Share Time Capsule's Disk Space Equally Between Computers?

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Level 1

2 points

Share Time Capsule's Disk Space Equally Between Computers?

At home we have 2 iMac's that both backup, using Time Machine, to a single 1TB Time Capsule.

The problem is that one computer is using over 800GB of storage, leaving less than 200GB for the other Mac, so it can't backup more than a few days...

Is there a way stop one iMac hogging all the space and split it 50/50? (I would rather not partition the Time Capsule as many people have had problems that way)

All comments welcome

Thanks.

27" iMac + iPhone 3GS, Mac OS X (10.6.3), 3 GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD

Posted on May 14, 2010 9:33 AM

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Answer 1

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

May 14, 2010 10:00 AM in response to Hazza42

Hazza42 wrote:
I would rather not partition the Time Capsule as many people have had problems that way

you cannot partition the TC in a conventional way - short of removing the HD and putting it in an enclosure (which voids your warranty).

check this for further information: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018#4.

J GG

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

May 14, 2010 3:48 PM in response to Hazza42

Hazza42 wrote:
At home we have 2 iMac's that both backup, using Time Machine, to a single 1TB Time Capsule.

The problem is that one computer is using over 800GB of storage, leaving less than 200GB for the other Mac, so it can't backup more than a few days...

Is there a way stop one iMac hogging all the space and split it 50/50?

In a word, no. 😟

You have two options, neither very attractive:

Connect a USB drive to the TC and back one of your Macs up to it. See #Q2 in the Using TIME MACHINE with a TIME CAPSULE *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Manually delete a number of old backups from the Mac that's "hogging" the space. Use the procedure in #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.

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Answer 3

Hazza42 Author

Level 1

2 points

May 14, 2010 4:01 PM in response to Pondini

Oh well... Thanks for the quick reply. In fact soon after I posted this I found out why one iMac was hoggong all the space, I had it backing up over 120GB of recorded TV shows from eyetv that went as far back as November 09! I deleted them and the balance is much more even now
(I do have a spare HD lying around that I used to use or media storage, I might try plugging it into the back of one of the macs and backup straight to that. It looks pretty ugly compared to the TC though...

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