Time Machine back-up drive.

[macj3]

I'll be receiving a 2019 27" 1TB SSD iMac next week, I have a 2TB Time Machine back up of the old computer but it's 7 years old so a new one to go with the new computer is in order. I see on the Apple store site there is a LaCie 6TB d2 professional external drive. and a few 2 and 4TB portable drives. The iMac has 2 fast USB-C ports.
So...I was thinking most add-ons use USB-3 or2, I would use one of the USB-C ports with a Samsung T5 1TB SSD for the Photo library. and the second USB-C port with the 6TB Lacie drive. Partioned as 4TB forTime Machine and The remainder 2TB for a back-up of the photo drive. The Lacie has a 5 year warranty and uses an "enterprise class" drive. That would leave 4 USB-3 ports for the printer, dvd drive, extra etc..I understand that USB-C speed is over kill for a back-up but I don't see any other USB-C devices I would use and it would leave open a USB3 port.
I'm not sure if a "portable " drive would be a good/reliable Time Machine back-up drive for a desktop....they all have 3 year warranties...while the Black Lacie has a 5 year warranty....in therory more reliability for a time machine volume......
Any thoughts or comments? Thanks.
[automerge]1570718582[/automerge]
This set up would give a TM back-up for the computer and a back-up partition for the Photos on the external samsung SSD. Transferring/copying the photos should be a quick process being they are both on USB-C ports.

 

[LorenK]

Sounds like it would work, but I would be careful with LaCie drives, I used to use them, but the bridge boards in them would fry. The aluminum case, while intended to dissipate the heat, must not dissipate it well enough to keep their bridge boards from frying. I've gone with icybox cases and installed regular drives in them, using software RAID. If you do it that way, you can upgrade your storage as needed.

Out of curiosity, why are you backing up your photo drive separately from Time Machine? Ordinarily Time Machine would back up all your drives, and you have to exclude anything that you don'[t think that you need backed up.

 

[tothemoonsands]

I have heard of many drive failures with LaCie. It is better to buy a drive from the source, i.e Samsung etc. If your budget allows, I recommend opting for a 2-bay RAID array drive. This allows you to ensure that your backups remain safe. If your backup drive fails, you have an additional copy. Simply insert the new drive in that bay and the remaining copy transfers back over. Very simple and increases the odds of long term data retention by a lot!

 

[macj3]

Sounds like it would work, but I would be careful with LaCie drives, I used to use them, but the bridge boards in them would fry. The aluminum case, while intended to dissipate the heat, must not dissipate it well enough to keep their bridge boards from frying. I've gone with icybox cases and installed regular drives in them, using software RAID. If you do it that way, you can upgrade your storage as needed.

Out of curiosity, why are you backing up your photo drive separately from Time Machine? Ordinarily Time Machine would back up all your drives, and you have to exclude anything that you don'[t think that you need backed up.

I did not know that time machine would back up one external drive to another. I'll look into that.....over the years I've had laCie, G-tech, OWC, and had some sort of issues with all of them. All were taken care of by the companies. The 5 year warranty on the enterprise Lacie just started the wheels turning.

 

[vjaaan]

Can I back up two separate computers onto the same external drive with Time Machine?
I have a LaCie that has held my MacBook Pro backups for years. If it has room, I'd like to start the backups for my new iMac onto that same LaCie drive.
Any likelihood that would create confusion or errors?
Thanks.

 

[honestone33]

Can I back up two separate computers onto the same external drive with Time Machine?
I have a LaCie that has held my MacBook Pro backups for years. If it has room, I'd like to start the backups for my new iMac onto that same LaCie drive.
Any likelihood that would create confusion or errors?
Thanks.

You should be able to use Disk Utility to partition that drive. Myself, I have 2 external 512 gig Samsung SSDs in nice, slim Orico enclosures, and I made 3 partitions of each SSD. Two of those partitions I use for making SuperDuper! backups for each of my Macs. Been doing that for a long time, and it works like a charm.

 

[vjaaan]

Actually, I made a mistake. My backup drive for Time Machine is WD Elements (the La Cie is for my Photos Library backup).
Since my Time Machine drive has been used for years and has stuff on it, is it too late to partition that drive for another machine's backup?

 

[honestone33]

Actually, I made a mistake. My backup drive for Time Machine is WD Elements (the La Cie is for my Photos Library backup).
Since my Time Machine drive has been used for years and has stuff on it, is it too late to partition that drive for another machine's backup?

One needs to be careful when partitioning a drive that has date on it already. If you could "copy" all that Time Machine date onto the La Cie drive (assuming you have room), that could work. But still not sure how safe that is.

Maybe someone else can "chime in" and offer a solution.

 

[Plutonius]

Actually, I made a mistake. My backup drive for Time Machine is WD Elements (the La Cie is for my Photos Library backup).
Since my Time Machine drive has been used for years and has stuff on it, is it too late to partition that drive for another machine's backup?

The problem I ran into on a old Time Machine drive was that Time Machine keeps writing to the drive till it is almost full and then it starts automatically deleting older backups to make room (i.e. no room for an additional computer backup and no way to make room).

I ended up replacing the old Time Machine drive with a larger drive and copying the original Time Machine backup to the new drive. I then stored the original Time Machine backup drive. I can then run Time Machine on my additional computer and it will add it to my Time Machine drive.
[automerge]1590343021[/automerge]

One needs to be careful when partitioning a drive that has date on it already. If you could "copy" all that Time Machine date onto the La Cie drive (assuming you have room), that could work. But still not sure how safe that is.

Maybe someone else can "chime in" and offer a solution.

If the OP replaces the Time Machine drive, they should have no need to partition the new drive in order to backup multiple computers on Time Machine.

I have my Time Machine drive connected to one computer and I allow sharing on it over my LAN. The other household Macs backup via Time Machine to that drive over the network. The drive only has the one partition from when it was initially formatted.