iMac Time Machine Question

This may fall into the Redundant Department of Redundancy Department... and it might show how downright dumb I am but here goes.

I have an external hard for backing up my images. The external hard drive is partitioned in "Time Machine" and "Photos". OK, I have been sending all my images to the "Photos" partition for back. It question occurred to me today - aren't my images being backed up as part of the "Time Machine" back up process? If that is the case, I am wasting half the EHD with the photos partition since that is just backing them up twice on the same EHD? Am I correct? Or have I short circuited somewhere?

If your photos are on your main drive and you haven't told Time Machine to exclude them - then yes, it should be backing them up.

Easy way to check is to navigate to your pictures in Finder, invoke Time Machine and see what comes up!

Mark

I agree with Mark. I have two external HDDs, one for Time Machine, one for RAW files since I don't want to save those on the hard drive of the computer.

Mac plug from a user since 1984- Time Machine is worth the price of admission to the Mac world.

What makes it so good is simplicity, and the lack of this is why most other backup programs just don't work, period. Trust me they don't, and if backing up looks simple, just try to recover a file in the event you need to. This is where the rubber meets the road. But I digress.

Ed- I would just have a single partition on your backup drive and use it for Time Machine, which will look after everything in the background. In an ideal world, have two backup drives and switch them in and out every week or so, storing the other one off-site, i.e., in another building somewhere else.

I backup everthing I can't recover, so I don't backup system or program files.

When it comes to back up you can't overdo it in my opinion.
I have 2 back ups that are in my residence and one back up that stays with a friend. The latter is back up less frequently.

I'll add to the importance of multiple backups. I maintain 3+ backups which I rotate, and keep 2 backups off site. Also, all my raw files are kept on a lpatop size hard drive (currently 500 GB drives)--when one fills, I put it on the shelf and start a new one. One can't have too many backups, and backups need to be kept off the electrical grid and in a different location in case of disaster, like fire.

Roger

For truly exceptional image files, I also recommend backing up on MAM-A Archive Grade Gold DVD-R discs. They hold 4.7 GB and will last far longer without degradation than we will. You can burn duplicates, with one kept in a bank safe deposit box.

Roger is absolutely right: 3-2-1. 3 back-ups, 2 different formats, at least one in a different location. That is how we manage digital assets of all types at our creative services firm.