Extend disk space for Time machine?

Question

Extend disk space for Time machine?

Hi,

We can now use 2 disk drives at one location to keep our backup files with Time Machine, thanks to Mountain Lion

Behavior is that both disks will end-up with the same backed-up files.

Is it possible to make it such that the 2 disks complement each other so that a file is back up on one disk only? The outcome being that MacOS sees the 2 disks more as a single but LARGER disk for Time Machine.

The problem I am trying to solve is that my Time-Capsule is starting to be too small for my needs and I would like to extend the storage capacity through a 2nd drive connected directly to my Mac.

Thanks

iMac 24", Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Dec 5, 2012 7:02 AM

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Answer 1

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Dec 5, 2012 7:08 AM in response to Community User

That is not possible with Time Machine. Each drive you use will contain a full backup of everything that's not on the exclusions list. Besides which, that wouldn't be a great strategy anyway... It would create a situation where a failure of either drive would be sufficient to compromise the entire backup, spanning both drives. What you really need is a larger backup drive. (And then another larger backup drive for a secondary backup. 🙂)

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Answer 2

Dec 5, 2012 7:11 AM in response to thomas_r.

I suspected this was the answer but wanted to make sure. Thank you.

Lessons Learned: no more Time-Capsule - extending drive size too expensive.

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Answer 3

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Dec 5, 2012 7:55 AM in response to Community User

There are ways you can continue using the TC by just adding a larger external drive to it. See:

My Time Capsule is too small to back-up my Mac(s). Now what?

Note that third-party NAS drives won't work reliably with Time Machine, and neither will a hard drive connected to a wireless router (even an Apple AirPort base station). As long as you've already got the TC, you might as well continue using it in conjunction with a larger drive or hardware RAID setup.

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Answer 4

solomani

Level 2

170 points

Aug 15, 2016 4:53 AM in response to thomas_r.

Hi thomas_r, Googling brought this post up. I found this with my current Time Machine based on a NAS drive. It never seems to restore or migrate properly. Only the Apple Capsule Time Machine backups are 100% reliable from experience.

Any idea why this is?

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Aug 15, 2016 7:40 AM in response to solomani

Apple uses a full implementation of AFP (Apple File Protocol) and many other manufacturers do not use the full implementation, which makes their drives unsuitable for NAS use for Time Machine.

Disks You Can Use

Disks You Can Use (2)

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Answer 6

solomani

Level 2

170 points

Aug 15, 2016 8:19 AM in response to Eric Root

This is useful, thank you. Another related question - so I have a sparsbundle image on a NAS drive, can I copy that to a flash drive (or similar) plug it in to the IMAC I want to restore and use that image for restoration - basically will a USB flash drive with a sparsebundle appear in the list of restore disks if I plug it into my iMAC?

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