Internal vs. Time machine drive size

[ConnYoungy]

I'm in the process of ordering a new MacBook and want to go for the 1tb drive upgrade and realised my time machine backup drive is also 1tb, will that matter?

The reason I ask is that I can't remember if the time machine drive has to be larger than the drive it backs up or not?

Thankyou!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The actual size does not matter, only the used capacity does.

If you have a Mac with a 1 TB HDD and 232 GB of it are used and you have an external HDD with 500 GB capacity, you can use that 500 GB HDD to backup the 1 TB HDD with its 232 GB used.

Time Machine FAQ

 

[ConnYoungy]

Brilliant, thankyou!

 

[designs216]

The larger the TM drive the more incremental backups you'll be able to retrieve. So if you're in a position to fill up your primary, your back up will only hold one copy before TM overwrites.

 

[Le Big Mac]

I personally don't understand the need to keep more than a couple of incremental backups. If my HD/computer dies, all I need is the most recent, and I can't remember ever losing something and not realizing it immediately and being able to get it from the most recent backup.

I use Time Machine Editor to reduce backups to daily, so I don't encounter the problem of not realizing I'm missing something until more than an hour has passed.