reformatting Iomega desktop hard drive for MacBook Pro

1. You would need two partitions. One for the TM backup and one for your file storage. The TM backup volume should be at least twice the capacity of the drive you are backing up. The remainder can be allocated for your file storage.

2. No. You cannot use a TM volume as a storage volume. Use two partitions per above.

3. Select your drive's Desktop volume. Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. The upper panel displays the drive's capacity, space available, and space used. This is disk storage space, not memory. Memory refers to your computer's installed RAM.

To prep your drive do the following:

Drive Preparation

1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.

2. After ** loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the ** main window.

3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Size each partition as needed using the partition window. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

4. Select the first volume you just created (this is one of the sub-entries under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the ** main window.

5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.

6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

7. Repeat Steps 4-6 for the second volume.

edithfrompowell river wrote:

How many partitions do I need to have on the external hard drive in order to do this?

Use a TimeMachine drive as a TimeMachine drive, don't store or use it for anything else, the reason is you also require hardware redundancy in your backups.

Also the larger the TM drive is the more "states" it can save.

Is it possible to have one partition that is used for backup and for movies too?

Use another drive as a "storage drive" for more pernament keeping of your data.

TM is a rotational backup of your boot drive, if you delete something off your boot drive, eventually it's disappears from your TM drive.

How do I find out how much memory is used now on my laptop?

"Memory" refers to the RAM or temporary memory the CPU (processor) uses to load data from your hard drive into to work on. To find your amount, look under the Apple Menu > About this Mac.

Does the backup require more memory than the current amount used?

"Storage space" is usually referred to how much data can be held on a pernament storage device like a hard drive.

Yes, TM takes considerable more space than your boot drive contains as it also saves many daya in the past.

This is one of the reasons it's better to leave TM drive as a TM drive, so it can save further back in time.

TimeMachine is a decent concept, however you should NOT trust it completely for your backups as it is tied to OS X, locks your data and if your boot drive becomes corrupted or gets malware, so will your TM drive. This will make extracting just your data off the TM drive very difficult and time consuming as you can't use the restore options or you contaminate your new system install or new machine.

So it's best to have a more well rounded backup system, keeping your data in different states on different hardware, burn disks, storage drives, clones etc also in easy to access ways so that you can even take your data to a PC if need be.

If you have something super secret, there are self encrypting external hard drives, with keypads or keys and Iron Keys USB devices, that keep the private data off the computer, this way if you need to get the computer fixed and it fails to boot, your private files are off the machine.

You cna find out more about TimeMachine, formatting, backing up and more here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3358920