How can I utilize the free space in external hard drive?

Time Machine can't use NTFS formatted drives.

In order to use it you will have to reformat to HFS+ and GUID partition map.

The reformat of the drive will destroy all data on the disk so backup first.

Allan

Time Machine backups can only be performed to a drive or partition formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

(95403)

Once you have a Time Machine backup disk do not store any live files on it. If you do so then if that disk crashes you will lose all those live files that are not backed up. So if you wish to offload files from your system disk you will need two hard drives, one for the Time Machine backup and one for offloading the live files.

They you will need a scheme to backup the offloaded files onto the backup drive. You create two partitions on the backup drive: one for the Time Machine backups and one for the offloaded-files backup. Then you can use cloning software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to backup the offloaded files into their backup partition.

Use a Windows computer to copy all the files from that external and then format it either Fat32 or exFAT, I suggest FAT32 if you don't have any Files over 4GBs in size. Once that is done you can then Copy/Move those files back to the external and then connect it to your Mac. Mac OS X can read and write to FAT32 and exFAT formatted drives. So you can then use it to store other files on fro your Mac.

But you need a Dedicated, Indepentant, Separate external for Time Machine backups and that drive must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a Partition table of GUID.

YeaSt2u wrote:

Hey,

I have a 1T external usb harddrive and formated as NTFS. It has about 250GB free space and I am trying to see if I can utilize that space for timemachine backup?

Please advise.

/S

Use the Disk Utility to create a partition in that space formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

(95410)

That might work to store files on but not for Time Machine backups. That drive is now a MBR drive, partition table, and can't be changed without wiping everything off it.

Time Machine need both Mac format and GUID partition table.

And if the OP did that he would not be able to read that new Mac formatted partition on his Windows PC, if he needs that function.

Niel wrote:

Use the Disk Utility to create a partition in that space formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

(95410)

I say give up on all this pussyfooting around. Leave the current disk for the PC and get another one for the Mac. Then format the one for the Mac as HFS+ aka Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID. With the cost of disk today it is foolish to attempt to format one for both platforms.

Allan

I second that idea!!!!!!!

Allan Eckert wrote:

I say give up on all this pussyfooting around. Leave the current disk for the PC and get another one for the Mac. Then format the one for the Mac as HFS+ aka Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID. With the cost of disk today it is foolish to attempt to format one for both platforms.

Allan

I certainly hope that works for you.

As Apple says in the link below it very well may stop when you get some data on the drive because of the MBR partition map.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1550

Allan