time machine and partitioned external

[hmmm4321]

Hi All--I have a 500 gb external that I've been backing up Time Machine onto--I also use the drive to store my movies (about 100 gb and increasing) but I'm getting to the point where time machine is taking over. Apple suggested partitioning my drive--does anyone else think that this will work or is there some other option that I have? I've thought about manually deleting certain Time Machine back ups but hate to have to do that constantly.

Thanks so much!

 

[sickmacdoc]

Well, the only thing that partitioning will do is to place a limit to how large the TM backup set can get, so I suppose that could be a good thing. With partitioning a 500Gb drive, just remember to give the TM partition all the space you can afford to allow it to use since limiting the space available too much defeats the purpose of TM's "history".

Actually there is one more benefit, as if a drive like that is partitioned you can then tell TM to include the data partition on the drive in its backups if that is important to you. With the files and TM residing on a single partition, the movies cannot be backed up by TM.

 

[hmmm4321]

thanks for the response! how much space would you suggest that I allocated? I was thinking 300 gb...

 

[G4DP]

hmmmm, I too have a 500Gb drive for time machine, about 300Gb would be a good size, that way you still have enough space for all of the other stuff that you don't wan in a TM back up.

I split mine 50/50, bu I back a lot of stuff onto DVD every month.

 

[sickmacdoc]

thanks for the response! how much space would you suggest that I allocated? I was thinking 300 gb...

Well the bigger the better, but not knowing how large your internal drive is I can't really say much more than that! General rule of thumb is 2-3x time the size of the backed up drive(s), but that varies also by how full the drives are, etc. etc. etc.! No easy answer- but that is why I just dedicate a full drive for TM use and other drives for data.