Backing up & Hard drive options

[Brian]

There will be a little icon at the top menu bar, next to the time. It's a picture of a clock with a arrow pointer-thing counter clock-wise. Here is what mine looks like, the one on the left is what I'm talking about:

 

 

It is perfectly normal for Time Machine to rename your EHD, and even choose a different Icon. In fact, you want this to happen. This way you'll know that Time Machine is talking correctly to your EHD. Here is my icon for my Time Machine Drive:

As for when to see if Time Machine is working, all you have to do is click the Time Machine Icon and it should give you a reading similar to this when it's doing stuff:
 

See the "Backing Up: 346 MB of 723 MB?" What Time Machine does is one main backup and then preforms incremental backups on things that have changed I think every hour? 30 min? Something like that. If you want to seen when the "Next Backup" is going to take place, simply open the Time Machine Preferences and next to "Select Disk" it should tell you:

When you want to take your EHD home, it is VERY IMPORTANT THAT THEY BE EJECTED FIRST. This way the EHD will be properly un-mounted from the MacOS. All you have to do is right-click on the EHD icon on the Mac Desktop and choose "Eject Time Machine" or for your other EHD, "Eject 2TB WD EHD" (or whatever.) Then you let the EHD do it's thing for a few seconds (unmount, spin-down & park the heads,) the icon will disappear from the Desktop and then it's safe to remove the drive and take it home.

For reference:

One more thing, after Ejecting your EHD / Time Machine Drive, if there is a power switch on the drive, I'd turn it off before disconnecting anything. Again, ONLY do this after Ejecting the EHD.

[SophieBowden-Caldwell]

Thanks Brian, found all those bits and it's just over half way. 
How often do I plug the time machine back in?

[Brian]

This is one of my famous, "...it depends." answers.

Time Machine is meant to be utilized when you use your Mac Computer. So if you were to ask Apple, they would say all the time except when you take it off-site. That said, you should base the amount of usage of how much you can stand to lose. So if your computer has QuickBooks or something similar, leaving the TM Drive Unplugged for a few days may not be a good thing if you don't have those invoices saved. If all you are using it for is a rough back up to get you going if the main HD fails, once a week? Monthly? Really it's up to you.

I speak from experience, if a HD fails, you will kick yourself for not having a backup that isn't semi-current. You'd be surprised on just how much stuff you acquire and don't think about when using a computer.

Oh, the Time Machine Drive is just for Time Machine. NEVER-EVER store any other files on it. No matter how tempting it might be. Use your other EHD for that.

[SophieBowden-Caldwell]

Hi Brian, both hard drives are now set up but now i'm confused. Is the time machine back up going to have absolutely everything on it? Like all my files and images when ever I do a time machine back up onto the drive?
If so what am I using the other hard drive for? Sorry for the dumb question I was so focussed on getting them set up that I've forgotten what i'm doing them for. 

[Brian]

Open your Time Machine Preferences and look for a section to exclude a HD, such as your other EHD and add it to the list. This way TM will ignore your 2nd EHD (Data Drive) and only backup the internal. That’s how mine is setup. 
 

I’d give you screenshots, but since your OS is a few versions old your screen will look different. Feel free to post a screenshot if you need help. 

[SophieBowden-Caldwell]

Brilliant, that's all set! Thank you and they are both all set up ready, thank you for your help!