Partitioning a WD MyBook for Time machine and videoediting

by yngve.lien Feb 13, 2011 7:18AM PST

I have not used Time machine till now, but have a one year old Mackbook pro with a 500 MB disk and have just bought a 2 TB "Western Digital MyBook" separate harddisk to use as a combined backup for the Mac and also use as place for storing and editing videos.
The idea is to make two partitions on the MyBook, one with 500MB for backing up the Macs? system, programs and "ordinary" files.
The other partition will be 1500 MB, and will be used for storing and editing Videos. The videos vill not be saved to the Macs? harddisk at all, but only on the external disk.
I will use final Cut Pro and edit the videofootage from the MacbookPro on the external disk via Firewire 800. I intend to never fill up the MacBook harddisk more than 300 MB.
My question is. Does this sound like a good idea? Or are there any pitfalls. I have done some research on the net. Someone having problems with files from different sources recommended to format the eksternal disk as 32 bit Fat. Is that a good idea? As for now I have only intensions of working with Macs and files from Macs, but one never knows.
There was also an issue of an eventual conflict betweeen the software coming with the WD MyBook an Time Machine, but as for now I have more or less decided not to install this software, but use Time machine solely for backup.
Spiff-x

Discussion is locked

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A hard drive is a hard drive

by sturner--2008 Feb 13, 2011 1:06PM PST

And how you format it depends on what OS you use, and what you want to use it for.

The major drawback from partitioning it as you mention, is that your videos will NOT be backed up. Under NO circumstances would you want to format it as FAT32. If you want to maintain Windows interoperability on the harddrive, then format it as NTFS and invest in a program that allows you to read and write to NTFS. I would recommend Paragon NTFS for Mac, as one of the better and well supported commercial programs. There are freeware, but they have no user support.

For simplicity sake, formatting as HFS+ (Journaled) would be good. You can worry about Windows access at a later date.

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Answ. Ahard drive is a hard drive

by yngve.lien Feb 14, 2011 8:05AM PST

Thank you sturmer!
I have now started the process, established the two partitions in HFS+ format and started backing up 400 GB. Guess it will take the night. So we?ll see tomorrow whats happened. Am a bit curious if the editing will be slowed down due to the firewire connection and the hourly Time Machine backups. I?ll post on that later.
Thanks again.

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Time Machine Editor

by sturner--2008 Feb 15, 2011 6:13AM PST

You can change the hourly backups to other increments if you use the TimeMachineEditor. You can find that on Versiontracker.com or Macupdate.com. This editor lets you choose different intervals for your backup. Quite handy.

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Time machine editor

by yngve.lien Feb 19, 2011 11:29PM PST

Thank you again sturmer,
I did the formatting and partitioning as planned, only that I gave the backup-partition 600 MB to be sure there was enough room for multiple backups.
Backups looked fine, so yesterday I kopied all the video footage plus Final Cut project-files unaltered over to the other partition. You see -- it?s my daughter thats using this machine right now, so things take a little time, but I?ll visit her this evening and look into the Time Machine Editor also. Sounds like a good idea to take backups not so frequently if they prove to slow down the editing prosess.

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Alternatively,

by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Feb 20, 2011 8:32AM PST

she could always turn off the Time Machine before starting to edit and back on again when finished

P

Partitioning a WD MyBook for Time machine and videoediting

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