OSX and Windows backups on same External Drive

Hi, I have had a good search around but would like a bit of advice on this.

I've purchased an External Hard Drive to backup my Macbook - I'm planning on using Time machine and also creating a bootable image, but would also like to backup my windows pc. I know I can partition the drive to accomplish this, does time machine require a different file system (exFAT etc?).

Is there anything else I need to be aware of doing backups this way? Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Here's the problem with what you are suggesting: Assuming that the drive is directly connected to the computer the drive would have to be in two different formats. Time Machine wants the drive it uses to be in HFS+ format (commonly used on Mac) while Windows backup programs want a drive format more Windows friendly (such as NTFS). If the drive were connected to something like a Time Capsule that might work but one of our Windows guys will have to confirm whether Windows would work with that setup.

If you search the net you may notice that there is/was a way to format a single drive with both an HFS+ partition and Windows partition but the method hasn't been updated in years AFAIK. I tried it for a while but it is a pain to set up, may not work with newer OS versions, and some people had problems getting the partitions too mount reliably. Not something you want in a backup drive IMHO.

If it were me I'd have the MMac and Windows backups on different drives. Otherwise that's a lot of potential data loss if things go south.

I have tried using a Time Capsule to backup both the Mac side and then the Windows side. It does not work - that way lies madness!

As for taking a drive and partitioning with one side HFS+ and the other NTFS, it seems it can be done. I found this older link on this forum but I am not sure just how much it will help.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ru...tioning-hfs-ntfs-same-external-usb-drive.html

Most other links I read said use Disk Utility to setup the partitions. Format one HFS+ and the second as Fat32. Then open Windows and using Administrator Tools-> Disk Management, format the Fat32 partition with NTFS and assign it a drive letter. I theory now you can use it for backing up both sides.

I still think two drives are better than one that is partitioned. But it is worth a try.

Lisa

One point here... Windows, starting with Windows 7 will not backup to an external drive unless it's formatted to NTFS. In other words, Fat-32 and exFat can not be used.

lclev said:

I still think two drives are better than one that is partitioned. But it is worth a try.

Lisa

Click to expand...

I have to agree Lisa. I created one of these HFS+ and NTFS drives for a short period of time a few years ago. I think I used this hint to do it. I might have also used the older hint referenced in that thread. It was something of a pain to set up and to use (see below).

I did it more as a proof of concept to see if it could be done. I abandoned the project shortly afterwards because I kept having to manually mount the HFS+ partition. That alone would make it virtually useless for Time Machine unless you want to keep manually mounting that partition. Not everyone had that problem mounting the partition but I certainly did.

I think there is another factor here. Irrespective of different file formats, it's not a good idea to use one EHD to back up 2 crucial sets of data. All drives fail at some time and that would mean the total loss of all OS and all Windows data. Too big a risk.

I think that separate drives should be used for each back up system eg Time Machine, Cloning Software BU, Windows and so on. More expensive, but EHDs are incredibly cheap these days.

Just my thoughts.

Ian

Hmm, thanks for the replies. It seems what I thought would be a simple solution would be harder to achieve than first thought.

Aside from the fact that there is risk in having both Mac and Windows backups on the same drive (I do have my Windows backed up elsewhere, this would just be a second backup just in case, but my main Mac backup) would I be right in assuming Time Machine is what adds complication to this. If I were to do my backups manually using disk utility, then having an EHD with two partitions in different formats -one for Mac, one for Windows- wouldn't be so much of a problem?

This isn't going to be constantly plugged into my Mac, so the benefits of Time Machine (i.e not having to think about it) won't be there anyway as I would be relying on remembering to plug it in for the TM to run? Or am I missing something?

Thanks again.