External drive format question

[AV8TOR]

Looking for advice for setting up my 1.5 TB external backup drive. I think I would like to partition it into 2 drives one 500gb for Carbon Copy Cloner (or Super Duper) and the second 1 TB for Time Machine. The drive is a WD 1.5 TB My book and it came FAT32. Should I re-format this to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or leave it as it is for the purposes of backing up? I really don't think that I have any files larger than the 4gb although I could have some ripped DVD's before Handbrake sizing down to iPhone size.

What about the files that came with the external drive, are the worth installing or just go with the popular backup choices?

Oh please let me ask this question as well, what cable connection to the my iMac is recommended? I was wanting to use Firewire but they only provided a 400 to 400 cable and I think I need 800 to 400.

Thanks in advance

 

[MacDawg]

If you are only going to use it with your Mac, I would reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) HFS+

Check out the various file systems here: MR Guide: File Systems

I would stick with Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner
I would archive the software that came with the drive just in case you wanted it

If your drive will accept FW 800, I would get the cable and use it

 

[AV8TOR]

If you are only going to use it with your Mac, I would reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) HFS+

Check out the various file systems here: MR Guide: File Systems

I would stick with Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner
I would archive the software that came with the drive just in case you wanted it

If your drive will accept FW 800, I would get the cable and use it

Thanks Dawg, am I on track with the dual partitions or just use one then?

 

[MacDawg]

Thanks Dawg, am I on track with the dual partitions or just use one then?

I do the same... I have one partition for my CCC clone and one for my TM backup
Keeps things neat and clean and less confusing for me

 

[bagsofenergy]

Hi Guys, Thanks for your post. I am sure we'll be seeing more and more of this as our libraries expand.

Can you tell me what the advantage of partitioning your disk in this case?

My iMac's hardrive is close to full (120G Photos vs 150G memory).
I have an external hardrive 500Gb ready which I also want to use as a Time Machine back up.

Shall I follow the advise & partition the new hardrive into 2 one for the Time Machine and one for the photo library?

(indeed is it worth doing exactly the same and using CCC?)

Can I free up disk space on the iMac by Carbon Copy Cloning to the extrenal harddrive and then deleting the photos from the iMac - so that I can go back and use them again? (does that work?)

Advise gratefully appreciated.

Jez

 

[MacDawg]

Time Machine will eventually fill all the space allocated to its partition
It expands and grows over time
That is why I keep it separate

I keep a CCC as a bootable clone in case of HDD failure or trouble as well

TM and CCC have similar but contrasting functions and I prefer to have both

Just know that if you move your photos off of your internal HDD to an external you have not backed them up if you actually delete them from your internal. You still need them in 2 places somewhere.

Some will also consider an off site backup too, in case of fire, theft or catastrophe. This can be a HDD that is stored off site, or in one of the cloud services.

 

[AV8TOR]

Time Machine will eventually fill all the space allocated to its partition
It expands and grows over time
That is why I keep it separate

So when Time Machine starts to fill your drive what are the preferred methods of freeing up some space? I notice that you can view your data on the external backup drive and the folders are dated. Can you simply delete the older folders in Finder?
Our iMac is simply our home computer and I changed the Time Machine backup to once a day to reduce the number of backups. CCC done once a week.

 

[MacDawg]

So when Time Machine starts to fill your drive what are the preferred methods of freeing up some space? I notice that you can view your data on the external backup drive and the folders are dated. Can you simply delete the older folders in Finder?
Our iMac is simply our home computer and I changed the Time Machine backup to once a day to reduce the number of backups. CCC done once a week.

TM should notify you it is going to delete the oldest backups automatically when it does

 

[bmcgonag]

TM should notify you it is going to delete the oldest backups automatically when it does

Agreed that you should keep CCC and Time Machine on separate partitions. Also, I actually keep 3 partitions. 2 for CCC and one for Time Machine.

I use one CCC as a Clean install partition in case of the need to format and re-install fresh. I basically clone a bootable copy of my drive with any updates available at that time from Apple, and any Applications I want added that i know are stable.

2nd CCC is an incremental backup of all my stuff (synced so that as I delete from the internal drive the external is kept up to date). This is a good way to go for internal drive physical failures, but should something go wrong with the data, and then it "syncs" well now I have that issue on both drives, and my backup is no longer useful so to speak....

I also have Time machine for the Incremental Drive image that I can go back into for valid data in case of data corruption (at least hopefully).

Best,

Brian

 

[HunterD11]

I have 1 TB disk with 2 partitions.

500 Gb HFS+
500 Gb NTFS

This because i like to use 500 Gb on more then one system. I use the HFS+ just for my mac and TM etc. NTFS for regular backup movies pictures. Stuff i need to use on more then my mac.

I use Paragon to read/write to NTFS in OSX.