do i need a empty drive to back time machine
if i need back up the image of macbook, empty drive is required?
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Not strictly required.
But there are some issues you will run into if you store other files on the same drive. Not the least of which is, "where are the backups of those files?" 'On the same drive' is not good enough, because one drive failure takes out both the files and their backups.
Time machine requires a MacOS formatted drive. Some drives are supplied as Windows New Technology File System (NTFS) drives, that simulate MacOS Volumes. Those may not be good enough for Time machine, and it may insist of re-initializing such a drive (with your permission, of course).
Time machine fills up whatever drive it is using as its backup, and only starts to delete stuff when full. So there will very soon be no more extra space on that drive. You can NOT manage Time machine backups manually with Finder. Attempting to do so will produce files stuck in the trash that won't go away. If you finally succeed in removing those locked files, your backup set will be irreparably damaged.