external storage advice

[1herm4matrix]

i have 320g hd on my i-mac and a 500g external usb hd that time machine backs up to. the internal 320g is staring to get full and was think of adding another 1T external to store only media files (pictures,home videos). how would time machine work having two externals? is there a better way to address storage without having to replace the internal hd? Would a network hd be a good idea since I would also like to share media files with other windows machines on the network.

Thansk in advance, MAC newbie so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[geoffreak]

Time Machine can only use one external. It doesn't matter how many externals you plug in as it will only use the specific external you chose.

If you make a clone of the old external onto the new one using SuperDuper, Time Machine will use the new drive instead. Just make sure to erase the old external if you copy the data as it could cause issues with Time Machine.

 

[1herm4matrix]

Thanks geoffreak,

so oneway would be to a large enough hd, and clone the old hd using superduper. could i just keep the current external hd letting time machine work likes its been doing and add that second external and just save all new media files saved onto the new hd? i would hate to have media files saved in two diffent locations and not have a backup for those new files (using time machine).

the whole reason for my need of this new hd is that my iPhoto and iMovie collection are getting rather big. If anyone has a better solution or advice on how to save and organise these files would be great.

 

[geoffreak]

If you want to keep Time Machine using the current backup drive, don't clone it and instead just copy your other files off of it.