did not have to do that. Thanks!
 
If you have AEBS you can connect it to the usb port. If not you might want to look into NAS solution.
 
Huntn said:
Other than switching the backup hard drive between 2 Macs is there way the hard drive can be shared over the network for the purpose of using Time Machine? My external 1TB drive has two partitions. I'd use each one for a different computer.

Right now I'm pulling the plug and switching it to the machine I want to back up. It would be nice if I did not have to do that. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Just enable file sharing on the mac hosting the drive and it should be visible to other Mac's on the network.
 
Reflow and VirtualRain have the right ideas.

Although if you connect it to an AEBS or network it in any other way, you may need to restart your backups. Time Machine backs up differently to networked drives than to drives connected to the computer.

And if you share the drive as VirtualRain suggested, be aware that the host computer needs to be on while you're backing up your other machine.
 
Thanks all for the suggestions. I'll now consider the best way to approach this (networked drive vs single). For my laptop, I may just purchase an inexpensive 500gb portable drive and use it for Time Machine. An had an event where an Apple Genius Bar genius thought I might need a new hard drive, but so far, since I've reinstalled SL, it might have been system corruption as all it working for now.

I have backed up the drive now with Time Machine, but, but the prospect of loosing both my MacOS and Vista Partition got my attention. I'm also looking at ways to make an image of my PC partition. I'm thinking True Image (an older version, if it runs on Vista) maybe a possible solution. If I go with the external hard drive, I would use it for both Time Machine and as a place to store a Windows image. I'm thinking Fat32 formatting will cover it.
 
Backup update: Time machine works great. Backing up my Windows partition is more difficult. I all ready had True Image v11 which works in Vista, but it does not see my C drive! Over at the Acronis forums, there are several threads from frustrated Mac users trying to use this product to back up their Windows partitions. Has anyone tried and had success with it?

I just discovered Winclone, a Mac shareware program and am currently trying that making an image of my windows partition. 🙂
 
I just backed up my Windows partition with Winclone. It seemed like it worked, however when I tried to boot into Windows, it would not boot. I had to use the Windows Install DVD to repair the previous Windows install. I'll be unlikely to rely on Winclone if that is the result. Anyone have good experiences with Winclone?
Thanks!
 
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