Time Machine Questions

[tardman91]

I will be getting a 500BG WD Portable Hard Drive that I would like to use for a time machine back-up. My questions is, would I also be able to put other files on it (video files), or does that drive have to be specifically for the Time Machine back-up? The HD in my Macbook Pro is only 160GB so I wanted to keep my video files on the same external HD so they don't take up all my space. Is that possible?
Also, I haven't played with it yet, but Time Machine would only back-up when I connected the drive, yes? If that's the case, then how would I put my video files on the HD if the computer just thought that I wanted to create a back-up every time I connected the drive?

And finally... is there any way to connect this HD to my Verizon FIOS router (there's a USB port on the back) so that I can enable wireless backup? That would rock! I'm not all that great with this networking stuff, but I do know my way around computers.
Thanks!

 

[r.j.s]

Yes, you can use it to store other files.

I'm not sure if you can connect it to the router, but I think you can - if that's what the USB port is for.

 

[tardman91]

Anybody else?

 

[stridemat]

Also, I haven't played with it yet, but Time Machine would only back-up when I connected the drive, yes? If that's the case, then how would I put my video files on the HD if the computer just thought that I wanted to create a back-up every time I connected the drive?

I would leave the hard drive connected most the time, the it can do the incremental hourly backups on a regular basis. The external hard drive still mounts as an external hard drive so you can copy films on to it while backups are being done.

 

[m85476585]

I partitioned my TM drive and put extra stuff on the second partition.

The USB port on your router is likely to hook it up to a computer without a network card. I don't know why they even bother putting one on there because as far as I know, no one uses it (and no one should use it).

USB ports follow a convention for what type of connector is used. If the connector is a square-ish B-type like the one found on most printers, it means the router is a USB device meant to be connected to a computer. If the USB port on the router looks like a standard one on a computer, it could mean that the router is a USB host, and you can plug in something like a printer or hard drive.

 

[rowsdower]

And finally... is there any way to connect this HD to my Verizon FIOS router (there's a USB port on the back) so that I can enable wireless backup?

I'm pretty sure you won't be able to do Time Machine over wireless. For one thing, Time Machine requires HFS+, which the router is extremely unlikely to support. You might be able to format the drive as FAT or NTFS and use a different backup program though.

EDIT: m85476585 was faster than me, and is probably correct that the USB port is for connecting to a computer. Some routers do support external drives, but unless that feature was specifically mentioned on the box, it probably won't work.

 

[r.j.s]

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