Best disk format for use as Time machine external drive

I have 4 options for MAC OS volume format. Two with case sensitive, one with only MAC OS and the other MAC OS (Reg. Cronológico)

I have my primary drive as MAC OS Expanded (Reg,Cronológico) - It came like this from factory.

for time machine external drive I will use the same format, and also to a second external drive for keeping some movies ?

Thanks

iMac 2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo 20" - Former DELL user, Mac OS X (10.5), 2 GB 800 Mhz

Posted on Oct 2, 2008 11:39 AM

21 replies

Pedro Santos Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 5, 2008 6:46 AM in response to Pedro Santos

Glen, did you understand my last posts ?

Oct 5, 2008 12:23 PM in response to Pedro Santos

Pedro,

FAT32 will not work with Time Machine.

Any further questions not related to "Best disk format for use as Time machine external drive" should be posted in a new thread.

Pedro Santos Author

Level 1

10 points

Oct 8, 2008 3:54 PM in response to Glenn Carter

I made the maintenance in both external drives with same partition and volume format (mac os Journaled)
One connected directly to iMac and the other to airport extreme usb port.

Is this ok ?

The port in the wire keyboard is useful only for pens ?

Oct 9, 2008 5:10 PM in response to Glenn Carter

Now there are smarter people than me out there. I have a ibook and I have an attached external drive. Now I do everything on that external drive. All my work is there. I don't save anything to the internal, except applications.

I have now purchased another external drive and formatted it GUID. When I connected it to the ibook, I was asked if I wanted to use that as my Time Machine. Okay so fay.

I am trying to figure out how to tell Time Machine not to worry about the internal drive, but to back up the other external drive which is in three separate partitions.

Can anyone tell me what to do.

Thanks

VA2020

Level 4

3,455 points

Oct 10, 2008 1:18 AM in response to Gray Tait

Your question is not related to this thread. Please post your question in a new thread for a better response.

Oct 10, 2008 4:27 AM in response to Glenn Carter

Glenn

Good advice!

My iMac G5 (Tiger) died so I extracted the HD and turned it into an external one. Now down to using just my MBP which has Leopard on it and feeling pretty nervous about potential data loss, decided to start using Time Machine.

Read your post. Went out and bought a LaCie d2 quadra 1T HD which has a serious bunch of interfaces. Followed your advice and everything went swimmingly!

Thanks for the advice on formatting the HD!

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Best disk format for use as Time machine external drive