hi. just interested in what you all think on this topic, in "xx times the hdd capacity?" How much do you recommend? 5 times the hdd of the mac? 6? 7?
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Recommended Time Machine Size?
- Thread starter raymondu999
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It depends more on how much drive space you actually use. I can use my 120 GB drive for Time Machine to backup my 320 GB internal.
I'm only using 75 GB of space.
I'm only using 75 GB of space.
If you want to be able to go back in your 'time machine' six or seven years then yes, get one six or seven times larger than your internal drive. For most normal people 50 or 60 gigs more than your internal drive should be fine.
Oh, and there's another thing I don't get. Does Time Machine only have 1 full backup and the rest are incremental? So let's take for example a 250GB MBP, and it has, say, 120GB used. How far back can a 250gb portable do time machine?
I've got a 500GB Time capsule and a 160GB drive in my MBP. I'm using 47GB on both. By the time the TC fills up, I figure ACTUAL time travel will be available to me.
The other thing that might be a consideration is whether you're backing up the entire the entire system or just the home folder, which contains the files that are the hardest to replace. That's what I chose to do after I got the idea from this book on macs and Leopard. It says:
I found this very helpful since it meant I could buy a smaller external drive than I would have otherwise, which was important as I wasn't yet sure I would use this feature and wanted to pay just enough for it to run well and do its job should it be needed (god forbid, lol), but no more <shrug>. that said, if I bought another mac today, I would get a big monster to back up the whole thing if it wasn't astronomically expensive, because it is a real neat feature! But tbh, if you can think of even one thing you could use the money you save for, best to go with just home folder backups and use the money saved for a smaller drive for that other thing.
I found this very helpful since it meant I could buy a smaller external drive than I would have otherwise, which was important as I wasn't yet sure I would use this feature and wanted to pay just enough for it to run well and do its job should it be needed (god forbid, lol), but no more <shrug>. that said, if I bought another mac today, I would get a big monster to back up the whole thing if it wasn't astronomically expensive, because it is a real neat feature! But tbh, if you can think of even one thing you could use the money you save for, best to go with just home folder backups and use the money saved for a smaller drive for that other thing.
heh. What happens if your future self tries to prevent your past self from deleting files that you know you will need to retrieve a few years down the line? You're not supposed to go back to a time when you were alive you know, 'cos it messes things up, lol