I use one of my WD drives with Time Machine on my iMac. A second WD drive I keep offsite and hook up to the computer every few months as a secondary backup. My question is how to use the second (offsite drive). I can’t use it with Time Machine, as I don’t intend to keep it hooked up for continuing backups (at least I didn’t think that was the right process.) I tried using the WD Smartware’s “backup” feature. That worked fine the first time when the drive was empty. But this time it just filled the drive up and then stopped with a warning that the drive was full. Clearly it didn’t recongize the prior backups and simply begin to “overwrite” the oldest data as I hoped it would. This method also means that everything gets copied at each backup, including large and unchanged video files - which is OK, but just takes a lot of time.
I guess I could erase the drive each time, and then start a full backup. But I hoped there would be a simpler way, and one that would perhaps not even require backing-up unchanged files. Am I missing something simple here?
Hope that makes sense. Jeff
Hi
What do you mean by “offsite”?
This is a key word and needs expanding.
As I understand it …
You are using an external WD drive for your main backup process for your computer.
You use Time Machine to do the backup.
And you are also using a second drive, intermittently, for backup, on the same computer. ???
It is probable, that when you hook up the second backup drive, you are confusing the software, so it defaults to making a clean virgin brand new backup.
Why are you using two external drives for backup? I don’t understand the need for that. Is it for added security?
You could use the two drives using Time Machine.
Run them alternately; drive A the first week, drive B the second week, drive A the trhird week, and so on…
And keep drive B off site", in between times.
Sorry, What I mean by offsite is that I unplug the drive, and put it (unconnected) on a shelf in a distant building. Then bring it back and hook it up every few months. I know, there are probably easier ways (Carbonite), but I just happened to have several extra drives. I do the same thing with Aperture photo software and use an extra drive for my Vault backups.
But your understanding is correct, I use Time Machine for regular backups, and the second drive, intermittently for a secondary backup of the same computer. I’ve lost files before, and with this system, even if the house burns to the ground, I still have my other backup.
I didn’t know time Machine would run on alternate drives, and I’ll check that out. I looked briefly and it seemed like one needed to keep both drives connected all the time, but maybe not. That would certainly be the easiest.
Hi
I use Time Machine.
And only switch on my backup drives for the backup process. My drives remain switched off in betyween times.
Also, you can easily manually run TM anytime you wish from the Apple Menu Bar
I prefer doing that to save my disks from undue wear.
I think it would run on alternate drives as long as you don’t use the drives for any other purpose. ie the only acces is via Time Machine.
Each time you use Time Machine the software will read the particular drive and update accordingly.
I think thsat’s the logic Time Machine uses.
It’s worth trying. Try it & let me know.
I think you are right on this. I’m doing a back-up now, using TM as you suggest.
