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dacreativeguy

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 27, 2007
2,033
224
I have a question about how to set up my external drive for time machine backups of multiple computers. In the pre-time machine world, I partitioned my backup drive into multiple partitions and cloned my computers to their respective partitions.

I know that Time Machine doesn't require a partition all to itself, and that all the data is just stored in a folder. Does that mean I can point Time Machine backups of 2 computers to the same partition and they each would backup happily? The advantage to not partitioning is that I don't have to reserve space in advance, so one computer can use more space than the other.

Will backing up multiple computers to one partition work? Any disadvantages people have found?
 
Backing up to one partition shouldn't be a problem, just realize that each instance of TM will gobble up a heck of a lot of hard disk space.

I have a Drobo, which is backing up two Macs. I have partition for each Mac (different sizes, the older Mac didn't need as much space to house the TM backup) - and then I have a third partition on the Drobo that I use for my general needs (iTunes library, etc).
 
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