Time machine

Question

Time machine

Several years ago I started using an external hard drive (Seagate, Free Agent 320 GB) to store my music library. Recently I've been getting messages that the disk is full and it was starting to erase oldest files. What I didn't realize was that Time Machine was backing up a new version of my music library regularly, hence a full disk. My question is how do I save just one version of my music library, and how do I avoid this from happening again? I have temporarily turned off Time Machine until I can figure this out. Thanks.

Posted on Apr 18, 2016 10:15 AM

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Answer 1

Apr 18, 2016 10:19 AM in response to Kenneth Bublitz

Performing a backup to the same disk as the data is an extremely poor backup plan.

Generally the most frequent need to use a backup is after a disk drive failure. If both the data and the backup are on the same disk drive then there is no place to recover your data from.

Get a disk drive for backup. Once you do that you can delete the backups in the disk drive where your library resides.

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Answer 2

Apr 18, 2016 10:23 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Assume for the moment Alan that I didn't really have a plan. I really don't even recall why I went the external HD route as it has been at least 5 years. Assume too that I am not that adept when it comes to computers, beyond what I need to do daily for work.

All I know is that I want to avoid jeopardizing my music library. I have Carbonite for my other files. So in essence I'm seeking help in creating a better plan that what I have now.

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Answer 3

Apr 18, 2016 10:25 AM in response to Kenneth Bublitz

I told you what you need to do already.

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Answer 4

Apr 18, 2016 10:35 AM in response to Allan Eckert

Sorry, for some reason I only saw the first line of your post. So you're saying I need to get a second external hard drive? But one that has larger capacity? Because it seems to me that the problem is just going to repeat itself. Or what am I missing? That I'm going to have only my music library on one external HD? Everything else on the other?

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Answer 5

Apr 18, 2016 11:04 AM in response to Kenneth Bublitz

Data and backup on the same disk drive is bad.

You need to have a data disk drive for your music library and any other data you wish to store there and another disk drive for the backup.

Once you have the backup disk drive then you can delete the backups from your data disk drive freeing up space there.

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Answer 6

dwb

Level 7

33,298 points

Apr 18, 2016 11:43 AM in response to Kenneth Bublitz

From your message is appears that you have one external drive which is being used for both music and TimeMachine. It isn’t a good idea for your TimeMachine drive to share space with other data because (among other things) that data isn’t getting backed up. I suspect that you really do want your music backed up but if I understand correctly - that is TimeMachine and Music are sharing the same drive - that’s not happening.

You need a second external drive, preferably one large enough that you can back up both your music library and the computer. (Yes, you need one drive for music and another for backups.) Multi terabyte drives aren’t terribly expensive this days. See this article for details how to copy/move the TimeMachine backup to the new drive Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive - Apple Support Once you see that backups are continuing on the new drive (I’d wait a couple days to be sure) you can delete it from the music drive.

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Answer 7

Apr 18, 2016 11:43 AM in response to dwb

My external HD was backing up everything using Time Machine until I turned off Time Machine. I contacted Seagate via Facebook about the disk full prompts and was told my capacity problem was due to multiple versions of my music library being made on the external HD.

And in reality, I just checked and both music and my business files are indeed backed up on the same external HD.

I asked a few more questions of Seagate and they suggested coming here to see how to avoid multiple copies of my music library being made, which is why they thought I was getting the disk is full prompts. Am I explaining this right?

If I really need to buy a second external HD I will. But shouldn't there be a way to erase all but one copy of music hard library? Or am I missing something? Or not really understanding how Time Machine works.

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Answer 8

dwb

Level 7

33,298 points

Apr 18, 2016 12:10 PM in response to Kenneth Bublitz

YYou don't have multiple copies of your music library. That isn't how timemachine works.

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