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I am a photographer and an owner of a small business. I keep all my photo files and my business files on separate USB drives. I also have a music collection on another USB drive.
So, I just decided to buy a large single 8TB Seagate Backup Plus HD, which I plan to use exclusively for backup of the entire Imac and the connected individual USB drives. I will use Time Machine to do automatic backups. My question is how to configure the Backup Drive. Should I leave it as one large volume, or configure it to have several smaller volumes, each of them corresponding with the individual external USB drives?? I should note that the individual drives have a certain size today, but in the future might outgrow its capacity, forcing me to use larger new drives for same group of file types (Business, Photo and Music). At this point I may have only 5TB of external storage drives total.
Imac 2013 with 3 external USB drives and 1TB internal Fusion HD. According to the instruction booklet, if used as a Time Machine drive, the Seagate needs to be configured for a Mac by downloading their Paragon Mac Driver. At this point when I connect the drive to my Imac, it does mount and shows Start Here Mac App and Start Here Win App. So far I have not yet done any changes or downloaded the Paragon Driver.
Any thoughts? I do not think you can ask time machine to back up specific hard drives to separate partitions of your single large hard drive or separate hard drives. You can have time machine pack up each of your drives to single hard drive. You can also use a program like carbon copy cloner to automatically back up your separate hard drives to separate partitions of your large drive. These backups can be scheduled to run daily or any schedule you like.
You are taking a big risk by backing up everything to the same drive regardless of the partitions. I use smaller drives to back up my photo catalogs from my primary drives to back ups. This means I have a lot of drives on my desk, but I feel safe.
In addition I urge to back up to some form of cloud storage. I use CrashPlan. Many things to think about. I doubt that the Backup drive and USB drive would die at same time, or could they?
Also, is it better to format the Seagate drive using my Mac (without the use of Paragon), or should I use Paragon instead? Here is what the Paragon download website says: This driver provides write access for Seagate external drives in Mac OS without having to reformat. RHWeber wrote: I do not think you can ask time machine to back up specific hard drives to separate partitions of your single large hard drive or separate hard drives.
You can have time machine pack up each of your drives to single hard drive. You can also use a program like carbon copy cloner to automatically back up your separate hard drives to separate partitions of your large drive.
These backups can be scheduled to run daily or any schedule you like. You are taking a big risk by backing up everything to the same drive regardless of the partitions. I use smaller drives to back up my photo catalogs from my primary drives to back ups. This means I have a lot of drives on my desk, but I feel safe. In addition I urge to back up to some form of cloud storage. I use CrashPlan. Andrzej bialuski wrote: I am a photographer and an owner of a small business.
I keep all my photo files and my business files on separate USB drives. I also have a music collection on another USB drive. So, I just decided to buy a large single 8TB Seagate Backup Plus HD, which I plan to use exclusively for backup of the entire Imac and the connected individual USB drives. I will use Time Machine to do automatic backups. My question is how to configure the Backup Drive. Should I leave it as one large volume, or configure it to have several smaller volumes, each of them corresponding with the individual external USB drives?? I should note that the individual drives have a certain size today, but in the future might outgrow its capacity, forcing me to use larger new drives for same group of file types (Business, Photo and Music).
At this point I may have only 5TB of external storage drives total. Imac 2013 with 3 external USB drives and 1TB internal Fusion HD. Do you mean that you have 3 hard drives always connected by USB interfaces? If so, you can configure your new 8TB drive as a Time Machine backup, by having one partition and indicating that you want all 4 (internal and 3 external) drives backed up. Keep in mind that Time Machine keeps versions of old files so that you can go back in time (hence the name) to see some file that got changed or tossed. That may not be what you want for all the external drives (e.g. Music files don't change as a rule, unless you are a composer).
If this is your business data, you really need some additional form of off site backup. Could be cloud, or another house, or bank, as long as you get there from time to time. According to the instruction booklet, if used as a Time Machine drive, the Seagate needs to be configured for a Mac by downloading their Paragon Mac Driver. At this point when I connect the drive to my Imac, it does mount and shows Start Here Mac App and Start Here Win App. So far I have not yet done any changes or downloaded the Paragon Driver. Any thoughts? Time Machine will back up all your drives (that you tell it to) in a single operation, whether you like it or not.
Some people dislike the lack of options, for many the simplicity makes the difference between having a backup and having no backup. Whichever camp you fall into, it works and make efficient use of the disk space. Having all your disks backed up to a single drive is not, imo, inherently risky. Having only one backup copy on one disk is not as safe as having two or three, but it is vastly better than nothing.
If the seagate drive really requires a special driver to work with a Mac, I would return it as not fit for purpose. I suspect it doesn't (even though they provide one). A disk drive should conform to a standard interface and work no matter which OS you have. Andrzej bialuski wrote: Thanks.
Many things to think about. I doubt that the Backup drive and USB drive would die at same time, or could they? Also, is it better to format the Seagate drive using my Mac (without the use of Paragon), or should I use Paragon instead?
