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ghostchild

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 17, 2007
355
0
Hey guys, just wondering if it was possible to use one of my extra drives in my mac pro as a time machine backup drive seamlessly? Sorry if dumb question. Never tried.
 

Enigma

macrumors member
May 20, 2004
44
0
That's exactly what I did. Dismantled an old external HDD I had sitting about, put the SATA drive in one of the spare bays in the Mac Pro and set it to the be Time Machine backup drive. Not had any problems at all so far.
 

kragwood

macrumors newbie
Aug 15, 2010
3
0
I have my HDD partitioned into two volumes. One is for Time Machine and the other is for a clone.
 

handheldgames

macrumors 68000
Apr 4, 2009
1,939
1,169
Pacific NW, USA

macdemauro

macrumors newbie
Jul 25, 2011
2
0
Technically there are no issues at all with an internal Time Machine. Personally, I would never go that route. In the last 6 years I have had to evacuate my home in a hurry on two occasions. Once in San Diego during wild fires and again in Tokyo when the big quake struck. My wife and I know that all we have to do is grab the small external HD (and the kids :D) and run out the door.

Perhaps this sounds paranoid but you NEVER know when you may have to bug out in a hurry.
 

Zerozal

macrumors 6502
Apr 3, 2009
443
4
PA
Yes, that's Bay 4 for me and it works great.

However, I would be a bit paranoid about having an internal drive as my only backup, in the event of a catastrophic fire or electrical damage to the internals, which may wipe out the entire system. So, in addition to my internal Time Machine, I keep 2 additional external drives (1 offsite) that are only connected when needed for backup.
 

minifridge1138

macrumors 65816
Jun 26, 2010
1,175
197
Technically there are no issues at all with an internal Time Machine. Personally, I would never go that route. In the last 6 years I have had to evacuate my home in a hurry on two occasions. Once in San Diego during wild fires and again in Tokyo when the big quake struck. My wife and I know that all we have to do is grab the small external HD (and the kids :D) and run out the door.

Perhaps this sounds paranoid but you NEVER know when you may have to bug out in a hurry.

He is right. Using an internal drive for time machine doesn't protect you in case of a disaster in your house (or wherever the machine is). It will protect you from failed disks, accidental deletion of data, etc.

But if I'm fleeing for my life, forget the data, RUN!!!
 
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