External HDD music and backup?

[BigMoo]

Hello,

I have my stock 250gb HDD in an external enclosure and I currently just have music on it. I want to create a back up drive because I don't have on at this time.

Here is my question. Can I partition this drive into 2 sections, lets say 125gb each, and use one for a TM backup and one for music? I would like to eliminate having two separate external drives. Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks,
TJ

 

[GGJstudios]

Can I partition this drive into 2 sections, lets say 125gb each, and use one for a TM backup and one for music?

Of course you can. Use Disk Utility.

 

[BigMoo]

Here's another question along the same topic.

I've cloned my drive around 3 to 4 times and it renders my SSD super slow on startup. I want to do a clean install to see if that would help with the speed. Can I do a TM backup and then a fresh install of OS X then restore from my TM backup?

I'm only asking because I want to do the fresh install, but don't want to have to download everything I currently have on my computer again.

 

[GGJstudios]

Can I do a TM backup and then a fresh install of OS X then restore from my TM backup?

Yes, you can.

 

[marzer]

Hello,

I have my stock 250gb HDD in an external enclosure and I currently just have music on it. I want to create a back up drive because I don't have on at this time.

Here is my question. Can I partition this drive into 2 sections, lets say 125gb each, and use one for a TM backup and one for music? I would like to eliminate having two separate external drives. Any help would be appreciated.


Thanks,
TJ

You can, but how large is your computer's hard drive? 125GB is small by today's standards. If your music fits in 125GB, I'd move the music over to the computer and use the exteranl to back the whole thing up.

 

[Dark Void]

Yes you can, although the downside of that is that if the drive fails you lose both partitions, where as if you have separate singular partitions on different drives, you have less of a chance of losing both your music and your TM backups.

Not to be that guy though. Hopefully nothing will fail, and it's resourceful to simply use the drive now for backups if you don't need the full 250GB for your other data.

 

[Weaselboy]

Here's another question along the same topic.

I've cloned my drive around 3 to 4 times and it renders my SSD super slow on startup. I want to do a clean install to see if that would help with the speed. Can I do a TM backup and then a fresh install of OS X then restore from my TM backup?

I'm only asking because I want to do the fresh install, but don't want to have to download everything I currently have on my computer again.

The problem with what you described is that is not a fresh install and is not going to fix anything. If you reinstall then restore from Time Machine any corrupt apps and settings you had will be restored right along with everything else from the backup.

To do a true fresh install you need to install the OS to a blank drive then manually reinstall every single app and manually reconfigure every setting.

 

[BigMoo]

The problem with what you described is that is not a fresh install and is not going to fix anything. If you reinstall then restore from Time Machine any corrupt apps and settings you had will be restored right along with everything else from the backup.

To do a true fresh install you need to install the OS to a blank drive then manually reinstall every single app and manually reconfigure every setting.

So what would be the best thing to do? Just leave my SSD in the computer and run disk Utility to format it to a blank drive then pop the OS X disk in?

I guess there is no real way around doing a true fresh install and keeping my data the way it is currently.

 

[Weaselboy]

So what would be the best thing to do? Just leave my SSD in the computer and run disk Utility to format it to a blank drive then pop the OS X disk in?

I guess there is no real way around doing a true fresh install and keeping my data the way it is currently.

If you really want a fresh install.... then yes you will need to erase/format the SSD with disk util then reinstall the OS followed by manually reinstalling all apps and settings. It is a lot of work.

You might try installing the OS clean then using Migration Assistant to import data and apps to see how if that helps with the issues you were having. But that is not really a fresh install.