I would like to purchase an external hard drive for use with Time Machine, but I would also like to use half of the available space for dumping video from my video camera. Can you partition the external hard drive in such a way to do this, or does Time Machine require use of the entire hard drive?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Time Machine and external Hard drive...space usage?
- Thread starter MatrixPrime
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You don't have to partition at all. Time Machine makes its own folder, completely separate from anything else on the drive.
Apple describes how Time Machine works in the Time Machine preference pane. It says that that eventually Time Machine stops saving weekly backups when the disk is full. You might want to watch out for that. Time Machine will take up all of the free space that you leave it.
No, but the OP wants to allocate half the drive to video. In order to keep half the drive free, he will have to partition it. Also, this other partition will not be backed up.