Create additional partition on Time Machine external drive?

[se7eren]

Hi,

I have a 2TB external drive that I use as my time machine backup. I only use part of this drive and would like to create a partition for other storage without deleting the existing data.

Is this possible by using the disk utility and just creating a new partition with the slider on the fly? My external drive is Journaled. If this is possible are there any risks involved?

Thanks in advance.

 

[iMikeT]

I'm not entirely sure that you can do this. My experience has always been that what you want is an all or nothing process.

 

[jaredwaynef]

I'm not 100% sure you can do that. Whenever you partition a drive (in my experience), disk utility will wipe everything clean to re-partition it. You could create a new disk image on the hard drive, but you may be limited to a smaller amount of space than you are looking for. =/

 

[logana]

I'm not 100% sure you can do that. Whenever you partition a drive (in my experience), disk utility will wipe everything clean to re-partition it. You could create a new disk image on the hard drive, but you may be limited to a smaller amount of space than you are looking for. =/

???

Yes you can add a new partition to an existing drive in Disk Utility - just select the top level of the external drive in Disk Utility, click on the Partition tab and then the "+" below the drive. It should create a partition out of the free space and you can decrease the size by moving the slider. Set options and rename. Should not be a problem.....

However there is no need to create a new partition unless you particularly want to - you can save your files to the external Time Machine drive same as a normal external drive. Time Machine won't mind and if you take up too much space with these other files it will warn you before it starts overwriting old backups..

 

[se7eren]

Thats the answer. Thanks very much