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tanventure

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
27
3
Hi,

Have a 2TB desk HDD for time machine for two MACs: a iMac and a MBA. I want to create a bootable disk in case of disk failure.

Is it possible to use my 2TB HDD for both TM and bootable disk? If so, do I need to do a partition on my HDD? At the moment, only 200G was used for my HDD.

Thank for your kind help
 

MacUser2525

Suspended
Mar 17, 2007
2,097
377
Canada
Is it possible to use my 2TB HDD for both TM and bootable disk? If so, do I need to do a partition on my HDD? At the moment, only 200G was used for my HDD.

Thank for your kind help

Yes that is the idea use two partitions or more perhaps three one TM for each machine and a bootable partition on the 2TB.
 

RadDave

macrumors regular
Apr 6, 2013
187
0
North Carolina
Hi Tanventure - not sure that I'd want to keep 'all of my eggs' in one basket, i.e. if the drive dies, then you've lost both TM backups & your bootable disk - :eek:

For myself, I have separate 1 TB drives for my MBP & iMac; also, I just decided to purchase some inexpensive USB flash drives (8 GB) and made each bootable using OS X Recovery Digital Assistant - each computer requires a separate bootable drive (duplicates the Recovery Partition on the computers' hard drives) - which may be true in your case necessitating 4 partitions.

NOW, I'm new to this and am willing to learn, so I hope some of our experienced members will 'chime in' with comments & advice - Dave :)
 

tanventure

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 17, 2013
27
3
Hi Tanventure - not sure that I'd want to keep 'all of my eggs' in one basket, i.e. if the drive dies, then you've lost both TM backups & your bootable disk - :eek:

For myself, I have separate 1 TB drives for my MBP & iMac; also, I just decided to purchase some inexpensive USB flash drives (8 GB) and made each bootable using OS X Recovery Digital Assistant - each computer requires a separate bootable drive (duplicates the Recovery Partition on the computers' hard drives) - which may be true in your case necessitating 4 partitions.

NOW, I'm new to this and am willing to learn, so I hope some of our experienced members will 'chime in' with comments & advice - Dave :)

Hi, RadDave

Your points on "keep 'all of my eggs' in one basket" are good, will also learn
about the use of USB flash bootable. Hope you can share your experiences in using such bootable devices, inexpensive and handy.

Thanks
 

RadDave

macrumors regular
Apr 6, 2013
187
0
North Carolina
Hi Tanventure - not much more to add about the USB flash drives - I should @ least test each, but I would suspect that their behavior is similar to booting into the recovery partition of the HD. My MBP & iMac came w/ the partition on their drives and NO DVDs - visiting the Mac store indicated that I'd need to purchase OS X Mtn Lion in order to make a bootable DVD or external HD - not sure that I had another alternative?

BUT, if you are interested, then check this link OS X Recovery Digital Assistant - download link is @ the bottom of the support article - process takes less that a minute and requires a recovery partition on your HDD - good luck! Dave :)
 
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