You have to format your new external hard drive for Mac before backup. Follow Mac backup steps with Time Machine below. It's one of the easiest way to save your Mac data to SSD or HDD, including mac apps, media files, DVD backup, documents and other. Time Machine is a built-in tool on Mac, which works with internal and external disk drives to backup and restore data for macOS. If you set it up correctly, you can safely store files on the same drive that houses your Time Machine backups.How to Backup MacBook Air/Pro/iMac to External Hard Drive with Time Machine Now you can enjoy the use of some of that expansive storage found on your external drive. Once the partition is created, you’ll now have two disks show up in Finder-your original disk, which contains the Time Machine backups folder, and your new file storage disk for storing data on your external drive. Step 7: Click Apply to create the partition. Step 6: Give the partition a name to make it obvious that it’s for general purpose file storage. It’s usually recommended that you have 2-4 times the size of your Mac installation and all of its data. Ensure that you leave enough room for your Time Machine backups to grow.

Step 5: Use the drag handle in between the partitions to resize them. Step 4: Click the ‘+’ sign to add a partition. Step 2: Open Disk Utility and select your external disk. This is the folder that contains your Time Machine backups.

Step 1: Open Finder and verify the location of your Backups.backupdb folder. In this fourth entry into our Time Machine tutorial series, I’ll show you how simple it is to create a second partition on your Time Machine external drive. By doing this, you have a dedicated partition for file storage, and a dedicated partition for your Time Machine backups.Īlthough it’s possible to store files on your Time Machine partition, in my opinion, it’s a better practice to keep them separated. There are many ways to go about this, but one of the best ways is to simply create a separate partition on your external drive. But with external drives being as large as they are, you may wish to use some of the space on your Time Machine drive for basic file storage. Time Machine is extremely easy to use, and its flexibility makes it a great solution for keeping your Mac backed up safely.

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