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Time Machine +WD Portable Hard Drive

Holmes89

Holmes89

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 6, 2008
222
0
Pittsburgh, PA
I have a 200 gig Western Digital Portable hard drive that I purchased for a Macbook that I'll be purchasing in the near future. I would like to use part of it for Time Machine but I have two questions. Is it okay to use a portable hard drive (that will be connected and disconnected often) to use for Time Machine? and if so is there a way for me to partition a section that Time Machine can use?
 
I have that setup (my WD HD is 320gb though) and it works wonderfully. I have created three partitions: 1) Time Machine (150 GB), 2) Multimedia files (120 GB) and 2) Windows files (the remaining capacity).
 
PJM said:
I have that setup (my WD HD is 320gb though) and it works wonderfully. I have created three partitions: 1) Time Machine (150 GB), 2) Multimedia files (120 GB) and 2) Windows files (the remaining capacity).
Click to expand...

What did you use to partition and does it have any issues with you connecting and disconnecting the device?
 
U can always use the application>utilities>disk utility to create any partition... it wont affect your device if u disconnect or connect often... the time machine will only back up your portable device when is connect.. and there's a time count down to back up ;)
 
Ertifex said:
U can always use the application>utilities>disk utility to create any partition... it wont affect your device if u disconnect or connect often... the time machine will only back up your portable device when is connect.. and there's a time count down to back up ;)
Click to expand...

How much space would you recommend for the Time Machine partition? I was thinking 50-80 gigs?
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
It depends on the size of your drive. Time Machine demands a drive or partition that is at least 110% of the size of the drive you are backing up.
Click to expand...

Well I want a black macbook, so that's 200 gig........ and I was wrong I have a 160 gig passport.

Should I get another one?
 
LACIE 500GB External Drive

Hello.

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I believe I have similar query.

I have just got my hands on a LACIE 500GB External drive that has more connections than your could ever need (eSATA, USB, Firewire etc).

What I want to do with this drive - and this where I am hoping someone can advise - is to use it for a shared purpose. I shall try to explain.

Firstly - I want to partion the drive into two. One partition being used to back up my MacBook via Firewire utilising Time Machine (and I figure about 150GB - 200GB for that partition). The second partition I want to allocate to a Samba share because I want to connect it to my home network via a Freecom FSG-3 (basically a mini server that also allows external drives to be connected via eSATA/USB).

So in the main the drive will be connected to the home network via eSATA and then periodically I will also connect the drive via Firewire to my laptop to back up. Can anyone forsee a problem?

Also - I have never partioned via the Apple Disk Utility so I am not sure how to go about it. Can someone please advise. Do I select two partions, decide on the space, format one as Apple HFS and then set the other partition to blank. I then format the blank area by other means?

Any help gratefully received.
 
JamboUK said:
Also - I have never partioned via the Apple Disk Utility so I am not sure how to go about it. Can someone please advise. Do I select two partions, decide on the space, format one as Apple HFS and then set the other partition to blank. I then format the blank area by other means?

Any help gratefully received.
Click to expand...

hmm i guess i can help about this, connect your device and go to disk utility select the brand name of your device and you will see "first aid,erase,partition...." click on the partition. All you have to do is do add a new partition and adjust the space you prefer. Hope this will assist you.
 
I just did something similar.
I bought a 500gig lacie external hdd and partitioned it with disk utility. I did a 110 gig partition for time machine and the rest i left in fat32 for media and other files.

disk utility makes it very easy like the person above said just go to the partition tab/ select how many partitions and then name the partitions and select the filesystem that they are going to use. For time machine leave it at mac extension, for other drives usually fat32 is good. One problem with fat32 FS is that there is a maximum size of 4 gigs per file think. Also for time machine you have to make sure that the partitions are set up as GUID instead of MBR or time machine has a hard time backing up to them
 
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