New Time Machine drive that I need to separate... add a volume or partition?

[davidg4781]

I bought a new 2TB drive to use as a Time Machine drive. I'd like to save some space on there for some large GoPro and home movies. I'm setting this all up to start my first TM backup and need to know if I should add a partition or a volume.

Volume seems to be what APFS uses but with Time Machine filling things up, would this cause issues since it doesn't seem to be static? I'd like to set the partition as 250GB to allow for future videos.

And I'll find another location to save the videos before offloading from my MBP.

 

[chabig]

I think I'd go with a volume. The nice aspect of APFS volumes is that they all share the space inside a container. You can set a maximum volume size when you set up the Time Machine volume, but by doing that you're losing the shared space benefit.

You said you only want 250GB for Time Machine. Generally, you want to give Time Machine at least twice as much space as the drive you're backing up. So assuming your Mac has a 256GB SSD, you should have at least 512GB for Time Machine. So why not buy a cheap drive and dedicate that to Time Machine? You can get one for under $100.

Add, delete, or erase APFS volumes in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, add, delete, or erase APFS volumes.

support.apple.com

 

[davidg4781]

I think I'd go with a volume. The nice aspect of APFS volumes is that they all share the space inside a container. You can set a maximum volume size when you set up the Time Machine volume, but by doing that you're losing the shared space benefit.

You said you only want 250GB for Time Machine. Generally, you want to give Time Machine at least twice as much space as the drive you're backing up. So assuming your Mac has a 256GB SSD, you should have at least 512GB for Time Machine. So why not buy a cheap drive and dedicate that to Time Machine? You can get one for under $100.

Add, delete, or erase APFS volumes in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, add, delete, or erase APFS volumes.

support.apple.com

Thanks. I see where I can set a volume with a quota.

And it's a 2TB drive. I want 1.75TB to go to Time Machine and .25TB to go to extra storage. Maybe I said it backwards. I may have to increase that. Hopefully I can do so without it erasing the drive.

 

[chabig]

I want 1.75TB to go to Time Machine and .25TB to go to extra storage.

I misinterpreted.

 

[SDAVE]

If you're just backing up video footage, I wouldn't use Time Machine for that because it gets rid of old archives.

Time Machine is more for system daily backups, and 2TB is too small even for a 1TB OS drive. I would get like a 4-8TB drive for that so you can go back in time further. Drives are cheap now.

For actual backups, get a separate NAS and set it to RAID 5 or RAID 6. I use a Synology with 48TB of space via 10GbE ethernet (I get around 600-800MB/sec) and run it as a RAID 5. Has been working great for years. Also it's always recommended to have 2 backups of important files, one onsite and one off site.

 

[davidg4781]

If you're just backing up video footage, I wouldn't use Time Machine for that because it gets rid of old archives.

Time Machine is more for system daily backups, and 2TB is too small even for a 1TB OS drive. I would get like a 4-8TB drive for that so you can go back in time further. Drives are cheap now.

For actual backups, get a separate NAS and set it to RAID 5 or RAID 6. I use a Synology with 48TB of space via 10GbE ethernet (I get around 600-800MB/sec) and run it as a RAID 5. Has been working great for years. Also it's always recommended to have 2 backups of important files, one onsite and one off site.

I'm backing up the original video footage onto the Time Machine drive (separate volumes) to offload it from my main MacBook Pro. I'm not using this footage on a day to day basis and just want to free up space. I also moved it to a second disk to have a backup of that, just in case. I'll ultimately remove them from my MBP's storage once that gets used up. I'll just need to remember that if I ever edit the video files, I'll might need to adjust the originals.

Really, the important ones are from old family reunions and home movies that were ripped from VHS to digital format. After I did that, I just don't have the time/desire to edit them down to smaller clips and more efficient formats.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I'm backing up the original video footage onto the Time Machine drive (separate volumes) to offload it from my main MacBook Pro. I'm not using this footage on a day to day basis and just want to free up space. I also moved it to a second disk to have a backup of that, just in case. I'll ultimately remove them from my MBP's storage once that gets used up. I'll just need to remember that if I ever edit the video files, I'll might need to adjust the originals.

Really, the important ones are from old family reunions and home movies that were ripped from VHS to digital format. After I did that, I just don't have the time/desire to edit them down to smaller clips and more efficient formats.

