Time Machine, Backup and GoFlex Help

[crazy$hark]

I recently bought a GoFlex External Hard drive and I wanted to back up my mac onto it with time machine. I have a couple of questions. First, I have to choose whether i want to us my HDD on a Mac or Mac and Pc. If i choose mac and pc then i wont be able to use time machine. Is there any backup software i can use that will work with NTFS system on Mac (because it formats the drive to NTFS if i want to use it with both mac and windows). Also if i decide to use time machine, will i also be able to use the HDD to drag and drop files (not only for backup) or will it make my whole HDD not usable (except Time Machine)?

I also have a question about Time Machine. I have no idea whatsoever how it works and what it does to my HDD. Could someone please explain how it works . Thanks

(By the way, every time i use the word "HDD" i mean my external GoFlex Hard Drive).

 

[-tWv-]

What I would do is use time machine and then if you have a pc that you are going to need to transfer files to, use macdrive to give the pc read/write capability. What time machine does the first time is it backs up everything on your hard drive and saves it to a folder on the external HDD. Every back up after that, time machine only backs up the files that have changed since the last back up. The first back up will take up as much space as your internal hard drive, and then the rest will be much smaller, only reflecting the changes in-between backups. It is recommended to have a backup drive that is at least twice the size of the internal hard drive, just so you have enough space for many back ups. Time machine will back up until the hard drive is full, and then start deleting the oldest backups to free up space for new ones.

Using time machine you can still drag and drop files on the hard drive if there is free space, but you should make a new folder for them and not use the time machine backups folder. I would definitely recommend using time machine, it has saved me on multiple occasions and makes migrating to a new Mac extremely easy.

 

[talmy]

Short of having two drives, the best bet is to create two partitions on the drive, one Mac OS Extended partition for Time Machine and the second as FAT32 so it can be easily shared between OS X and Windows. Because of the way Time Machine works, eventually filling up the partition it is on, it's best to not use a Time Machine partition for anything else.

 

[crazy$hark]

Thanks helped a lot

 

[crazy$hark]

Short of having two drives, the best bet is to create two partitions on the drive, one Mac OS Extended partition for Time Machine and the second as FAT32 so it can be easily shared between OS X and Windows. Because of the way Time Machine works, eventually filling up the partition it is on, it's best to not use a Time Machine partition for anything else.

If I create a partition (let's say 500GB) for time machine then I won't be able to use that space for anything else? Will ot be possible to remove the partition if I don't like it?

 

[Daffodil]

If I create a partition (let's say 500GB) for time machine then I won't be able to use that space for anything else? Will ot be possible to remove the partition if I don't like it?

You can change partitions etc. quite easily with disc utility - it's a pretty intuitive process. However, when you change stuff around, your data gets deleted, so unless you can move it onto something else meanwhile, you shouldn't really plan on messing around with your partitions a lot.

edit - but yeah, the TM partition will be reserved for that.