time machine set up for existing external HD

[raghunk]

Hi,
I have external HD with data in it and was using with Windows Machine and I will not be using this with Windows any more because my windows died while ago.
I would like to use this HD for time machine with my MBP, to do that I need to farmat HD to comply HFS+ file system format and to do that I need to copy all data over to Mac from HD and then I can use it for time machine.
But I do not want to store data on to Mac since it is lot of data I dumped on to Mac from HD, Can I copy data back to HD and then use it for time machine ?? for my current data on Mac so that I end up retaining data as it is on HD and also can use for back for Mac. Please advice.

Thanks.

 

[GGJstudios]

If I understand your post correctly, yes, you can move the data off the external HDD onto your Mac, then reformat the external as HFS+, then move the data back onto the external HDD. You can use the external HDD for both TM backups and for storage of other files.

 

[raghunk]

Thanks. to make sure I was asking clearly. Since I have almost 250 GB of data on external HD and my MBP has 500 GB. I do not want to keep that data on my Mac when using HD for time machine because that will eat up my MBP disk.

There are the steps I do

1) copy data from HD to Mac
2) format HD
3) copy data back to HD from Mac (will be deleting that data from Mac)
4) then use HD for time machine (now HD will have data as before and also ready for time machine)

sounds good ??

 

[GGJstudios]

There are the steps I do

1) copy data from HD to Mac
2) format HD
3) copy data back to HD from Mac (will be deleting that data from Mac)
4) then use HD for time machine (now HD will have data as before and also ready for time machine)

sounds good ??

Yep.