Backing up an external drive and mac on two separate drives with Time Machine

[Martin00]

Hi all,

I have a MBP with 1 To and an external HD of 1.5 To, which I am trying to back up on a 2 To Time Capsule.

The mac is only about 50% full now (so 0.5 To), but it will get full quickly and will lead to the Time Capsule being unable to backup all the data.

I've connected a 1 To HD to the Time Capsule via USB, but have not found a way to backup the 1.5 To external HD on one disk (ideally the Time Capsule) and the computer on another (ideally the external plugged in the TC).

So the problem is that time machine will only backup the external drive as part of the mac's backup, and the addition of the two is greater than any drive I have. I am trying to avoid having to buy a 3 To external that I would plug into TC.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[jdechko]

What sort of files do you keep on the external hard drive? Is it mostly static content, such as movies, which are accessed but not changed?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Not using Time Machine, no.

I assume what @jdechko is hinting at, is that if you have some sizable content (e.g. movie files) that are essentially static so don't need versioning, you could back those up (not with Time Machine; do it manually or via a script or 3rd party utility) to the 1TB external drive on the Time Capsule. In Time Machine you'd then exclude the directories containing those large files from the backup so that everything else is managed by TM to go to the 2TB drive on the TC.

 

[Martin00]

Thank you very much, I indeed have a few, big static files. I'll give that a go and hopefully it'll last longer than I think it will. I'll probably end up buying a 3-4 To external to wire on TC anyway.

Thanks again!

 

[Weaselboy]

I've connected a 1 To HD to the Time Capsule via USB, but have not found a way to backup the 1.5 To external HD on one disk (ideally the Time Capsule) and the computer on another (ideally the external plugged in the TC).

Time Machine won't do that. It can only backup whatever you have chosen to that destination. There is no way to "split" the backup like you want.

You could do that with aftermarket software like Carbon Copy Cloner or Superduper though.