Quick Time Machine question

Ge64 · Oct 25, 2007

Does anyone know, if you use an external drive for Time Machine, can you still store files on it as well? Im wondering because I have existing dmg and ghost images that I need to keep but i'd rather have all my backup stuff on one drive.

PowerBookG4 · Oct 25, 2007

I would imagine so? I don't think time machine is going to take a whole drive, but nobody will be able to answer that question till th 26th. (or a little after, you have to give people time to experiment and learn the workings of the new features)

Ge64 · Oct 25, 2007

Hmm I suppose it would be strange for it to somehow reserve all the space, it would probably just create a folder for itself and leave the rest of the file system intact. I sure hope so because I'm already busy copying 100s of GBs all over the place to prepare for Leopard

andrebnu · Oct 25, 2007

I'm assuming that we may tell time machine how much disk space it'll be reserved for it.

digitalscrap · Oct 25, 2007

Time Machine will just create a main folder on the specified external disk, and then create subfolders for each Mac that is backed up to the disk (if you are going to back up multiple Macs on your network to one disk).

skybolt · Oct 26, 2007

O.K, here's a twist. I have an external that is partitioned into two partitions, one for my SuperDuper clone and one that holds all of my pictures and music. How will Time Machine work with that setup? Should I erase my clone and point time machine to that partition? Or if I don't manually erase, will TM overwrite the clone? Either way is fine, I have a second external that I back up the first external to and take it offsite, so have protection either way. Just trying to figure out how this will all work with the partitions I have.

Thanks in advance!

naftalim · Oct 30, 2007

Probably the simplest way to do this is what I do. I have 2 partitions, one clones my whole Mac HD, so that I have a bootable drive, the other uses Time Machine. Keep in mind that SuperDuper is not yet Leopard compatible, should be soon.

skybolt said:
O.K, here's a twist. I have an external that is partitioned into two partitions, one for my SuperDuper clone and one that holds all of my pictures and music. How will Time Machine work with that setup? Should I erase my clone and point time machine to that partition? Or if I don't manually erase, will TM overwrite the clone? Either way is fine, I have a second external that I back up the first external to and take it offsite, so have protection either way. Just trying to figure out how this will all work with the partitions I have.

Thanks in advance!