Time Machine question

[dryjoy]

Hello.
I am about to make the move from OS9 to OS X (yes, I know, I'm a late starter) and I have just ordered a Mac Pro but have not yet ordered any additional hard drives. I have the basic 640GB drive coming, and intend to install another 640GB drive for audio recording.
I also plan to get another one or two drives to back up with.
Is it possible to set up time machine to back up the system drive to hard drive number 3 & the audio to hard drive number 4, or do I have to order one, larger capacity drive (1,5TB?) to back up both the system and audio drives?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[spice weasel]

You can have Time Machine backup whatever directories you like, but only to a single drive AFAIK.

 

[deboni]

I believe there's a bit more flexibility to it than that. For instance, if you connect two drives, and use Disk Utility to format them as a single RAID volume (say, for safety, a mirrored volume), Time Machine should honor that setup. And there's also a way, within Disk Utility, to join two external devices into a single volume in a non-Raided way, so you get a volume with the combined space of the two devices; I think TM will also allow the use of that setup.

But backing up two different internal drives to two different external drives would involve changing the TM prefs in its System Prefs pane. Maybe there is a way to automate this, but it could well get complicated...

 

[dryjoy]

Thanks

Great, thanks. I might as well just get a 1.5TB drive to back up both 640GB ones and have a spare bay to fill later, then.

 

[Dimwhit]

Great, thanks. I might as well just get a 1.5TB drive to back up both 640GB ones and have a spare bay to fill later, then.

That would be my suggestion. Good luck!