Can I choose what I want Time Machine to BackUp?

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Level 1

8 points

Can I choose what I want Time Machine to BackUp?

needs some advice, tech people 🙂 I am new to Time Machine. I purchased my first imac a couple months ago. I was orginally a PC user before now, though Ive always had iphones, ipads etc. Does anyone use Mac's Time Machine Back Up with their External HardDrives? Im contemplating whether I should as I dont save alot on my internal HardDrive on my Mac itself and I dont really want Time Machine to back up everything all the time. I just want it to back up only my important stuff like, videos, photos, media projects that sort of thing (which is primarily on another separate HardDrive.. Can you choose what you want it to back up? Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. I purchased another 2TB drive today as I want to basically make a second back up of another HardDrive so I know its saved in two places.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012)

Posted on May 2, 2013 7:21 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Ross

Level 6

11,807 points

May 2, 2013 7:29 PM in response to mara_girl

You can select what items you would like to exclude from a Time Machine backup. Take a look at his link, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

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Answer 2

mara_girl Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2013 7:46 PM in response to Eric Ross

Ok cool, so say i regularly update my videos, will it then automattically update any changes i make? Can i then access the files from the harddrive say if i want to view them on the harddrive, to play a video etc? does that make sense?

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Answer 3

den.thed

Level 9

77,098 points

May 2, 2013 7:53 PM in response to mara_girl

Having a two external drives makes you a candidate for > The no-worry backup plan where you use one for Time Machine and one for a bootable clone using > Carbon Copy Cloner.

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Answer 4

mara_girl Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2013 8:06 PM in response to den.thed

Ok Cool, is that hard to set up? I access the files on my exsiting (first) external hard drive all the time. Can I still access them with Time Machine? I have one seagate 1.5TB external harddrive and one seagate backup plus 2TB.

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 9

77,098 points

May 2, 2013 8:50 PM in response to mara_girl

mara_girl wrote:

Ok Cool, is that hard to set up?

CarbonCopyCloner is simple to setup and use.. Plus unlike Time Machine or Seagate's Backup Plus, it is fully Bootable just in case your Internal HD ever failed or needed repair.

I access the files on my exsiting (first) external hard drive all the time. Can I still access them with Time Machine?

No, Time Machine and Seagate's Backup Plus are really only intended for file or full system recovery.

I have one seagate 1.5TB external harddrive and one seagate backup plus 2TB.

This one is tougher!

You can use either Time Machine or CarbonCopyCloner to backup both your Internal Hard Drive and your 1.5TB (video, photo) Media drive to the 2TB hard drive.

The real question is, do you want just a backup or do you want a Clone that you can startup and work in if something happens to your Internal or Media drive...?

Personally I was using CarbonCopyCloner way before Time Machine ever came out and still prefer using it.

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Answer 6

mara_girl Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2013 9:40 PM in response to den.thed

Ok thanks for the clarifcation 🙂

I think id like a clone, so if one dies I can just straight away use the other. As a work off my hard drives alot, I dont just use the as back ups if you know what I mean. Do you think Id be better off just using the hard drives to manually save all my files myself?

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Answer 7

den.thed

Level 9

77,098 points

May 2, 2013 10:12 PM in response to mara_girl

mara_girl wrote:

Do you think Id be better off just using the hard drives to manually save all my files myself?

That works well, but tends to rely more on your own diligent's.

If your not into the hourly backup thing, then for sure copying over new projects, photos or whatever onto two different drives is always better than one.

I would still urge you to check out CarbonCopyCloner, even if you only updated it on a daily or weekly basis.

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