Time Machine Hard Drive for other uses other than backups

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Level 1

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Time Machine Hard Drive for other uses other than backups

I use a WD My Studio II, 2 TB Hard Drive.

Time machine uses the drive as its backup drive, but since the the drive is so big I would like to use it as a general hard drive too. In other words, on a single hard drive, can I have Time Machine backing up my Macbook, as well as use the remaining space to store general stuff that is to big for my mackbook.

The may seem a little illogical, but bare in mind I have the RAID 1 setting, so the one drive is automatically backed up onto the 2nd 1TB drive.

I hope this makes sense, and I hope someone has an answer.

Regards

H

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 28, 2010 5:04 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Euchre

Level 4

1,275 points

Aug 28, 2010 5:26 AM in response to SKYTORT

Time Machine does not need to 'own' the whole drive, it just creates a folder on the drive to store the backups. Just be mindful of the amount of space you use, as the TM backups may take a fairly considerable amount of space. As long as you keep note of that, you can use the remaining space as you like.

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Answer 2

SKYTORT Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2010 5:43 AM in response to Euchre

Thanks for the quick response. I figured this would be the case, but better to ask the experts!

Cheers

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Answer 3

Jolly Giant

Level 7

25,464 points

Aug 28, 2010 6:04 AM in response to SKYTORT

you might want to consider partitioning your drive, one for TM backups and one for other stuff.

see these user tips: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/3.html and http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/6.html

J GG

edited by the Jolly Green Giant (where Green stands for environmentally friendly)

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