About Time Machine, new mac user, help.

[DemeanorRis]

Okay, I know this is going to be a stupid question but I was wondering if a MYBOOK 500GB external harddrive can be used for time machine as well as at the same time, store extra music, documents and etc? Is there enough room for time machine or do I have to purchase a 1TB external hard drive for it?

And if one day, the MYBOOK 500GB stops working, can I erase whatever time machine saved on there? how do I do that?

Thanks guys, much appreciated if someone can answer those questions for me.

-CHRIS

 

[waw74]

you can partition the drive into 2 sections, one for the time machine, one for music or whatever, this has to be done before you put your data on it.
this will keep the time machine backup from taking up the whole drive, it will backup till there is no more space, then delete the oldest backups to free up room.

it is recommend that your time machine drive be twice the drive size that you are backing up, so take twice your hard drive + your music, and see what number you come up with.

Time machine backups are only files, so you can delete them if you want. or just re-format the drive.