MacBook Pro :: External Hard Drive To Backup Four?
Aug 5, 2009
I have multiple computers that all need to be backed up! The macbook that I bought for my girlfriend last year suffered a major hit, the hard drive crashed and she lost all of her information. Now I am worried!! I have the computers listed in my signature and a Lenovo s10e netbook that I would like to back up on the same external hard drive. I don't plan on doing anything but backing them up once every week or two.
First question is what external hard drive should I get to be able to back-up four macs and a windows machine? (I would like to have a desktop external, not portable)
Second question is when I get the drive should I separate the drive into multiple section or what?
Basically I have a 750GB hard drive in my Macbook Pro and over 300GB is taken up with 'BackUp' data. This is more than the total of everything I have on the drive other than that. Time Machine has always been setup on an external drive and when searching all files on the Macbook there is nothing for backup files so don't know where it is coming from.
I am currently making the switch from Windows, I can't wait for my MacBook to arrive. My lovely Dell currently has a 320 GB HD that would prove a very nice external backup storage unit. I plan to remove it and find a case to mount and use it as such!
Only problem is, I'm fairly certain that I'll run into some compatibility issues and have never used an external HD. I'm unsure of how the process works. This is the HD in my personal laptop (only PC I own), so it's not like I have it hooked up to play around with as an external at the moment.Â
The Hard Drive is a Toshiba MK3255GSX (SATA): [URL]  Can I connect with FireWire (or Is that dependent on my hard drive, or do I get a cable converter)?When/how do I partition it?Since this is my personal home use PC, it's loaded with a bunch of programs/Win32/cache/temp files/garbage. Can I just access/delete these from the Mac?Â
I have a MacBook and will be purchasing an external harddrive to backup all my info from OS X. I also have a partition on the drive in the MacBook for windows and would like to use the external as a backup for that as well. Do I have to format the external and partition to backup each OS? I am new to the whole backup of info with an external harddrive.
I had a IBook G4 and an external hard drive as its back up.IBook running something like Snow Lepord, anyway I have a Intel Macbook now with Lion, Ive been told here there is a possible confliction between the AMP external harddrive and lion.I will say a few times I have for limited time been able to access the drive on the newer MacBook, but then Lion (I think) drops it.Â
I have just set up an external hard drive to my wireless router and am now wanting to set up Time Machine to back up to the hard drive. I can see the hard drive in Finder and can even send files to it manually. I just don't see in setting up Time Machine any option to backup to that hard drive.Â
My internal 1TB hard drive on my iMac is dead and I don't have the money to replace it at the moment. I have everything backed up on an external 1TB drive using Time Machine. As a workaround for the time being,Is there any way I can install the system on the external drive and use that as the boot drive without erasing the Time Machine Backups? It seems to me I would have to have two partitions for the external drive, one for the system, and one for Time Machine. But is there any way to add a partition without erasing the existing one with Time Machine only on it? Â
I would like to use FileVault to encrypt both my hard drive and time machine back up external drive. Does encryption noticeable slow down the computer.
Info: MacBook Air (13-INCH, MID 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
OK, I read about formatting Fat 32 to transfer files. I will try it tomorrow. My other question has to do with using this for backup. it is a 750 hard drive and I was wondering if I should do anything special if I want to use it for both Timeline and video storage separate from timeline.
Basically I have an iMac and a Macbook Pro (unibody) and a USB external hard drive (500GB) I want to wirelessly back up my Macbook Pro and the iMac with the hard drive connected to the iMac. A sort of time capsule concept. But i don't have an airport base station to make this process easier I only have a wanadoo livebox.
I was thinking of getting an external hard drive for use with Time Machine. On Amazon I found a Seagate 1.5 TB unit for $129. However there is a similar model "for the mac" for $192. I am wondering if the cheaper unit would work, or if the one for 50% has some indispensable feature.
Went and did the bootcamp thing and installed Windows 7. I tried to connect my HD external via firewire, but it would not show up in Windows. This is after I did a backup of my mac to time machine. Will it work after time machine backup?
I was thinking of getting an external hard drive (or a raid 1 setup) for backup. What I'm wondering is if it's possible to do this: Have Time Machine back up the entire system on to the drive (or raid), and also add files to it from a different computer that wouldn't interfere with the stuff that's already on there from Time Machine. Would this be ok, or would the drive only be able to do one or the other?
Can I setup time machine to backup an external hard drive if I have another external hard drive? I don't have any files on my laptop but on an external hard drive. Or will time machine only work on files in the internal disk.
I am a new convert to Mac, and loving every minute. I use a 21.5 iMac and my wife uses a MacBook. I am trying to figure out the best way up set up an external harddrive system that will automatically backup both Macs. But I am also trying to figure out if I can store and access music through iTunes for both Macs.
I have an airport extreme base station. I was wondering that if I buy an external hard drive to backup wirelessly with time machine, will that external stay on all the time? is there a way to control when the external powers up and down? or does that depend on the make and model of the external?
I used my external hard drive to store important documents off of my previous Mac. None of these documents are on my new Mac. Will I lose these docs if Time Machine backs up to this external hard drive? Will Time Machine save over those docs?
I am trying to get Time Machine to backup my external hard drive. I have the external drive formated as Mac OS Extended (journaled) and I have also removed the drive from the Excluded list.I put some 'test' files on the external drive and told TM to do a backup and when it is finished the only way I can see my external hard drive in TM is if it is connected to the computer. It doesn't seem to be backed up anywhere in TM that I can see.
I've got a 2011 macbook pro, 16GB RAM and 500GB Hard Drive. I'm wondering if it would be possible to buy a 1TB external hard drive and partition it in half, and have 1/2 be a bootcamp windows 7 partition and the other be a time machine backup for the mac hd.
I've got a WD 500 GB external hard drive that has worked perfectly for about a year. I don't use time machine or any other backup software. I prefer to organize it myself and backup files individually.
Suddenly, today, it's freaking out at me. I've got several folders in it that I copy things too. One of them being Music. I was copying a few gigs of new music into that folder, but when it finished copying I couldn't access any of the other files.
It's like I'm stuck in the sub menu where I can just see the music I have on the drive and nothing else. The rest of the files are there somewhere because I only have about 50gbs of music and it says that 300gbs of space are being used, but I can't see them and i've tried a bunch of different things to get them to show up.
Can I use time machine to back up my data without formatting the external hard drive .. If not please let me know if there is a way to back up to hard drive without using time machine.. Thank you
I noticed that Time Machine backs up the system ever so often. What happens if I disconnect the external hard drive I'm using as the back up and Time Machine tries to initiate a back up? Will it corrupt anything?
Info: MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
