External Hard Drive/Partitions/Time Machine

[stillwatergal]

Hi,
I have still another EHD/TM question and I can't quite figure out where to ask for the help I need.
I have a Mac Pro OS 10.5.8 with 2 internal drives and a large EHD that I was using solely for Time Machine Back Up. After a recent conversation with tech support at Apple, I've decided that I should have still one more full copy of stuff that is critical to me--my original photographs. I currently only have the backup copy on TM.
So, I want to take my large LaCie EHD and partition it. I want to store things as follows:
1. Internal HD #1-primary HD containing all data except original photos
2. Internal HD #2-HD that contains nothing but original photos
3. EHD (LaCie):
a. Partition #1: Second copy of original photos
b. Partition #2: Time Machine back up of HD #1 and HD #2.

It seems as if it is easy enough to do the partition but I'm wondering if there is a way to get my original photos to go into both HD #2 and Partition #1 of the EHD at the same time that I import them via a card reader.

If not, I'm wondering how I can set this up so that I don't have to remember to copy the photos from HD #2 to the EHD. Do I have to use another back up program? If so, any recommendations? Will using another program mess up Time Machine? What am I not thinking about?

Hope this is clear
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Stephanie

 

[arjen92]

I probably understood you wrong but you could make one time machine back-up of the two hard drives. That way your photos are also backed up.

 

[stillwatergal]

I am currently making a single back up of the images on TM. My goal in changing my process is to have 2 back up copies (plus the original images). What got me thinking about this is that a senior tech at Apple told me that if the images are super important to me (which they are) I really shouldn't completely rely on one backup via TM, since, on occasion, TM doesn't restore every piece of data and things can be lost. He said that he backs up both with TM and some other (unnamed) program. So, I really want to wear a belt and suspenders, as the old phrase goes, and back up the images twice. At this point I have plenty of room on that EHD and partitioning should be the easy part. I just don't know how to get the sequence I wrote about originally.

 

[illy123]

I am currently making a single back up of the images on TM. My goal in changing my process is to have 2 back up copies (plus the original images). What got me thinking about this is that a senior tech at Apple told me that if the images are super important to me (which they are) I really shouldn't completely rely on one backup via TM, since, on occasion, TM doesn't restore every piece of data and things can be lost. He said that he backs up both with TM and some other (unnamed) program. So, I really want to wear a belt and suspenders, as the old phrase goes, and back up the images twice. At this point I have plenty of room on that EHD and partitioning should be the easy part. I just don't know how to get the sequence I wrote about originally.

Was it carbon copy cloner?

 

[Tumbleweed666]

I've decided that I should have still one more full copy of stuff that is critical to me--my original photographs.

Yes, a second copy will give you an extra smidgeon of backup, for example if your HD fails and there is a TM bug that prevents a restore. However, it will do nothing about a more likely event, at this stage - fire, theft, flood, that will destroy all backups, however many copies you have, if they are all in the same place.

So, while two copies are good (one TM, one a straight copy perhaps), two in the same location give you an illusory extra amount of protection.

So, you need to be thinking offsite backup - either buy another external HD, do something like a weekly or monthly copy of all your photos (or maybe just a clone of the entire HD) to that,and then store that away from your house - at work, a relatives, whatever.
Or, use an offsite service like Mozy or Amazon.
Or do both, or a combination of partitioning plus offsite. But I think offsite is more crucial. At least take one copy and get that done asap, even if its burn a dozen DVDs.

One other thing you should do, is an occasional test restore from your backups - a common catastrophic backup error is to take backups regularily but only notice they arent working or are corrupt, after a fail, when its too late.

 

[stillwatergal]

Yes, a second copy will give you an extra smidgeon of backup, for example if your HD fails and there is a TM bug that prevents a restore. However, it will do nothing about a more likely event, at this stage - fire, theft, flood, that will destroy all backups, however many copies you have, if they are all in the same place.

So, while two copies are good (one TM, one a straight copy perhaps), two in the same location give you an illusory extra amount of protection.

So, you need to be thinking offsite backup - either buy another external HD, do something like a weekly or monthly copy of all your photos (or maybe just a clone of the entire HD) to that,and then store that away from your house - at work, a relatives, whatever.
Or, use an offsite service like Mozy or Amazon.
Or do both, or a combination of partitioning plus offsite. But I think offsite is more crucial. At least take one copy and get that done asap, even if its burn a dozen DVDs.

One other thing you should do, is an occasional test restore from your backups - a common catastrophic backup error is to take backups regularily but only notice they arent working or are corrupt, after a fail, when its too late.

Yes. I know you are right but right now I'll feel better solving this piece of the problem and then working on next steps.....S