Can I partion an external HD for automatic backups?

[brunozs]

Hi,

I'm wondering if I could get a 3TB USB Hard Drive, create 3 partitions of 1TB each, and then use one for TimeMachine, one for my iTunes folder, and the last one as a mirror of the second one (meaning it would automatically backup the the second partition).

Is it possible to do? Do I need any special software?

Would it be a waste of effort to use separate partitions for backing up (since they're all on the same drive)? I guess I could use separate 3 hard drives and connected them on a thunderbolt-to-usb hub, but then again, how to set up one HD to mirror the other?

Thanks

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes you can easily do that, but with that setup your iTunes folder is not really getting backed up since you are keeping the "backup" on the same drive. If that drive dies, all is lost.

If you really want to keep iTunes on an external drive you could setup the drive with two partitions, one for Time Machine and the other for iTunes, then buy a second cheap drive to occasionally clone the iTunes partition to. You could setup Carbon Copy Cloner to automate that iTunes clone for you.

 

[brunozs]

Thanks man! That's what I was looking for.