Time Machine-I have about 274gb of used space but....

[Imola Ghost]

I only have about 249gb of space hard drive available

I'm only wanted to do a one Time Machine backup so I can completely clean install my MBP and start with a fresh machine.

I don't mind really setting up my computer system preferences and what not. But I want to make sure I get a back up of all of my files, photos, etc.

I sync with MobileMe so my contacts, bookmarks, notes, and calendar is OK without backing it up.

Since I'm new to Time Machine, can someone recommend a few things to exclude for my back up to so that I can get a complete back up since I don't mind the actual setting up of the email, system preferences, etc.

 

[iSimx]

you can set it to not back up the applications, however if I was doing a clean install, I would recommend up backing up the files manually onto the hard drive into separate folders. So that you only back up the files you need and not waste space. Also when you come to restore a time machine backup, I haven't found it to be 100% reliable and it takes forever. In the end, I just looked for the files in the time machine drive rather than restoring a back up.

My back up solution is having a time machine backup, as well as another drive to manually copy over files. Plus an online backup for certain files that aren't big, or very important.