backing up my external drive through a mac

I have an external drive with all my photos. I really need to back up. At present what Im doing is dragging over the files. But I want to do this properly. It does not seem to work with Time Machine. I want to back up from 1 external drive to another external drive. Can someone help me please.

Time Machine is not designed to backup from one external drive to another. For that you need software which can clone one drive to another:

SuperDuper

Carbon Copy Cloner

Errr...Time Machine will backup external drives.

Time Machine is not designed to backup from one external drive to another.

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Never said it couldn't. The best way, however, is what I recommended above and that is to use cloning software.

In an attempt to further my knowledge, is there any particular reason for that view, or is it just your preference?

TM will do what you want, but it will repeat the process every hour (although quickly, unless you add or modify a lot of pictures). CCC and SD can be more under your control, so you can back up when you want.

TO THE PURISTS: Yes, it is possible to turn on TM, do a backup to the external drive, then disable it until the next time you want to backup, but I use CCC and find it much easier to use. It's a personal preference.

In an attempt to further my knowledge, is there any particular reason for that view, or is it just your preference?

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TO THE PURISTS: Yes, it is possible to turn on TM, do a backup to the external drive, then disable it until the next time you want to backup, but I use CCC and find it much easier to use. It's a personal preference.

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I agree, CCC or SuperDuper are more convenient and faster. But like MacInWin it is a personal preference. And as I stated above in the original reply, Time Machine was not designed to do an external hard drive to hard drive backup but it can be done by excluding all the root folders. That can be confusing for new users.

Check out this LINK which gives a better explanation than I have.

One can also use Time Machine Editor to control how often Time Machine is invoked, BUT I've yet to meet a user who didn't have their desire for fewer backups come back to bite them in the ... um, rear ... later.

chas_m said:

One can also use Time Machine Editor to control how often Time Machine is invoked, BUT I've yet to meet a user who didn't have their desire for fewer backups come back to bite them in the ... um, rear ... later.

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Now you have! I used TME to set my system to back up using TM once every 12 hours, not ever hour. I use CCC to clone the entire disc to a different backup external drive once a month. Not been bitten by that plan, even when I did need to get a file back I had accidentally destroyed. If I were using the system to make tons of changes to critically vital documents, I'd increase the frequency of the backups, but for MY situation, I don't need hourly backups. There isn't a single best solution, we all have to analyze our situation and set the risks where we are comfortable.

Sounds like you have a workable plan. In your case though I am not sure changing the backup schedule from one hour to 12 hours changes much in the way of space requirements for the Time Machine backups. Under normal circumstances TM only copies files that have been changed and eventually consolidates those hourly backups into a daily backup

Slydude said:

Sounds like you have a workable plan. In your case though I am not sure changing the backup schedule from one hour to 12 hours changes much in the way of space requirements for the Time Machine backups. Under normal circumstances TM only copies files that have been changed and eventually consolidates those hourly backups into a daily backup

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You are correct about the space. I chose my interval because I have a large file system and the checking that TM does slows down my system as it is deciding what needs to be backed up. But it's a personal preference that works for ME, and may or may not work for anybody else.

Time Machine was not designed to do an external hard drive to hard drive backup but it can be done by excluding all the root folders.

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I'm a bit confused by that statement chscag. If you open TM Preferences with external drives connected and go into Options, it shows the external drives. It's a simple matter of choosing whether or not to include them in the backup.

That, to me, suggests that TM is quite happy backing up external drives.