Here is what the Paragon download website says: This driver provides write access for Seagate external drives in Mac OS without having to reformat. The Paragon Driver for Mac is intended to allow you to write to NTFS (Windows) formatted drives. This is not what you want for your Time Machine drive.
You want your Time Machine drive to be formatted with Mac Disk Utility, typically for the 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' format. Here is a link to the Apple support page 'Backup disks you can use with Time Machine'. Johnbandry wrote: Time Machine will back up all your drives (that you tell it to) in a single operation, whether you like it or not. Some people dislike the lack of options, for many the simplicity makes the difference between having a backup and having no backup.
Whichever camp you fall into, it works and make efficient use of the disk space. Having all your disks backed up to a single drive is not, imo, inherently risky.
Having only one backup copy on one disk is not as safe as having two or three, but it is vastly better than nothing. If the seagate drive really requires a special driver to work with a Mac, I would return it as not fit for purpose. I suspect it doesn't (even though they provide one). A disk drive should conform to a standard interface and work no matter which OS you have.
Yes, I think so. Just reformat the drive using Disk Utility. Although with High Sierra, apparently external drive can be formatted as a HFS volume but it may not be true in the future.
Andrzej bialuski wrote: Also, is it better to format the Seagate drive using my Mac (without the use of Paragon), or should I use Paragon instead? Here is what the Paragon download website says: This driver provides write access for Seagate external drives in Mac OS without having to reformat. The Paragon drivers are only applicable if you are trying to get write access to volumes formatted using NTFS. Out of the box, Mac OS X can read, but not write, NTFS. Time Machine requires its backup volumes to be formatted using HFS+ (a.k.a. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format). (It might also work with the latest Apple filesystem; I do not know about that.).
Johnbandry wrote: If the seagate drive really requires a special driver to work with a Mac, I would return it as not fit for purpose. I suspect it doesn't (even though they provide one). A disk drive should conform to a standard interface and work no matter which OS you have. The issue is one of formatting. Most external USB hard drives come formatted with NTFS. Some come formatted with HFS+. If not reformatted, the NTFS ones will not be writable on a Mac without a special driver, and will not be usable for Time Machine.
If you get a drive with the 'wrong' filesystem, you need to reformat it, or perhaps to get special drivers to allow you to use it without reformatting. Thanks to everyone for your thorough answers. The drive is now formatted for a Mac, using Mac utility. No Paragon; thank you. However, because of a small compatibility glitch between High Sierra and the drive, it did not show in Disk Utility until you click on View/Show All Devices. Took only a phone call to Seagate and 45 minutes on the phone, but they did help.
I also found out that it has a 27 months warranty. I will probably not disappear for long though. Have to sort out how to recover backup files from 2 former TM backup drives. More questions may come tomorrow. And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, as per Garrison Keillor, my favorite cynic. TomN wrote: johnbandry wrote: If the seagate drive really requires a special driver to work with a Mac, I would return it as not fit for purpose.
I suspect it doesn't (even though they provide one). A disk drive should conform to a standard interface and work no matter which OS you have. The issue is one of formatting. Most external USB hard drives come formatted with NTFS. Some come formatted with HFS+. If not reformatted, the NTFS ones will not be writable on a Mac without a special driver, and will not be usable for Time Machine.
If you get a drive with the 'wrong' filesystem, you need to reformat it, or perhaps to get special drivers to allow you to use it without reformatting. Andrzej bialuski wrote: Thanks to everyone for your thorough answers. The drive is now formatted for a Mac, using Mac utility. No Paragon; thank you. However, because of a small compatibility glitch between High Sierra and the drive, it did not show in Disk Utility until you click on View/Show All Devices.
Took only a phone call to Seagate and 45 minutes on the phone, but they did help. I also found out that it has a 27 months warranty. I will probably not disappear for long though. Have to sort out how to recover backup files from 2 former TM backup drives.
More questions may come tomorrow. And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, as per Garrison Keillor, my favorite cynic. $14.99 It has an entire chapter on Time Machine, including how to migrate previous Time Machine backups between old and new external drives on pages 140-142.
The exact steps depend on the operating system. The chapter also has some important info that you should know if you are going to rely on Time Machine. Once you have Time Machine setup, it will be time to consider your offsite data backup options. The ebook (immediate download) has lots of information about local and Cloud backups, including the pros and cons of the various options including services, software and hardware. It is quite comprehensive while being easy to understand and objectively written. JPAlbert wrote: OP asked: 'Any thoughts?'
Don't use Time Machine. Use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper instead. Either one will create an exact copy of the source volume, and the backups won't keep growing and growing over time as they will with Time Machine. Just make one exact copy of the source data each backup, overwriting the previous backup. Keeps it nice and small.
Don't forget to cross your fingers while you do it so that you never have to retrieve anything that was changed before the last backup, and your backup never fails to complete for any reason. Johnbandry wrote: 'Sure. Just make one exact copy of the source data each backup, overwriting the previous backup.
