Backup Location same as TimeMachine Drive?

[KevinX3]

Hi Wil,

Didn't see anything in the Docs/FAQ to cover this.

I have an MBP (11,4) with a 2Tb Usb3 Drive that is backing up a 1Tb SSD. I note your comments WRT TimeMachine not being a good fit for VM backups and that they can be excluded from that backup set. Having said that, can I set the same Drive (the 2Tb USB 3 Drive) I use for TimeMachine as the destination for Vimalin backups? I really don't want to have multiple USB 3 drives hanging off my MBP, one's enough.

There is sufficient space on the 2Tb USB 3 Drive for both backups and I would either schedule or start Vimalin backups in the late evening/early morning.

So to be perfectly clear, here is the Question:

Can I set the same Drive (the 2Tb USB 3 Drive) I use for TimeMachine as the destination for Vimalin backups?

Thanks,
Kevin

[wila]

Hello Kevin,

Thank you for the question, it is always interesting to hear about particular usage scenarios.

Yes that is fine.
It is not a problem to backup to the same disk as where your time machine backups are located.

The only potential issue I see is if both (TM and Vimalin) are running a large backup job at the same time, in that scenario there will be some disk IO congestion.
But that normally is not a big issue as Time Machine has small incremental backups once you exclude virtual machines from the backup.
So in most cases this is a non issue.

Only when you generate lots of data that TM has to back up over night, it might become better to have Vimalin backup to another disk so that you can spread the disk IO operations over multiple disks.

Please note that disk IO congestion just means that it takes longer for the job to complete, not that it will cause issues with the backup itself.

Hope this helps,
--
Wil