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Remi B

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 23, 2012
25
0
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

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
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.
 

boto

macrumors 6502
Jun 4, 2012
437
28
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

macrumors newbie
Jan 2, 2013
28
0
Europe
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

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2010
413
65
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

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2012
315
5
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

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 23, 2012
25
0
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

macrumors G3
Jul 23, 2002
8,088
5
Sol III - Terra
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

macrumors G4
Oct 31, 2009
10,314
8,198
Here(-ish)
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

macrumors 65816
Mar 13, 2012
1,127
1
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.
 

Jerrybobbabe

macrumors newbie
Jul 28, 2013
7
2
3T drive filled?

I have a DS213 3T drive and a 1.5 T iMac. Message comes that backup drive full and needs to delete older Time Machine backups. I have never had this. Before even with an older 1.5 T OSC backup drive. My Mac is only about 65% full, so I am at a loss as to why my 2T drive is full. Is there some way to configur Time Machine differently?
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
I have a DS213 3T drive and a 1.5 T iMac. Message comes that backup drive full and needs to delete older Time Machine backups. I have never had this. Before even with an older 1.5 T OSC backup drive. My Mac is only about 65% full, so I am at a loss as to why my 2T drive is full. Is there some way to configur Time Machine differently?

Because TM stores "versions" of files from your drive as long as there is room left on the TM disk. So, for example, if you open and edit a 10GB video each day then save that video... TM will add that 10GB file to the backup every day. So you can see how over time the drive will get full. This is normal and you can just tell TM to go ahead and delete the old data. You will still always have the latest version of your data on there.
 

Jerrybobbabe

macrumors newbie
Jul 28, 2013
7
2
3TB Time Capsule for 3TB Fusion Drive?

Because TM stores "versions" of files from your drive as long as there is room left on the TM disk. So, for example, if you open and edit a 10GB video each day then save that video... TM will add that 10GB file to the backup every day. So you can see how over time the drive will get full. This is normal and you can just tell TM to go ahead and delete the old data. You will still always have the latest version of your data on there.

Thank you- but could you explain how to delete old data without affecting current backup?I I'm using a 3T Raid drive if that makes any difference.
 

rkaufmann87

macrumors 68000
Dec 17, 2009
1,760
39
Folsom, CA
Thank you- but could you explain how to delete old data without affecting current backup?I I'm using a 3T Raid drive if that makes any difference.

Deleting old data from a TM drive is not recommended and also is not necessary. It isn't recommended because you can seriously screw up TM by doing so. The reason it's not necessary is TM is designed to do this automatically when a TM HD has reached capacity. You will receive a warning that this has occured. If you want you can go out an buy additional storage or simply allow TM to delete older back-ups. Chances are these will be backups you have no intention of ever using.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
Thank you- but could you explain how to delete old data without affecting current backup?I I'm using a 3T Raid drive if that makes any difference.

I was not suggesting manually deleting old backups. Just let TM do it on its own by clicking okay when you get that notice. If you go into the TM options you can turn off that notification.

You don't want to be in there manually deleting things or you will mess things up.
 

KaraH

macrumors 6502
Nov 12, 2012
452
5
DC
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.

Well, there are bigger drives out there.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Deleting old data from a TM drive is not recommended and also is not necessary. It isn't recommended because you can seriously screw up TM by doing so. The reason it's not necessary is TM is designed to do this automatically when a TM HD has reached capacity. You will receive a warning that this has occured. If you want you can go out an buy additional storage or simply allow TM to delete older back-ups. Chances are these will be backups you have no intention of ever using.

There's actually a feature in Time Machine to remove files from all backups permanently. That's useful for things that shouldn't have been on your drive in the first place. Let's say your adult son downloaded his favorite movies on your works computer and they got backed up... You can completely wipe them from all backups.
 

KaraH

macrumors 6502
Nov 12, 2012
452
5
DC
Deleting old data from a TM drive is not recommended and also is not necessary. It isn't recommended because you can seriously screw up TM by doing so. The reason it's not necessary is TM is designed to do this automatically when a TM HD has reached capacity. You will receive a warning that this has occured. If you want you can go out an buy additional storage or simply allow TM to delete older back-ups. Chances are these will be backups you have no intention of ever using.

Well, you certainly do not just want to open up a finder window on your TM drive and just zap things but you can delete items in time machine itself. I have occasionally found it a handy optimization when I have excluded or deleted a REALLY huge file that was previously backed up.

BTW, I would recommend having a do_not_backup (or whatever name) folder on your drive. Use it as the scratch area for anything that writes large files (especially temporary ones) that can be regenerated. Exclude it from TM of course and the name just reminds you what it is.
 

Jerrybobbabe

macrumors newbie
Jul 28, 2013
7
2
Thank you all. I was just surprised that a drive with less than 1.5 T would fill a 3T drive. Is there a way to limit how far back TM will save backups? I don't see a real need to have hourly backups from months back.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
Thank you all. I was just surprised that a drive with less than 1.5 T would fill a 3T drive. Is there a way to limit how far back TM will save backups? I don't see a real need to have hourly backups from months back.

There are apps like this you can use to modify the backup frequency if you like.
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Thank you all. I was just surprised that a drive with less than 1.5 T would fill a 3T drive. Is there a way to limit how far back TM will save backups? I don't see a real need to have hourly backups from months back.

1. It doesn't keep hourly backups for more than a day, and daily backups for more than a month.

2. You paid for a 3TB backup drive, so Time Machine uses the 3TB for backups, so you get your money's worth. The oldest backups are deleted when 3TB is not enough.
 
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