Can I use an external drive for Time Machine?

[Sirious]

Still a Mac noob, even though I've been using it for the past 3 years.

Can I use an external hard drive to keep my Time Machine backups AND continue to use that drive for file storage? (To manually store documents, music and other data).

Would appreciate any responses!

System:
iMac, OS X Mavericks
External HDD via USB

 

[jbarley]

Short answer is yes.
Time Machine will create one folder automatically for it's own use, after that the rest is yours.
Keep in mind though that Time Machine over time will use up all free space available, so many users find it best to partition the drive in 2, one for TM and one for data, this will guarantee your data space will remain available.
Here is a photo of my external drive...
the snapshots are CCC clones and This-n-that is a data partition, TM is self explanatory.