3TB Time Capsule for 3TB Fusion Drive?

[Remi B]

Just received my new 27" iMac with 3TB Fusion and loving it, but when it comes to a long term Time Machine backup solution, I've noticed there aren't many options out there.

Would the 3TB Time Capsule be sufficient for a 3TB Fusion drive? I am thinking forward to the future when my 3TB Fusion drive it nears capacity and whether the 3TB Time Capsule would be able to backup everything on my Mac.

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by Remi B

Just received my new 27" iMac with 3TB Fusion and loving it, but when it comes to a long term Time Machine backup solution, I've noticed there aren't many options out there.

Would the 3TB Time Capsule be sufficient for a 3TB Fusion drive? I am thinking forward to the future when my 3TB Fusion drive it nears capacity and whether the 3TB Time Capsule would be able to backup everything on my Mac.

You should have probably 50% more space on your Time Machine backup drive than the space that you are using in your computer. So once you have filled more than 2 TB, there are indeed not many options at this time.

[lucasfunkt]

Originally Posted by gnasher729

You should have probably 50% more space on your Time Machine backup drive than the space that you are using in your computer.

Why is that?

[boto]

I would recommend purchasing a Time Capsule later this year instead. There will be a new one releasing with 802.11ac capabilities for faster speeds. Also, there may be a possibility that Apple will offer larger capacity hard drives, SSDs, or maybe a Fusion drive. So waiting patiently will get you the best value, especially if you plan on getting the latest Apple products coming this year that will feature 802.11ac chips.

Otherwise, if you purchase a 3TB Time Capsule you will have plenty of space to store all of your information. I currently own a 2TB Time Capsule and I'm far from reaching its full capacity. I have only used approximately 600GB of it and that's including both my rMBP and iMac backups.

[Paul-B]

I bought a 2 Tb Time Capsule with my 3Tb iMac.

From experience my previous PC had 2 x 250Gb discs. After 6 years of use I still had 100Gb free.

3Tb is a massive amount of space for normal use. I figure that by the time my Time Machine gets near full about 3 years down the line storage possibilities will be wider - and cheaper...

[tyche]

Originally Posted by lucasfunkt

Why is that?

Because it's not a single image backup. Since it's a point in time recovery, it has copies of files you no longer may have on your system. The more you add or change to your system, the more it will have to backup. You could have 1TB of used disk space and in 6 months have a 1.5 TB time machine.

[lucasfunkt]

Originally Posted by tyche

Because it's not a backup. Since it's a point in time recovery, it has copies of files you no longer may have on your system. The more you add or change to your system, the more it will have to backup. You could have 1TB of used disk space and in 6 months have a 1.5 TB time machine.

Good point, thank you.

[Remi B]

Some good points made so far

Right now I'm thinking of just going for the 3TB TC with the view of replacing it with a larger capacity TC, a couple of years down the road...

[Bear]

Originally Posted by Remi B

Some good points made so far

Right now I'm thinking of just going for the 3TB TC with the view of replacing it with a larger capacity TC, a couple of years down the road...

I presume the 1TB Time Capsule listed in your signature is for backing up your MacBack Pro? If that is the case, might I suggest you keep that for the MBP and buy a USB drive for backing up the iMac? I know Seagate* has 4TB USB 3.0 drives at a reasonable price (and noticeably less than the cost of a Time Capsule).

*Other brands may have reasonably priced USB 3.0 drives. I haven't looked.

[willmtaylor]

Originally Posted by Remi B

Some good points made so far

Right now I'm thinking of just going for the 3TB TC with the view of replacing it with a larger capacity TC, a couple of years down the road...

3TB is more than enough simply b/c once the time capsule is full, it just starts replacing the oldest backups on the drive with the newest backups and continually rolls them over as such. As long as you're using it for general emergency backup and not as needing a specific file version from 18 months ago you're fine and would never "run out of space."

[bogatyr]

Exclude easily replaceable items from the backup and a 2TB should do just fine.

i.e. exclude big games (WoW/SC2/etc), iTunes movies/music (can download again later), and anything similar. Just keep any items like configuration settings or saves for your games but the binaries for huge games should easily be excluded.

[harlex]

Hitachi 4TB drives are available and not expensive ideal for time machine.