Time Machine backup

[circatee]

On a newly configured iMac, can you set Time Machine to backup to the SAME internal drive?
This iMac has a 1TB fusion drive in it. So, surely this can be done, no?

 

[antonis]

That would beat the purpose of the Time Machine all together.

 

[ardchoille50]

On a newly configured iMac, can you set Time Machine to backup to the SAME internal drive?
This iMac has a 1TB fusion drive in it. So, surely this can be done, no?

It can be done, but as antonis inferred, it's best to keep backups on a separate drive. This way you still have the backups if your primary drive is damaged.

 

[Apple fanboy]

On a newly configured iMac, can you set Time Machine to backup to the SAME internal drive?
This iMac has a 1TB fusion drive in it. So, surely this can be done, no?

The purpose of a back up is you have your stuff on a seperate drive for WHEN (not if) that drive fails.
If they are all on your internal drive and it fails, you lose everything.
Or what if someone steals your iMac or there is a fire?
That's why it's s good idea to have an offsite back up as well.
That could either be a paid service like iCloud or crash plan or like me I have an external drive in my drawer at work.
So I back up to my external Timecapsule using time machine, then once every few weeks back up onto my external drive using Carbon, Copy clone. That way I have three copies of everything which is the general advice, three copies, 2 locations.

 

[maflynn]

can you set Time Machine to backup to the SAME internal drive?

Yes, but then its just acting as a versioning software (allowing you to recover an older version), and not as much as a backup, as other have stated. If something bad happens to the drive, you lose you data on your system drive, and your backup. Not an ideal situation if yo ask me.

 

[cynics]

On a newly configured iMac, can you set Time Machine to backup to the SAME internal drive?
This iMac has a 1TB fusion drive in it. So, surely this can be done, no?

Yep, work fine. Playing devils advocate from everyone else time machine is more than just a backup as its name implies.

I'll often reach into time machine to pull out a file that's been saved over 100 times. I might have the original but it's nice know I have the 50th revision when I suddenly realize I've been doing something wrong or whatever. I've also used it to go back and pull small files out of my download folder that were long deleted. I've used that when I found a bug in a newer version of software, I was able to roll back to and older version by looking back 6 months or so when I had downloaded the previous version.

It's nice to have it on a separate drive though like mentioned above. I use a NAS in RAID 1 (technically SHR) and it works very well across my local network. Also keep very important things backed up off site in case of a fire (or flood if that is your concern).