Using Time Machine - Changing Drives

You already have experience with adding an external drive (your Lacie 250GB) to the Time Machine (TM) backup -- which helps a lot. So here's a simple procedure (other methods are possible), assuming you have enough USB/FW interfaces to keep all the drives connected simultaneously:

0. Save all important information (pictures etc.) to DVD drives as "archives" - these shouldn't just be in the "backup."

1. Make sure TM has the latest backup. Stop TM from the TM (system) preferences and eject the 500GB drive and disconnect it.

2. Connect up the new 1 TB drive (proper partition table and format needed, but your machine should be able to do this automatically) make it the new TM drive (in the TM system preferences), enable TM and do a full back up of the internal drive and the 250 GB external drive. This will take a while since it is a FULL back up.

3. Verify the data in the TM backup (browse into it and make sure files are there - they should be).

4. Connect up the 500 GB drive (the previous TM drive) and reformat it and use it -- remember you ARE going to lose the old TM-backup data in this step. Review step 0.

5. Add the 500 GB drive to be backed up by TM.

See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8017701� for some additional ideas that may save some time if you think a full backup in step 2 is too long.