Time Machine

markyboy.1967

markyboy.1967

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Folks, this is going to be my first time using the iMac Time Machine.I think i have it ready to back up the info from the iMac to a new WD mycloud 2 tb drive however my next step would be to create a backup of an external usb drive i have.I want to copy the data from a portable usb drive to the attached WD MYcloud drive using the time machine.So far all i see is being able to copy data from my iMac but not copying data from a usb drive, so how do i configure it to do so.Thanks..
 
Time machine backs up your Mac specifically, rather than being a general backup tool AFAIK. If you want to save the USB contents then copy them to the Mac first.
 
TBH I've not fiddled with TM much since originally setting it up when I got a Macbook running 10.5 and set it up then (and incredibly useful it was, several times over). Possibly the best thing about OSX
 
Time machine will only copy from the mac main HD. It ignores connected drives. If you need to back up an external drive (USB) then you'll need another application such as Integeo's Back Up Pro.
 
Time Machine is amazingly awesome. Until it doesn't work. Then it really sucks. (Short version: if one file gets corrupted, you usually lose every backup of everything ever.) I use it to back up the local hard drive and also back up anything I want to keep.
 
JonathanRyan said:
Time Machine is amazingly awesome. Until it doesn't work. Then it really sucks. (Short version: if one file gets corrupted, you usually lose every backup of everything ever.) I use it to back up the local hard drive and also back up anything I want to keep.
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This really. And in the bad old days, if you upgraded the OS to a later version then TM backups could not be used to restore to an earlier version if for any reason the updated was unsuitable. It's really helpful to have a TM backup, but I'd definitely recommend having separately copied data files elsewhere so that you can restore your data without TM getting involved.
 
Couldn't you just copy the contents of the usb drive on to the My Drive? Id echo the comments about Time Machine - awesome when it works but its worthwhile having a separate back up beause if it goes wrong its a real PITA
 
I always have a separate bootable back up as well as Time Machine. TI is great for what it does, which doesn't include separate drives as far as I know, but can be a bit difficult if you are trying to do a full restore. SuperDuper let's you make bootable back ups and I think will let you copy between different drives although I haven't tried this. Alternatively why not just drag and drop to a separate drive? There are other programmes that do back ups but SD is the one I've used for several years and it's been invaluable when I needed it, you can use a reasonably complete version for nothing although in the end I paid for the full version.
 
Actually......you may want to check before using Dropbox with Time Machine. I know that DB is notorious for corrupting some kinds of files (e.g. Aperture vaults / Lightroom libraries) and corrupting a TM file would be bad. Also if it uses versioning on it then you could run out of space on your DB account pretty fast.
 
Hello, this may have been mentioned if so I apologise if it has. If you go into TM Settings you can add drives to be backed up. I can't see why u can't add a USB drive. Tho I haven't had the need do this myself.

Ian.
 
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