Can Time Machine Backup External Drive Attached To Time Capsule

[JustinK101]

I have an external 500gb drive plugged into my brand new Time Capsule. The 500gb drive basically stores my entire library of music and my iTunes points to this external drive.

Is it possible to have time machine backup all information on the 500gb drive to the time capsule, so encase the external drive takes a dump, I don't loose my entire music library? Maybe time machine is already doing this, I am not sure. Thanks for the help.

 

[skorpien]

The short answer is no. It will only automatically back up any drives physically attached to your computer. I'm not sure if there's a way to back it up using Time Machine after you've mounted it onto your desktop, but honestly if you need a backup of your music, just copy it manually from your external to the Time Capsule's hard drive. I think this is a better choice as you'll be able to access those files any time without having to mount your Time Machine backup first.

 

[JustinK101]

I have a lot of music, and I wanted to keep time machine backups separate from my media library. Can I use disk utility to create an image of the external drive? Maybe after I finishing importing all my music, 80gb+, I will make an image of the entire external drive just in case it takes a dump, and store that image on the time capsule.

EDIT: What actually is the best way to create an image of an entire disk? Is it disk utility? I notice some people use an application called SuperDuper!. What do you guys recommend?

 

[Blue Velvet]

How to use Time Machine to backup network shares.

 

[JustinK101]

Blue Velvet,

The article you posted, it how to backup time machine to an external drive. Neat, but not what I need. I have a Time Capsule, with an external drive attached. I want time machine to backup my external drive attached to the Time Capsule, and store the backups on Time Capsule itself.

Ideas?

 

[sharpeiboy]

Any solutions?

Hey -- found your post. I was planning on doing the same thing. I was wondering if you ever got this to work, or what your solution was.

 

[crazzyeddie]

Pretty sure that using Time Machine for this task is pretty silly. Just use rsync or one of the many freeware tools that uses rsync, such as the wonderful Carbon Copy Cloner.

 

[jaw04005]

Time Machine will not backup network shares (officially). However ...

You should put your entire library on the Time Capsule’s internal drive and periodically use AirPort Utility’s “Archive" option to backup the internal Time Capsule drive to the external 500GB drive connected to it (maybe once a week or so).

In fact, you could probably write an AppleScript or use Automator to do it automatically every week.