Time Capsule + USB hard-drive

I currently have two FireWire-HD's hanging on to my computer. One of them is dedicated to TimeMachine, while the other one has my music and videos. I have been thinking about attaching those to a networked Mac Mini instead, and accessing them through the network. But recently I have been thinking about using Time Capsule instead.

My first plan was to get a 1TB Time Capsule and use that for backups. Attached to the TC would be the Mac Mini via Ethernet. TC would back up my main computer + the Mini and the external HD attached to the Mini. So far so good.

Recently it occurred to me that I don't really need the Mini at all. I could use TimeCapsule for backing up, and I could attach the external HD directly to the TC via USB. That way I could save on cable-clutter and on power-consumption. But the thing is that I would still like to back that external HD up. How could I make it so that the external HD that is connected to the TC gets backed up to the TC? Obviously, if I map that drive to my computer, I could then select it to be backed up. But would the backup then go through my computer somehow? How about backing up directly through the USB, with zero participation from the computer?

skorpien said:

I don't think it works that way. The Time Machine software that does the backing up resides on the Mac that is being backed up.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that fact occured to me about 1 hour after I posted my question

Related to this: What happens when that same external HD is mounted by several different users? I mean, that HD would be mounted in my user-account so I could access the files located there. And those files would be backed up via Time Machine. Then my wife logs in with her account on the same machine, and the HD is mounted in her account as well. Her Time Machine will then back up that drive as well. Will Time Capsule then have two copies of those identical files, one set of files that were backed up from my account, and another set of files that were backed up from her account?

IJ Reilly said:

I believe your question will be answered here:

http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/timecapsule/

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll take a look at that .