Backing up a mac

I bought a new Seagate Freeagent GoFlex 500GB external HD to use as a backup for my Macpro. I notice I can use the time machine software to backup my files or the Seagate software on the HD. Time machine wants to erase the HD for its use which I'm OK with since this will only be used for my mac, I have another seagate for my PC. Im not sure which way to go. I also want to save Photo and music files to this drive also but not as a backup file. If that makes sense. Meaning on my PC I can't access my backup files only to restore, so many of my docs are also saved on that HD so I can access them as needed. Thoughts?

edited:

stunnoni1510 said:

I bought a new Seagate Freeagent GoFlex 500GB external HD to use as a backup for my Macpro. I notice I can use the time machine software to backup my files or the Seagate software on the HD. Im not sure which way to go. Time machine wants to erase the HD for its use which I'm OK with since this will only be used for my mac. I also want to save Photo and music files to this drive also. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

There, that's better.

Forget the Seagate software - use Time Machine - it will allow you to use the drive for the Time Machine backup and store other data on the drive.

You're going to lose all the "other" data if that drive dies and it's not all backed up somewhere else though. That's the whole point of backups.

My question would be, how much hard drive space is used on the Mac?