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I have an external hard disk drive I use for all of my backups.

  • I created an NTFS partition that I backed up Windows 10 to.
  • Then I created an ext4 partition and backed up Linux Mint to that.
  • Now, I created another 300gb of unallocated space that I'm trying to back up my MacBook to using Time Machine.

The Mac disk utility app only shows the NTFS partition and doesn't show the free space so I could create a new partition.

Can I create an APFS partition from Windows/Linux and then set Time Machine to use that space for its backup? Or is this just not possible to back up all 3 operations systems on a single external drive?

It seems like Mac wants its own hard disk drive with no other partitions to use Time Machine.

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  • What OS? Big Sur needs APFS, anything earlier must have HFS+ Your disk will need to be GUID not MBR. idk how this will affect the WIn & nix backups.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Mar 10, 2021 at 9:05
  • @Tetsujin it is Big Sur
    – Steve
    Commented Mar 10, 2021 at 13:03
  • It is possible to use Time Machine on any filesystem as long as you create a sparse disk image on your Mac, copy it to the other drive and share the drive from that computer. There are lots of how-to's around and just an internet search away.
    – Steve Chambers
    Commented Mar 11, 2021 at 1:09

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