Partitioned external for time machine?

I'm currently using an external harddrive for time machine, which unfortunately is only 180 gb. I have several virtual machines that I run, that take 10+ gigs each. My hd is full within two days if I use my VM's.
Seeing as how I'd like to backup my VM's as well as my regular stuff, my question is:

Is it possible to partition my external harddrive, say two 85 gig partitions (seeing as how the HD doesn't see a full 180 gb), and only have one of those partitions be used for time machine, and then be able to manually backup my VM's to the other partition?

I don't see why I shouldn't be able to, but before I go formatting and partitioning and all that, I figured I would ask.

Sure. Just use Disk Utility from Utilities. You'll need to first erase the drive and then partition it into two equal partitions of 85 Gb each. Format the first partition as HFS+, the second as FAT-32 (unless you plan on storing very large files). Time Machine can only backup to HFS+ so it would not interfere with the second partition.

Personally if it were me, I would just buy another large external hard drive to use for Time Machine. I keep two externals here; one for backup, the other for storage. I move the storage external between my MacBook and several PCs that I have.

Regards.

chscag said:

Sure. Just use Disk Utility from Utilities. You'll need to first erase the drive and then partition it into two equal partitions of 85 Gb each. Format the first partition as HFS+, the second as FAT-32 (unless you plan on storing very large files). Time Machine can only backup to HFS+ so it would not interfere with the second partition.

Personally if it were me, I would just buy another large external hard drive to use for Time Machine. I keep two externals here; one for backup, the other for storage. I move the storage external between my MacBook and several PCs that I have.

Regards.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I'll be formatting both partitions with HFS+, seeing as how FAT-32 only stores I believe files up to 4 gb? My VM's are all over 8 gb each.

I wish I had the money to throw around for another external. I currently have two as well, one for storage and one for backup. The storage HD is close to full (only 80gb, it's my previous internal drive) and my backup is the 180 gig. I think partitioning it to have two 85 gig partitions will work well, I can manually backup my VM's and then have time machine backup my machine (which only takes up around 42 gigs, so it should be sufficient as there isn't any heavy traffic on my mac hd partition and time machine does incremental backup).

Thanks again for the help!