Backing up TM to external drive

[martosprint]

I have 2 iMacs both with Yosemite installed. I only backup to TM on the newer machine, okay fine. After the backup I can see my newest photos in the TM backup. So far so good. Now I go to check to see if my latest backup shows up on my older iMac. So I plug in my external to my older machine to see if the newest photos show up in iPhoto. The latest new photos that I backed up on the newer machine doesn't show up on the older iMac. Shouldn't I be able to see them on the older computer also? I open the backup on the old iMac in iPhoto but the latest photos aren't in there. What am I doing wrong by expecting whatever is on the external to show up on any computer? This is the whole reason to back up my photos.
thanks for a reply

 

[kolax]

You need to explain more what you're doing. When you're accessing the photos on the old iMac, how are you doing this (e.g. which directory, application)?

 

[mannyo1221]

Time machine is computer specific, so you'll only see the photos on the computer that did the backup and no other. This is why you can use the same drive to backup to different macs. Within the backup folder on a USB drive is a folder name linked to the Macs name.

However if the drive is USB you can use finder and browse the folder structure from the other computer, you'll do this outside time machine. Do NOT delete anything or add anything to the backup folder structure as you will corrupt the TM backups because the symbolic links will break.

 

[martosprint]

Thanks to you both for your replies. I still don't understand. I thought that that was the purpose using time machine was to preserve everything on the external USB 3 drive was to install everything or just certain files to a new or another computer if both iMacs became inoperable. My main concern is to preserve the photos more than anything else. I thought it worked like a flash drive that I would be able to insert the flash drive into another computer to be able to see the photos.
mannyo- you said that I could only see the photos on the machine that it was backed up on. But what good would it do me if that iMac was stolen or broken down? I honestly believed that I could see whatever was on the external could be viewed on any Mac or computer.
Kilamite, yes I was trying to view the photos in iPhoto on my older iMac and was unable to. I appreciate both your replies but it still has me confused. or perhaps I didn't explain myself right.

 

[kolax]

Thanks to you both for your replies. I still don't understand. I thought that that was the purpose using time machine was to preserve everything on the external USB 3 drive was to install everything or just certain files to a new or another computer if both iMacs became inoperable. My main concern is to preserve the photos more than anything else. I thought it worked like a flash drive that I would be able to insert the flash drive into another computer to be able to see the photos.
mannyo- you said that I could only see the photos on the machine that it was backed up on. But what good would it do me if that iMac was stolen or broken down? I honestly believed that I could see whatever was on the external could be viewed on any Mac or computer.
Kilamite, yes I was trying to view the photos in iPhoto on my older iMac and was unable to. I appreciate both your replies but it still has me confused. or perhaps I didn't explain myself right.

You can't do it that way (or rather, shouldn't). The backup is the backup - you don't want to be using the backup to view/meddle with things from another machine because you'll break the metadata for each file.

If your iMac broke, you could use your Time Machine backup to restore everything, including all your photos.

iCloud Photo Library is something you should look into - sounds like you want all your photos synchronised over both iMacs. And you can trust Time Machine will backup your photo library.