Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?

Question

Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?

Trying to plan in advance...

I was wondering if I can (with a laptop) use Time Machine for both:

1. Creating Time Machine backups on a partiion of an external drive. My plan was going to create 2 partitions: one to be used for Time Machine backups of another external hard drive (that holds all of my media) and then the other partition was going to be a bootable clone of my internal drive (totally separate from Time Machine)

and

2. Also use Time Machine for my Time Capsule, to create Time Machine backups of my internal drive.

Is this possible? I had heard that you can't use TM to make backups to a partition on an external drive, AND use it for another drive (like Time Capsule) at the same time. But I would think that this should be possible-

Thanks everyone-

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Time Capsule

Posted on Apr 25, 2013 4:50 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

John Galt

Level 10

140,942 points

Apr 25, 2013 4:59 PM in response to aquestionortwo

Yes you can, and if you are using Mountain Lion it's easy.

If you are using Snow Leopard (as in your profile - this is the Mountain Lion forum), you have to manually select the backup volume each time. Tedious, but possible.

Read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ on that subject: "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

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Answer 2

Apr 26, 2013 11:10 AM in response to John Galt

Great thanks.

I am still using Snow Leopard, but this would be for a Mountain Lion setup, so this answers my question (in a good way!).

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