Time Machine is not the right solution for that.

If you want to OFFLOAD from the main computer, you want to Archive data - not back it up. Move it to an external disk, in other words.

If you then want to back up THAT copy, THEN perhaps Time Machine would be appropriate. But if you're removing the original - a "Backup" isn't want you want, it's an archive.

 

[SDAVE]

I'm backing up the original video footage onto the Time Machine drive (separate volumes) to offload it from my main MacBook Pro. I'm not using this footage on a day to day basis and just want to free up space. I also moved it to a second disk to have a backup of that, just in case. I'll ultimately remove them from my MBP's storage once that gets used up. I'll just need to remember that if I ever edit the video files, I'll might need to adjust the originals.

Really, the important ones are from old family reunions and home movies that were ripped from VHS to digital format. After I did that, I just don't have the time/desire to edit them down to smaller clips and more efficient formats.

Not a good workflow imo. Time Machine isn't the greatest for what you're doing, it's more for "oh crap I need to find that file I deleted 2 weeks ago" or "I need an older version of this file". For that, it's amazing. And it's also great for backing up your user files/settings if you ever need to restore your Mac from a fresh install.

 

[davidg4781]

Not a good workflow imo. Time Machine isn't the greatest for what you're doing, it's more for "oh crap I need to find that file I deleted 2 weeks ago" or "I need an older version of this file". For that, it's amazing. And it's also great for backing up your user files/settings if you ever need to restore your Mac from a fresh install.

You missed the part about having it on a separate volume so it's not going through Time Machine. It's a 2 TB drive. I'm using 1.5 for Time Machine (for now, all I have) and .5 TB for the videos. I also have them on a 250 GB (I think, maybe larger) drive for redundancy.

My plan is to get a larger Time Machine drive and use it solely for that then use this 2 TB drive to hold video files. Then I'll have another drive for a redundancy of the video files.

 

[SDAVE]

You missed the part about having it on a separate volume so it's not going through Time Machine. It's a 2 TB drive. I'm using 1.5 for Time Machine (for now, all I have) and .5 TB for the videos. I also have them on a 250 GB (I think, maybe larger) drive for redundancy.

My plan is to get a larger Time Machine drive and use it solely for that then use this 2 TB drive to hold video files. Then I'll have another drive for a redundancy of the video files.

You're not getting what I'm saying. TM wipes off data and replaces it with new, so you will lose your data eventually especially on small drives. I have a 8TB TimeMachine drive since my OS drive is 4TB, but it still wipes off data.

Get a RAID0 NAS or something instead or upload to online storage for real backups.

 

[davidg4781]

You're not getting what I'm saying. TM wipes off data and replaces it with new, so you will lose your data eventually especially on small drives. I have a 8TB TimeMachine drive since my OS drive is 4TB, but it still wipes off data.

Get a RAID0 NAS or something instead or upload to online storage for real backups.

So if I have Time Machine pointed to the Time Machine volume, it’ll still delete everything on other volumes?

 

[SDAVE]

So if I have Time Machine pointed to the Time Machine volume, it’ll still delete everything on other volumes?

Anytime you use the built in Time Machine tool, it will do what it does: delete old files to make room for new ones. Only your Time Machine volume this will happen to.

You will lose data by relying on Time Machine, especially if your drive is small.

It doesn't cost much to get an external NAS or an external drive to keep backups of your important files like videos, photos and what not. I would recommend at least keeping 2 backups if the files are important to you and you don't want them to be gone. Drives fail, a single drive is not a good place to put your files and a point of failure. RAID 1 on a NAS is worth investing in, or online storage like Google Drive.

 

[ignatius345]

I bought a new 2TB drive to use as a Time Machine drive. I'd like to save some space on there for some large GoPro and home movies.

It honestly sounds to me like Carbon Copy Cloner would do this all a lot more intuitively and give you more control over how that external drive is used.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

So if I have Time Machine pointed to the Time Machine volume, it’ll still delete everything on other volumes?

Time Machine is fine, as long as you're not DELETING the original files. Once you delete the originals, it will (eventually) fall off of Time Machine as well.

In your initial post you mentioned "offloading from my MBP" - that's where you'll run into problems.

Offload (move) them to an external volume FIRST - and KEEP them there - and THEN Time Machine can serve as a backup. But if you delete them from wherever they're backed up from - it ain't gonna work.