Keeps it nice and small. Don't forget to cross your fingers while you do it so that you never have to retrieve anything that was changed before the last backup, and your backup never fails to complete for any reason.'
In 31 years of using computers, it was only a handful of times that I actually had to go back and re-create some data because I couldn't retrieve it from an existing backup. Nothing too important or consequential. Aside from that, things go pretty well. I've read many reports of users who relied on Time Machine and then.
In a moment of need. Couldn't get their data back from it. But I don't recall a cloned backup ever 'not mounting' on me. If you can mount a CCC/SD backup, you can get what you need from it. I actually have 'versioned' CCC clones, because I keep more than one at different locations. JPAlbert wrote: johnbandry wrote: 'Sure. Just make one exact copy of the source data each backup, overwriting the previous backup.
Keeps it nice and small. Don't forget to cross your fingers while you do it so that you never have to retrieve anything that was changed before the last backup, and your backup never fails to complete for any reason.' In 31 years of using computers, it was only a handful of times that I actually had to go back and re-create some data because I couldn't retrieve it from an existing backup. Nothing too important or consequential. Aside from that, things go pretty well.
I've read many reports of users who relied on Time Machine and then. In a moment of need. Couldn't get their data back from it. But I don't recall a cloned backup ever 'not mounting' on me. If you can mount a CCC/SD backup, you can get what you need from it. I actually have 'versioned' CCC clones, because I keep more than one at different locations.
Over the years I have had one backup drive fail - it would not mount. After testing swapping the drives to another enclosure I determined that it was the drive itself that failed. While it was a Time Machine drive, it could just as easily been a clone backup drive. Like you, I have two backups of my system drive. In my case, one is a clone drive made with Carbon Copy Cloner/Super Duper and the other is a Time Machine drive.
At different times, I have done a clean install and migration from the Time Machine drive and from the clone drive (twice changing the drive in my 2007 MacBook Pro (first to a larger hard drive and later to an even larger SSD), when testing OS upgrades on an external boot drive before committing to updating the system drive, and when migrating to a new iMac). Other than the drive hardware failure mentioned above, I have not had any issues with either Time Machine or clone backups. JPAlbert wrote: In 31 years of using computers, it was only a handful of times that I actually had to go back and re-create some data because I couldn't retrieve it from an existing backup.
Nothing too important or consequential. But then, I guess, you never just had only one backup copy.
I've read many reports of users who relied on Time Machine and then. In a moment of need. Couldn't get their data back from it. And there are probably equally many reports from users that couldn't get a version of a file back from their single snapshot backup.
You do realise that you were comparing your own personal number of 'backup retrieval failures' (when using clones) with the aggregate number of 'backup retrieval failures' (when using TM) of a pretty large group of people who would report such a thing in the forums you frequent? But I don't recall a cloned backup ever 'not mounting' on me. If you can mount a CCC/SD backup, you can get what you need from it. I can recall many instances of a clone operation finishing with errors (with at least three different cloning apps) that were silent or easy to overlook. At least twice, a backup drive had unmounted accidentally and the cloning app kept 'backing up' to a ghost volume. In other cases the backup drive was full which threw an easy to overlook error message (a situation more likely to occur if you have multiple backup jobs backing up to multiple volumes than if everything goes to the same volume as with TM). I actually have 'versioned' CCC clones, because I keep more than one at different locations.
See, as I guessed above. And that rather undermines your first point. As in: 'I never could not retrieve the version of a file I was looking for from my 3+ staggered clones, so you don't really need more than one backup copy.' 'See, as I guessed above.
And that rather undermines your first point. As in: 'I never could not retrieve the version of a file I was looking for from my 3+ staggered clones, so you don't really need more than one backup copy.' I keep more than one backup for the reason anyone does - to keep an extra drive or two 'spread around' in the event the first backup I reach for isn't working. Just tonight, a couple of hours ago, my sister's old 2010 white MacBook had an SSD failure. I tried starting it, would do nothing but chime and show a white screen. Tried a few tricks like zapping PRAM, etc, - nothing.
![Seagate Seagate](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125504899/689792033.png)
Wouldn't boot from an external drive. I couldn't even get the startup manager to appear by holding down the option key at boot. Tried booting to the recovery partition. Nothing but a chime and then a white screen. I opened the back, took the SSD out, connected it to a dongle, and it wouldn't mount or even show up in Disk Utility on any other Mac I have. But the drive was 'more than dead'; so long as it was in the MacBook, something 'in the failure' kept the MacBook from doing anything after the power-on button was pressed. Once the bad SSD was out, I was able to boot the (drive-less) MacBook using a USB drive that had a CCC clone of her internal drive on it.
Booted right up with no drive inside. So I hooked up the (HDD) cloned backup to an extra SSD I had around. CarbonCopyCloner not only cloned over the backup but re-created the recovery partition as well (partitioning the target drive first).
Took about 30 minutes (she didn't have a lot of stuff on the original drive). Put the newly-created clone into the MacBook and - booted right up. Closed it up.
Much easier than a Time Machine recovery.