NTFS external drive -> NTFS + Mac OS extended Journaled

[ls1dreams]

Hi all,

I have an old external USB drive formatted in NTFS with a bunch of free space that I'd like to turn into a combination NTFS / Mac Journaled (HFS+) drive so that I can use it for time machine.

Here's my current plan, but I'd like to be warned if there are any issues:

Currently: Drive is 1.5TB NTFS, 1 partition. Only 250gb used space so far.
Goal: Split the drive into 750gb NTFS / 750gb mac os extended journaled

My plan:

0. Backup all data
1. Create a bootable USB thumb drive with Gparted on it
2. Reboot my macbook with gparted thumb drive in one usb port, external HD in other USB port
3. Resize NTFS partition down to 750gb
4. Create extended partition in free space
5. Create logical HFS+ partition in extended partition (maybe don't do this and do it with mavericks later?)
6. Success?

Main concerns:

- Does gparted work on external USB drives?
- Should I create the mac os extended partition in mavericks, or create the logical hfs+ partition with gparted

Any other input would be appreciated.

 

[MisterMe]

After you partition a drive, you will find that one or more of your partitions is too small. In today's world, 1.5 TB is not a lot of capacity to begin with. It would be my irreducible minimum for Time Machine. Today, external drives are cheap. Buy a new one and dedicate it to Time Machine.

 

[ls1dreams]

After you partition a drive, you will find that one or more of your partitions is too small. In today's world, 1.5 TB is not a lot of capacity to begin with. It would be my irreducible minimum for Time Machine. Today, external drives are cheap. Buy a new one and dedicate it to Time Machine.

Nah, I only need to backup a 250gb SSD, of which I'm using 140gb. 750gb gives about 5-6 full versions of backups/images.