How does Time Machine back up a partitioned HD?

Not at the same time (not physically possible) but it will sequentially backup all drives, volumes, or partitions that you have not added to the Exclude list.

If your eMac is able to connect wirelessly and your computer is connected to a wireless enabled network, then the eMac can also backup to the TM backup drive if the drive is connected directly to your computer and you have file sharing enabled and share the drive. Backup will be slow over wireless, BTW.

As an aside, there is no point in partitioning your drive like that. Leave it alone unless you are installing windows.

Andrew Mitchell wrote:
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Question #1 is: Will Time Machine automatically recognize and back up the 3 partitions at the same time?;

As Kappy says, Time Machine will back up all of them (if they're formatted HFS+) to a single volume, unless you specifically exclude them.

You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

(It is partitioned this way so I can back up older, smaller external hard drives, using SuperDuper.)

As WhiteCity says, that's not generally a good idea. Your Mac will run more slowly that way. When you can, get a larger drive for your SD backups and consolidate them.

Question #2 is: With only one other computer (an old eMac) in the house (which runs nicely off the Airport on my iMac), is there any real benefit to spending double the price of the LaCie to buy a 1TB Time Capsule?

No. Backing-up to a directly-connected external is much faster and more reliable than wirelessly. The big advantage to a Time Capsule is for laptop users, so they can back up without having to remember to connect an external HD.

Andrew Mitchell wrote:
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Is there a way to un-partition my HD if I am to follow your suggestions that in its present set up, it is slowing down my Mac?

Yup. Be sure everything's well backed-up first, of course.

See #4 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

Almost certainly, your startup partition is the top one in Disk Utility's diagram. That's the one you want to expand.

If there's enough empty space in the first partition, copy the data in the second partition to it (but leave a few GBs for OSX to operate), then delete the second partition and expand the first one down into the empty space. You can do the copy via the Finder, or the Restore tab of Disk Utility, per #7 in the link. Then repeat with the 3rd partition.

If there isn't enough space, you have a couple of options:

With everything well backed-up (on two separate drives), delete the 2nd and 3rd partitions, expand the first one to fill the drive, then copy the backups of the 2nd and 3rd to the first.

Or, use a 3rd-party app, such as [iPartition|http:// http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php ($45) that can do the whole thing dynamically.
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Note that you'll need the procedure in #E3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), to see the backups of the deleted partitions.

Also, all the data that was copied is considered as new, and Time Machine will back it up. If you want, you can then delete the backups of the separate partitions. See #12 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Hi.

I just want to bump this thread and confirm Question #1. Time Machine backs up all partition (regardless what you use it for..photos, mp3's etc).

I have two partition one partition called Snow Leopard, the other partition called iMovie.

Time Machine backs up into two folders called Snow Leopard and the other folder iMovie. They will look like folders to you so they will throw you off.

Enter into the appropriate Time Machine folder and Time Machine back what you need. Voila!

(on a side note, you shouldn't have to partition one for mp3s the other for photos, put them all into one partition) I partition the iMovie partition is because when I finish a project I reformat that partition and I have a clean partition for the next iMovie project.

What happens when you want to restore from a time machine backup with multiple partitions in these 2 different scenarios:

1) restoring to the same computer that the data was backed up from: Does Time Machine recreate the partitions in case the whole HD was reformatted or will it prompt me to create and choose partitions to restore to?

2) restoring to a new mac (using time machine to migrate data). Same question than above?

superfreud wrote:
What happens when you want to restore from a time machine backup with multiple partitions in these 2 different scenarios:

1) restoring to the same computer that the data was backed up from: Does Time Machine recreate the partitions in case the whole HD was reformatted or will it prompt me to create and choose partitions to restore to?

2) restoring to a new mac (using time machine to migrate data). Same question than above?

In both cases, use the +Restore System From Backups+ option to restore the OSX partition. See #14 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

If the drive isn't already formatted & partitioned the way you want it, see step (c) there.

Restore data-only drives via the "Star Wars" display. See #15 in the FAQ.