Does time machine wear out drives?

granted that all mechanical devices wear out, but does use of Time Machine with its hourly/daily/weekly backups cause more wear on a drive?
the hourly backups will move more data depending on the work one is doing. The constant backing up is great for data security, how much increased wear does it cause on the drives involved?
thank you!
ray

I have a Mac Pro that I bought in April 2007. I've used the same system drive since I got the machine. Furthermore, I added a second drive to store my music on at the same time. I started using Time Machine in November of 2007 shortly after it came out backing up both drives. Both drives are still chugging along just fine after 5 years. Naturally anything that causes increased reading and/or writing to a hard drive will increase wear and tear. Most modern drives have something like >200,000 hours MTBF (mean time before failure) which is over 20 years of continuous use. That doesn't mean a drive can't fail sooner (I've had drives fail in < 1 year) but as long as you're buying name brand drives and back-up, your data should be well protected.

Similar Messages

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    (70080)

  • If i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?

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    Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
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  • HT3275 Since updating OS to Mountain Lion from leopard, I get the following error message when trying to backup with time machine on external drive.  Could not complete backup to media share.  The network backup disk does not support the required AFP feat

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  • How does time machine back up separate but computers on the same drive

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  • Defrag Time Machine Back Up Drive??

    getwellroad 
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2011 9:50 AM 
    i previously posted this question, but I mistakenly clicked my own comment as the correct answer. i think this makes the thread appear to be finished; so, because i'm still not completely sure what to do, i have attempted to copy and paste the discussion here:Sorry.
    Just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented.  is it wise to do this or should i not??
    Grant Bennet-AlderWest of Boston, USALevel 7 (27,805 points)
    If your backups take a few seconds longer, so what. I say leave it alone.Beige G3, G4/867, G4/dual 1.25 MDD, MacPro'09 w cheap SSD, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier, and 9.2, 10.5 and Server - LW IIg, LW 4/600, ATalk ImageWriter L
    The hatterLevel 8 (42,475 points)
    Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd. Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set. 1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price. I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there. Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB? Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopardhttps://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings.
    getwellroad
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    4th)  Defragmentation (if done frequently) may shorten the life of your drive.  Not mentioned in "3rd" above is that the extra energy used translates into heat, plus you are moving the read/write heads back and forth all of which affect the drives mechanical and electrical components.
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  • Does Time Machine Ever Delete All Traces of a File?

    I have a question.  I have read up on Time Machine on various articles, posts, and documents across the web and I am having a hard time understanding exactly how time machine deletes files.
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    Derek Doublin1 wrote:
    Will Time Macine remove all remaining versions of X.doc to make space for the 10 new files???
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    Most commonly used backup methods

  • Does Time Machine bundle backup sets when it deletes a month's daily sets?

    I'm asking this question to find out if I can delete the all but the last week in a month, each month, in order to extend the useful capacity of my backup drive.
    In some backup systems, a periodic "bundle" is made when previous sets are deleted, so for instance, the last backup of the month has the cumulative hourly changes of that month. In this way, transient files which appear and disappear within the month are retained in the monthly backup.
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    Thanks for any insight!

    I've devised a little experiment to discover Time Machine's behavior in this regard:
    On my Time Machine's backup schedule, August 27 corresponds with the end of a week. So, on August 26 at 9:15AM, I created the following [folder]/file structure:
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       [Time Machine Test - 1. Hourly Transience
          A one hour lifetime file.rtf
       [Time Machine Test - 2. Daily Transience
          A one day lifetime file.rtf
       [Time Machine Test - 3. Weekly Transience
          A one week lifetime file.rtf
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    Hope this is useful. It certainly is to me.

  • Time Machine wiped out all my backups!

    This morning, Time Machine wiped out all my existing Time Machine backups and started a new, full backup of my startup drive.. My Time Machine volume was only half full, and I use TimeMachineEditor to schedule backups once a day instead of every hour. Does anyone know what might have caused this to happen?

    Not helpful. I've been using TimeMachineEditor for years without any problem whatsoever.
    It's true, though... it sounds like something went wrong with Time Machine somewhere, and that's one possibility. Having used it for years without a problem does not mean that trend will continue. There was just an update to that software one week ago, adding Mountain Lion compatibility. Something could have been wrong with the update if you installed it, and if you didn't, you were using it with Mountain Lion without it being compatible.
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  • Time machine says my drive is full, but it's not

    time machine says my drive is full, but it's not. it is a 298 gig external drive with 51 gigs available. my internal drive on my lap top (the one I am backing up) is a 148 gigs with 44 gigs available. the backup folder on the external drive is
    152 gigs.
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    Lisa W wrote:
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    It doesn't, necessarily. We still have no information on what's going on with your situation.
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    Let's be clear: if you'd like some help with this, please answer my previous questions and download and post the messages from the wIdget.

  • HOW DO I GET A TIME MACHINE BACKUP OUT OF TRASH ???

    I know this sounds like a really stupid question because to get things out of trash you just grab them and move them like you do with all the icons. BUT..... I accidentally put a vital  time machine backup in the trash and then  tried to move it back to the external disc and it wanted to go through the rigmarole of 'copying' which doesn't normally happen when you move things out of the trash.
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    There must be a way of getting the thing out of trash and I need it because it has a year old backup on it I urgently need.
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  • Time Machine with 2T drive connected to Airport Extreme base via USB

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