Confused with Time Machine

[iTnetennba]

I was just wondering if Time Machine controls a whole external hard drive or can you back up your Mac and still use the other space on your HD for storing other files. I hope this is understandable
This is quite important as it will save me £200 or cost me £200 depending on the answer when buying my Mac in a few weeks time.

 

[Intell]

Yes, you can use a Time Machine drive to store other things besides the Time Machine backup.

 

[LaWally]

I was just wondering if Time Machine controls a whole external hard drive or can you back up your Mac and still use the other space on your HD for storing other files. I hope this is understandable
This is quite important as it will save me £200 or cost me £200 depending on the answer when buying my Mac in a few weeks time.

The answer is it depends. While it is technically possible, it may be practically impossible. It depends on how large your external HD is and how much data you have to back up. Ordinarily TM requires 2x-3x the amount of space on its drive as data you need to backup. So, if your internal HD has 250GB of data on it, your TM HD (or partition) should be at least 500GB ... 750GB would be better and 1TB even better yet. TM will complain if it does not have enough space to work with.

Edit: You might find this helpful: Pondini TM Tips

 

[aristobrat]

Edit: You might find this helpful: Pondini TM Tips

Good find!

iTnetennba, check the FAQ link on the page above. FAQ #3 is exactly what I was going to recommend you do!

 

[iTnetennba]

The answer is it depends. While it is technically possible, it may be practically impossible. It depends on how large your external HD is and how much data you have to back up. Ordinarily TM requires 2x-3x the amount of space on its drive as data you need to backup. So, if your internal HD has 250GB of data on it, your TM HD (or partition) should be at least 500GB ... 750GB would be better and 1TB even better yet. TM will complain if it does not have enough space to work with.

Edit: You might find this helpful: Pondini TM Tips

Thanks a lot, found this site very helpful. And it shouldn't be too much of a problem since I think I'm getting a 2TB drive and a 1TB internal hard drive (or if the new iMacs have SSD standard then 512GB/256GB).

 

[LaWally]

Thanks a lot, found this site very helpful. And it shouldn't be too much of a problem since I think I'm getting a 2TB drive and a 1TB internal hard drive (or if the new iMacs have SSD standard then 512GB/256GB).

Good luck with this and your new iMac, whenever they arrive. It's nice to know some people still plan ahead.

 

[AcesHigh87]

If you've got the space it will work fine. When I only had my 160GB macbook HDD backing up to my 1TB drive I had a bunch of movies and TV shows saved to it as well. Now I have separate drives for everything but still; it will work as long as you give TM enough room.

 

[harrisonw1998]

You can still use the remaining space on the hard drive for other files. Just don't mess with the Time Machine directory on it.