Time Machine: 1TB external for 750gb hd?

[turnstylez18]

Using time machine to back up my 750gb hd on my MBP.

Since I hate having to plug in the power cord for 3.5 hard drives, would a 1tb 2.5 external hard drive work on a 750gb hard drive using time machine?

I currently only use 200gb on it now and backing up with a 500gb external.

I understand the general rule is twice the size but I'm not sure there are external 2.5 hard drives that are more than 1tb.

Opinions? Thanks

 

[ChrisA]

I understand the general rule is twice the size but I'm not sure there are external 2.5 hard drives that are more than 1tb.

I think 1TB is the current limit for 2.5" drives. But as long as you only have 500GB of data to backup you are within your 2X rule.

What keeps me able to follow the 2X rule is that they keep making larger and larger drives. But at some point I will just have to break down and buy a disk array and use RAID for my time machine drive

 

[turnstylez18]

just to clarify:

is it twice the size of the hard drive space you are using? (in my case 200gb)

or

twice the size of the "total" hard drive space on my MBP?? (750gb on my MBP)


technically, I can still use my 500gb external hd?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

A good rule of thumb for Time Machine is to have a drive larger than the one you wish to back up. The more careful among us use a drive twice as big as the drive being backed up, as a poster above me mentioned... but in your case, you should be just fine.