Use timemachine to back up info on an external hard drive

syrinx32123

hey,



I keep my documents (music, word files etc.) on an external hard drive and only have applications on my internal hd. I was wondering if I could use time machine to back up the docs on my external in case something happens to it. I have two external HDs, one for timemachine and one for my docs.



I know that I could just copy the docs to the time machine HD but I wouldn't know if I was overlaping already existing files.



Thanks

ET\

rokcet scientist

Quote:

Originally Posted by syrinx32123


hey,



I keep my documents (music, word files etc.) on an external hard drive and only have applications on my internal hd. I was wondering if I could use time machine to back up the docs on my external in case something happens to it. I have two external HDs, one for timemachine and one for my docs.



I know that I could just copy the docs to the time machine HD but I wouldn't know if I was overlaping already existing files.

No, Time Machine creates a new folder on the target external HD ? next to already existing files and folders ? named "Backups.backupdb" in which it places the data files until that disk runs out of space.

bbwi

Yes, it will. By default non-Time Machine external drives are automatically put into the "Exclude" Time Machine Preferences. So all you need to do is open Time Machine Preferences>Options and remove the non-Time Machine external drive