We have two computers, an old MacBook Pro running El Capitan and a 2014 Mac mini running High Sierra. They each need about 600-700 GB to back up.

I purchased a 2 TB external drive and was just planning on using it with a lot of space left over by partitioning for other use. However, now I read I can possibly use it on both through the router and networking.

My questions are:

  1. Can I?
  2. I think partitioning would be best ... approx. 1 TB each, but will it be okay to have two different OS working on it?
  3. I assume I have to format as HFS+, but doesn't High Sierra now use a new file system?
  • It looks like you want to use your new 2 TB external drive to back up both your Macs, is that right? You say you would like to partition the drive, so I suppose it is a USB drive, right? Then you mention you read something about using the drive "through the router and networking", could you provide the link? Do you plan to connect the drive to an Airport Extreme Base Station (see support.apple.com/en-us/HT202784)? – jaume Aug 19 '18 at 21:12
  • That's what I was going to do but turns out the small print, asterisk, don't see this until AFTER you open the box says this particular external cannot be used in a wireless set up. So, I partitioned it to designate 1.5gb of it for TimeM. I did that because even though there is only 250gb on a 700gb hd, Time Machine ran out of space on a 1T, and I couldn't get it to delete the oldest backup, then it wouldn't let me erase the old information, then it wouldn't mount. I formatted for the MacBookPro as journaled, etc. Only took three times to actually see the new disk and format. – Tucker D Aug 20 '18 at 20:05
  • Could you edit your answer to reflect that now you are no longer planning on using the external drive in a wireless setup? Do you still have questions related to configuring Time Machine? It seems, from reading your comment, that you were able to format the drive and set Time Machine up in your environment (I recommend that you read this reference article: support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250 at Apple, it provides a good overview about Time Machine and how to set it up.) – jaume Aug 26 '18 at 12:17

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