My Book Essential 2TB vs Time Machine

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

So, I finally have the big-**bleep** drive space I always needed, so I can now use Time Machine, but I want to keep all my Pictures & Movies just on the external drive, to keep the main drive uncluttered.

If TM backs up my main HD, is it going to leave alone files that I have on the external drive, but not on the main one?

Probably a stupid question, but I’ve learned never to assume anything when dealing with irreplaceable data.

I’d hate for it to be wiped because the system figured that extra stuff wasn’t supposed to be there.

2

When you setup Time Machine for the first time, it will ask you how much space you wish to use from the drive, if you wish to use this drive to back up and storage, you can setup Time Machine to use a specific amount of space and the rest of the space will be free to manually copy your data.

Also, unless specify it Time Machine does not delete any data from the backup drive.

Below is an user guide for Time Machine:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

3

Hey, thanks for the reply, oxter!

So glad I thought to ask that question — I’d have been most upset if I’d gone ahead blindly.

I posted the same question on the Apple Support forum, and got a slightly different answer, so I’m gonna have to flip a coin, I guess.

4

Time Machine DOES NOT ASK how much space you want to use, and DOES NOT PARTITION drives.

It may reformat them if necessary, but it will not partition them.

Kindly read the Time Machine 101 article you linked to.