backup external hard drive fcpx and aae data on iMac with Sierra

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hi there,

i am having iMac with 1tb internal disk, a 5tb seagate backup plus and a 3TB time machine.

i have huge libraries of fcpx data and photos which the 1tb internal disk cannot handle. so i moved the fcpx library to an external 5tb disk and do the editing from there. i also have around 1.5tb other than fcpx data. so in all, the mac internal disk cannot contain so much data.

the time machine backs up the mac and fcpx backup package but not the external disk.

have a few questions:

1) if i have the external disk formatted for macOS sierra, will the time machine back it up also? if yes, can that external disk be used on windows also?

2) should i backup the external disk data to another external disk using a third party backup solution like ccc or do a raid-1 mirror? i would prefer a backup to avoid a possibility of corrupted data being copied across both disks and also getting versions of the data.

can someone throw some light on how should i manage the backups?

with HIS blessings,

p.s:: TM is not backing up the external disk. in fact, it has put it in the exclude list by default and deactivated it so that it can't be removed. am attaching the screenshot of the same. called up apple support and they said time machine cannot backup external disk data to time capsule. am i missing something or is it because the external disk is using NTFS paragon format from seagate (the disk is a backup plus slim seagate model) on mac.



Screen Shot 2017-05-10 at 10.12.46.png
 

chscag

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Welcome to our forums.

Any hard drive used for Time Machine backup must be formatted to the Mac OS Extended file system (HFS+) otherwise Time Machine will exclude it. That also means you can not use that drive for Windows as Windows will only recognize FAT or NTFS formatted drives.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your external drives by cloning one to the other. Again the format must be HFS+ in order for that to work.
 
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Welcome to our forums.

Any hard drive used for Time Machine backup must be formatted to the Mac OS Extended file system (HFS+) otherwise Time Machine will exclude it. That also means you can not use that drive for Windows as Windows will only recognize FAT or NTFS formatted drives.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup your external drives by cloning one to the other. Again the format must be HFS+ in order for that to work.

thanks a lot. that clears quite a lot of confusion.

however, have a few more questions:

1) can the internal disk have an expanded volume clubbing it with the external drive making it a big volume using disk utility? this can help in having bigger fcpx libraries span across internal and external disk instead of completely moving the whole library to the external disk.

2) will backup not be better than cloning? in case of a raid 1 mirror, there is a chance that if one disk corrupts, it will copy the corrupted data to the second one.

3) does TM keep a bootable image of mac while backing up? guess it should. this will be helpful in case the mac crashes completely.

4) can the ntfs partition on the external disk be changed to mac OS HFS+ without formatting /losing the current data?

thanks again in advance.
 

chscag

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Not sure I completely understand your first question but I'll try to answer with what I know.

1. Apple has what it calls "Fusion Disks" and provides them as an option with new iMacs. Perhaps that's what you're referring to?

2. I don't do RAID and if I did, it wouldn't be RAID 1 Mirror. Too easy to break the mirror and mess up both drives. I use both Time Machine and CCC on a regular basis. CCC backups are bootable in place whereas Time Machine backups will need to do an EFI boot - which takes much longer.

3. As stated above, a Time Machine backup can be used to boot from but only when using EFI.

4. No. There are utilities which can convert NTFS to FAT and vice versa but not to HFS+ without a complete erase and format.
 
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nishkambharti - chscag has already done an excellent job answering your questions. I thought I might add in to the discussion and tell you what I do. I do a lot of video and photo work so I understand your concerns for storage and how fast it fills up. Here is how I handle it...

For my main SSD I let TM back it up plus I have an external drive that I let CCC clone to as scheduled. I have a second internal SSD, a 2TB external HDD and a 1TB internal HDD that I use to hold project materials I am currently using. The data on these drives is temporary so I don't back them up. I have a Synology NAS that is set as a RAID 6 that holds all my finished video projects, photos, archived stuff, etc. The NAS holds 4 drives can withstand up to two drives failing and I can still recover from that loss.

I will tell you storage has been my most vexing and costly component because video files are just so huge. I try to finish a project and make several final versions before I dump any original footage - and some I have to keep!

Very very important files are also backed up to the cloud as well.

Lisa
 

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