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Time Machine Question

LarryJoe33

LarryJoe33

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 17, 2017
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Boston
I am new to Time Machine. I have never used it as I use CCC to image my system and have liked the boot feature Time Machine doesn't have. However, I have read articles that say both processes have their pluses and minuses. I would like to try Time Machine.

I have an external drive that only has my most recent CCC backup. I have space on this drive for Time Machine. Can I have both on the same drive? Can I put Time Machine backup in a Folder instead of the root and would it work to restore if I did this?
 
LarryJoe33 said:
Can I put Time Machine backup in a Folder instead of the root and would it work to restore if I did this?
Click to expand...
You don't want to do that because CCC will overwrite it. Just add a second partition to the external drive and use one partition for CCC and the other for TM.

Although this will work just fine, it is not as good as having a separate drive for each since if the one drive fails you have lost both your backups.
 
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Weaselboy said:
You don't want to do that because CCC will overwrite it. Just add a second partition to the external drive and use one partition for CCC and the other for TM.

Although this will work just fine, it is not as good as having a separate drive for each since if the one drive fails you have lost both your backups.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Makes sense. Problem is a use a 256gb thumb drive and I don’t think I can partition it?
 
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Weaselboy said:
Sure... you can partition a thumb drive just like any other drive. This link shows you how.
Click to expand...
Not always true, just FYI. Sometimes on thumb drives you can't re-partition an already partitioned drive. I've noticed it on ones I formatted that are missing an EFI partition. You might be able to fix this with terminal, I haven't had luck. I had this problem the other day trying to create a "clover" FAT32 partition to a thumb missing an EFI, but I couldn't add any partitions or resize in disk utility.
 
Crash0veride said:
Not always true, just FYI. Sometimes on thumb drives you can't re-partition an already partitioned drive. I've noticed it on ones I formatted that are missing an EFI partition. You might be able to fix this with terminal, I haven't had luck. I had this problem the other day trying to create a "clover" FAT32 partition to a thumb missing an EFI, but I couldn't add any partitions or resize in disk utility.
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You cannot resize a FAT32 partition in Disk Utility, but you can resize a HFS+ partition and that is what I am assuming OP is using.
 
Weaselboy said:
You cannot resize a FAT32 partition in Disk Utility, but you can resize a HFS+ partition and that is what I am assuming OP is using.
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I was resizing, adding to a HFS+, I just happened to be trying to make room for a FAT32 to add. I couldn't hit the partition button at all in Disk Utility, to add any partition - FAT32 or otherwise.

Edit:
LarryJoe33 said:
I didn’t see an option to partition it with disk Utility. That would be ideal, having a CCC and TM partitions.
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Does diskutil list show an EFI partition for the thumb or no? Just curious for my own partition understanding.
 
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Crash0veride said:
I was resizing, adding to a HFS+, I just happened to be trying to make room for a FAT32 to add. I couldn't hit the partition button at all in Disk Utility, to add any partition - FAT32 or otherwise.

Edit:

Does diskutil list show an EFI partition for the thumb or no? Just curious for my own partition understanding.
Click to expand...

I did two straight backups to the flash drive without creating partitions (started them before posting this). I am guessing the backup folder below is TM (today) and the other four folders are CCC (yesterday). Hope this helps.

Finder Flash.png
USB Flash.png
 
LarryJoe33 said:
I did two straight backups to the flash drive without creating partitions (started them before posting this). I am guessing the backup folder below is TM (today) and the other four folders are CCC (yesterday). Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I actually just saw the terminal read out in your other APFS/HDD posts too. I think you can't resize it because you CCCed a partition over the whole disk, not a partition. I had the problem when I used the terminal createinstallmedia command to make a usb stick over the whole disk and not a partition. It seems to correlate to a lack of EFI, as your terminal read out didn't have one either, but that may be coincidence.

Also I've used time machine from a disk with other files. Time machine works, but if you tried to CCC it back it would waste a bunch of time copying your time machine files too.
 
Funny I was just about to post that all seems fine with one partition and CCC/TM sharing it but I had a feeling a restore from CCC would copy everything, essentially double. I see the need for two partitions but you are correct, I can't do it now. Can I reformat and do this?
[doublepost=1501799329][/doublepost]I erased it and it does not appear I can partition it. Grayed out. Sucks, I had a CCC and a TM backup on it which took about 6 hours combined, but no big deal, I love playing around. Wish I could partition it.
 
LarryJoe33 said:
I erased it and it does not appear I can partition it. Grayed out. Sucks, I had a CCC and a TM backup on it which took about 6 hours combined, but no big deal, I love playing around. Wish I could partition it.
Click to expand...
I had that problem but you can use terminal to fix this:
diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX GPT JHFS+ New 0b

replace X in the command with the disk number of the flash drive found in the "diskutil list" command. I pulled that command from this article when I fixed mine: http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/disk-management-from-the-command-line-part-2 . I used some variant of it. I think I either didn't use or used something other than "0b."'

you may have to use: "sudo umount /dev/diskX" first or unmount it in disk utility.

Then try partitioning it/resizing it. I would definitely split the drive before using CCC.
 
Crash0veride said:
I had that problem but you can use terminal to fix this:
diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX GPT JHFS+ New 0b

replace X in the command with the disk number of the flash drive found in the "diskutil list" command. I pulled that command from this article when I fixed mine: http://www.theinstructional.com/guides/disk-management-from-the-command-line-part-2 . I used some variant of it. I think I either didn't use or used something other than "0b."'

you may have to use: "sudo umount /dev/diskX" first or unmount it in disk utility.

Then try partitioning it/resizing it. I would definitely split the drive before using CCC.
Click to expand...

You are the man! Thank you. It worked:

Two Partitions.png
 
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