Time Machine backup: Internal Air drive PLUS external?

[MSFT]

Here is my setup (well, it will be my setup on Christmas morning!):

A. 128GB Air. On that SSD will be music and photos I use frequently.
B. Big external HD. On here are ALL my photos, ALL my music, etc. About 350GB.
C. Dedicated Time Machine backup drive.

Is there a way I can use Time Machine to back up both A. and B.? That is, I want, when I plug in my Time Machine drive, for both the Air and External to be backed up?

Does this make sense??😕

 

[Dark Dragoon]

With the external drive plugged in go to System Preferences > Time Machine, then click on the Options button. Remove your external drive (B) from the list of exclusions.

Time Machine will now backup the external drive (B) as well as the internal drive (A), to your Time Machine backup drive (C).

 

[Fishrrman]

My suggestion (may be different from others):

Buy another external drive (yes, I realize that means additional cost and an additional drive to manage).

Then use CarbonCopyCloner to create an exact copy of the "Big external HD" onto the backup HD.

You -DO NOT- want "ALL your photos, ALL your music, etc." on only one drive.

What if that drive fails?

Also -- keep the cloned backup of your external drive somewhere ELSE -- other than where the source drive is. What if there's a fire?

 

[Dark Dragoon]

You -DO NOT- want "ALL your photos, ALL your music, etc." on only one drive.

What if that drive fails?

Thats why you let Time Machine back up both the internal drive (A) and the external drive (B) to the second dedicated external Time Machine backup drive (C). That way the data is in two places.

Of-course Carbon Copy Cloner is another valid way of backing up, but it's not necessary. There isn't really any reason for the op to have three external drives plus the internal one, with the backups split over two.

EDIT: Assuming they want a simple setup with just the one backup drive that is. They could buy a third external drive for a second Time Machine backup, for keeping off site for extra security.

 

[MSFT]

Thanks for the replies. I agree that CarbonCopy and another drive might be excessive. All the truly important stuff is backed up everywhere.

Good to know it is possible.

 

[satcomer]

First since you like iTunes and now have an external then follow the steps in the blog post How to move an iTunes library to an external drive.

To move your iPhoto Library follow the steps at the Apple document iPhoto '11: Move your iPhoto library to a new location.