I have been using a Seagate GoFlex USB external drive to backup my two PCs. I'm looking to purchase a MBP 13.3 or 15.4 very soon. I have folders on the GoFlex for each PC with their backups (using NTI Backup) and I do manual backups weekly. My question is can I use the GoFlex with a folder for the MBP to manually backup files? I would hate to have to get an additional external drive just for the MBP.
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GoFlex Backup - Mac & Windows
- Thread starter whsbuss
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I just made 2 partitions on my external.
1 for PC and 1 for Mac.
Works well, except when I accidentally put something on the Mac partition and then try to retrieve it from my work PC.
You'd need to partition the external to have an HFS+ partition if you intend to use Time Machine.
If you intend to back things up manually, I recommend using either FAT32 or ExFat as the filesystem so that your mac can write to it.
Thanks for the replies. I don't want to use Time Machine (for now - future maybe a time capsule) so manual via my NTI Backup program (both on PC and MBP). I noticed on the Seagate site they mention just plugging in the GoFlex to the MBP and it asks to install the drivers..... all good I guess. The main question now is will the current Windows files on the GoFlex get deleted?
Unless you decide to format the whole drive, no they won't. The hard drive will only do what you ask it to, if anything gets erased, it'll be through your input.
Not a problem, just be reminded, if anything gets erased, it's your own fault, your HD doesn't have a self destruct feature
If you do manual backups, I'd perhaps make sure the computers you're using are fine, and erase the external before partitionning it to use for both the Mac and PC to prevent data corruption from changing the partition table.
That way you're double sure not to lose anything.
I just made 2 partitions on my external.
1 for PC and 1 for Mac.
Works well, except when I accidentally put something on the Mac partition and then try to retrieve it from my work PC.
I did that for a while. My solution was naming the partitions "MAC" and "PC".
Actually, I had 3 partitions. "MAC", "PC", and "TRANSFER". Transfer was FAT32, and used to transfer files between my mac and my PC.
It took a while to completely ween off of PC use, and I no longer have any PC formatted drives.