External Hard Drives

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External Hard Drives

I've used 2 external hard drives - one for Time Machine and a second for some large file fotos that aren't kept on my computer and thus not included in Time Machine. My question is can I put both on one large ext drive? I realize TM keeps making copies every time I back it up, and eventually when it's full it'll delete the oldest copy to make room for the newest one. So if I have other items in the drive (like the larger format photos I mentioned), will TM erase them to make room or are they safe?

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.3

Posted on May 26, 2022 3:17 PM

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Answer 1

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steve626

Level 6

11,633 points

May 26, 2022 4:39 PM in response to pavlov77

We have seen postings here from people who did what you are asking about and ended up losing those other non-Time Machine files that were on the same disk when Time Machine needed the space. You could partition the external drive to create two separate volumes and then Time Machine will not overwrite the other miscellaneous files if they are on a separate volume. But then if the drive fails (they all do eventually) you will lose the backups AND those other files. Better to dedicate the entire drive to Time Machine as suggested by tbirdvet.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

117,202 points

May 26, 2022 4:55 PM in response to pavlov77

pavlov77 wrote:

I've used 2 external hard drives - one for Time Machine and a second for some large file fotos that aren't kept on my computer and thus not included in Time Machine.

You can back them up with Time Machine. Make sure it isn’t excluded in Time Machine system preferences.

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