Time Machine backup and photo library on same external drive.

[macj3]

Looking to consolidate space and $$ I see that Apple offers a 6TB Lacie pro external drive. The iMac has a 1TB internal drive. So...I was thinking would it be OK to make 2 partitions, one, 4TB, for the Back-up and a second, 2TB, for the photo library (which now is 3 separate libraries totaling 800 gb). That would give enormous space for each need, all in one 6TB drive, connected by USB-C.
Thanks for any replies.

 

[wardie]

No reason why you can’t - but remember if you are using the Time Machine partition to back up your photos from the other partition, then you don’t really have any effective backup for those photo in the event of a physical hard drive failure on that drive overall.

 

[mpainesyd]

I have partitioned the Lacie in a similar way, but use the non-TM partition for videos, not a backup of photos. I have 2 other external drives (1 is 1TB SSD) for Tm - it uses these automatically when I attach them.
I recommend not relying on a single backup drive.

 

[macj3]

Thanks for everyone's replies.....with attaching the printer, scanner, DVD burner, TM drive it only leaves one USB or one USB-C port open....I did not even get the new computer and with the large Photo Library, I',m already fighting for space/ports.😅...maybe an expansion hub is in the future...

 

[ZMacintosh]

I would not advised the partition + back-up, unless you have a 2nd drive for that first drive

another option is find an external raid or dual disk drive and either put it in RAID1 or turn off Raid so their standalone disks, it will only use one port and you'll have two drives one for each or both of what your intentions are.

 

[ignatius345]

If you do go the route of putting your Time Machine and Photos library on the same drive, I'd advise at least occasionally hooking up a portable drive (they're small and very cheap these days) and backing up your Photos library over to that just in case your big external bites the dust. Even if you only did that once a month or so you'd have a backup of the bulk of your irreplacable photos and wouldn't have another drive living on your desk 24/7.

I myself like to clone my local hard drives (iMac internal and external media drive) onto another portable drive every 30 days and keep that clone offsite at my office. If something happened to my stuff at home, I could recover absolutely everything, using iCloud Drive to fill in the gaps since my last offsite backup. Years ago I had a Mac and its backup stolen from my place, so I'm super careful now about my data.

 

[ChrisA]

Looking to consolidate space and $$ I see that Apple offers a 6TB Lacie pro external drive. The iMac has a 1TB internal drive. So...I was thinking would it be OK to make 2 partitions, one, 4TB, for the Back-up and a second, 2TB, for the photo library (which now is 3 separate libraries totaling 800 gb). That would give enormous space for each need, all in one 6TB drive, connected by USB-C.
Thanks for any replies.

If you do this then the Photo library will have no backup. When the new 6TB drive fails you lose both the backup and the photos.

The best solution is to buy two new drives and put the phots on one drive and the backup on the other. It all depends on if you care about the photos enough to back them up or if you don't mind looing them all.

The very best solution is to use the Time Machine disk for no other purpose and to have the TM disk be at least 2X the size of all the data you need to back up. Then, in addition, get a cloud backup service (backblaze.com is good and costs only $6 per month) to keep a second backup copy off-site.

I've said this many times but I think it is true: In 100 years there will be very few 100-year-old photos. Very few people know how to properly back-up data. This is too bad. I kind of like to see my grand mother's old photos and pictures taken in the Eary 1900s. Our great-grandchildren will not have this because disk drives don't last 100 years and there are no backups.

 

[wardie]

I've said this many times but I think it is true: In 100 years there will be very few 100-year-old photos. Very few people know how to properly back-up data. This is too bad. I kind of like to see my grand mother's old photos and pictures taken in the Eary 1900s. Our great-grandchildren will not have this because disk drives don't last 100 years and there are no backups.

Of course, also in 100 years time even if the hard disk works, people will be saying... what do I do with this “USB” connector thing - physical leads, how quaint - and how do I read some archaic FAT32 file system - with an un-heard of 2D image format called a “JPG”???