Backing up three computers to one drive

[jonlon15]

Hi, nice people.

I'm currently backing up my MacBook to an external hard drive with Time Machine, and it works very well. I also use Time Machine with the same drive on an older PowerBook, and it works wonders.

I'm adding an old iMac G3 into the backup mix, however it cannot run Leopard, and thus, cannot backup using Time Machine. I've looked into software like SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner, but these seem to clone the hard drive and take over the entire backup disk, which is not something that I want to do. I just want the backed up data to be stored in a single folder, like Time Machine.

Is there software that will backup all new/changed data (so I don't have to do a full backup each time) without taking over the whole drive?

Thanks 🙂

 

[MacDawg]

Carbon Copy Cloner does not take over the whole drive
I don't use SuperDuper, but I would guess it doesn't either

 

[extrovertus]

I use SuperDuper and it does not necessarily take over the drive either. You can back up to images that are unique to each Mac.

 

[old-wiz]

You can just partition the external HD into multiple partitions, 1 for each computer, then use SuperDuper to clone. After the first clone, it just backs up changed stuff.

 

[Dave Braine]

Carbon Copy Cloner does not take over the whole drive

No, but in my experience it deletes everything on the drive when doing a subsequent backup, so partitioning the drive is the answer.

 

[xUKHCx]

Superduper has the option to back up to a disk image. Otherwise as said above the best bet is to partition the drive.