How much extra space does time machine need to backup a 512gig drive?

... in practice, how big does my backup drive need to be for 512gig primary drive?
I know time machine does "snap shots". I can imagine this takes extra space over and above 512gig.
What's your experience here?
Thanks

Web Wizard wrote:
Any other solutions to this quandary?
Yes, go with a smaller drive and be content to have oldest backups deleted more often.
If you don't need hourly backups, you can get a smaller disk and clone with SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner. You can schedule a backup nightly, if that enough.
The advantage of having a clone is that it is bootable in case you run into trouble on your internal, you can boot from the external and keep right on working until you have the time to fix it. You can also run repair programs from that disk.
-mj

Similar Messages

How much space does Time Machine need?

My computer's hard drive is 100 GB, so I created a 100 GB partition on my external hard drive for Time Machine, before I really understood how it worked. Of course, I eventually got a message saying it was out of room. If I understand correctly, Time Machine will continue to back up changed files, but it can no longer maintain a complete series. Rather, it will be forced to delete older backups to make room for newer.
Anyway, do you think a 200 GB partition would be big enough? Or does it simply depend on how much work you do on your computer (or how many files you change and how big they are)?
I'm thinking of reformatting my 500 GB external hard drive into five partitions...
100 GB for cloned copy of my hard drive
200 GB for Time Machine
Three other partitions for quickly backing up and/or storing websites, graphics, music and things that take up too much space on my computer.
I still don't see a tremendous need for Time Machine, as I very, very seldom go searching for lost files. However, I suspect there may be occasions when it might come in handy.
Thanks.

Really depends how much stuff you do, how many files you change each day, how much stuff lands on your computer for a few days then is deleted (for example I have several GB of photos on my Mac for a few days until I do some work on them and drop them on the company server, so I have lots of stuff getting backed up into Time Machine that doesn't even stay on my Mac)... It doesn't hurt to have a backup of them locally in case something goes wrong on the company server...
So what I'm saying is, it totally depends on what you do with your Mac... I've got a 120GB drive, getting backed up to a 500GB drive, and I figure that gives me a year or two of not having to think about it. Drives are so cheap now you are best to just go a bit bigger for the convenience of letting it backup everything..

Does time machine need a dedicated external hard drive or can I partition it?

I am trying to figure out the best way to back up my husband's computer. He has too much data so I need to get about 80 GB off his computer on to an external drive and then need to back that up as well. Right now I have two external drives one dedicated to time machine and one that backs up as a carbon copy bootable backup. I think both external drives are 500GB, but he is on the computer and I don't want to fuss with having him get off right now. I ordered an additional external drive so I have some where for his 80 GB of his data. I can take one of the external drives currently used for time machine and partition it (mac OS journaled) and use one of the parts for time machine and the other for the 80 GB of data. Will this affect our ability to get data off of time machine in the event his 5 year old hard drive dies? The 80 GB of data includes important photos, so I would like them in two places. I would consider cloud, but he is running Leopard and I know that iCloud only works with Lion.

Thanks to everyone for all your opinions and thanks to baltwo for this TM FAQ website. Before asking this question, I browsed the internet and some people advised that a hard drive needed to be dedicated. It seems now that if I partition the external drive and have a big enough drive that I should be ok.

IPhoto DVD Burn, How much extra space is needed?

I did a few tests, and each time, I found the same result.
If I filled a disc (DVD or CD) to nearly capacity, iPhoto couldn't burn the disc, saying that there was an error. When I burn a 4.7 gig DVD to 4.0 gigs, the disc burns successfully. How much 'extra' space do I need to leave for iPhoto to burn correctly?
TIA

Benson:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. What you're running into it the disparity between what iPhoto reports as the size of the select photos and what it needs to burn an iPhoto disk. As you know there's a big difference. Check the iPhoto Library folder size in the Finder and compare that to what iPhoto indicates when you click on the main library icon. The difference will be all the thumbnails, original files, modified files, data and database files. My test library is 74 via iPhoto and 98MB via the finder. That's a lot of overhead.
I guess I would keep the iPhoto reported size to about 4.2G max. when burning to a DVD disk. Of course it would vary depending on the number of edited photos are in the batch you selected.

45 minutes into editing, CS3 crashes every time...how much free space does it require to run?

I have noted the error, but cannot contact Adobe with question. How much free space does it need to run efficiently? This happens every time I try to edit and is costing me so much time, it is not worth using this product. Help...

Hi,
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing this problem. First, I would need to know what kind of computer you use. You should usually alllocate at least 30% of storage for photoshop files, rendering etc.
Also, it is important to know if you have a computer that is capable of handling large files(as they will need a competent video card processor, RAM and processor speed).
Does the problem usually happen for large files or only one?
Let me know if you find this information useful,
Vicente.

How much free space does a 4GB ipod need?

why does it keep saying i dont have enough free space? i already decreased the space to 3.85 GB, and its still saying i dont have enough free space. how much free space does it need?

This is more likely a matter of Apple specifying 4G as 4,000,000,000 byte rather than 41024*10241024 byte like your computer counts.
Using the "1000 notation", your 3.85GB would require 4.1GB. Try trimming your library down a bit more (to around 3.7G). I don't have my Nano yet, so I cannot verify if the device actually uses any of those "4G" for things other than storing your data.

Finding out how much root space does each app take...

Hello! I was wondering if there is a way to find out how much root space does each installed app take, like a X-terminal command or something? Just want to figure out if i have some "non-optified" programmes (I believe this is the right term, but could very well be wrong) Cheers
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Thaaaaats better
Wow.. MC is a freaking space hog! 5meg of root space
libmagic is interesting.. not sure what needs that.. it's used by software to tell what file type a file is.. it can look at a jpeg, for example and tell you it is a jpg.. clever stuff really (it doesn't use the file extension like windows) so I assume this is possibly midnight commander too..
Out of all the extra packets you've installed, they're using 19,184,792 bytes of root space.. 18meg..
5meg is midnight commander, 3 meg is QT3 support (not sure why you have that) and another 1.3meg is libmagic and 2 meg is some Python stuff..
Killing off midnight commander would free some space... (why this isn't on /opt, I don't know) but realistically you've not used too much.. you should be fine!
---edit---
I finished re-reading your post, not just the log file.. HA!! The funny thing is, doing this command line stuff is second nature to me.. I frequently do it in my sleep The N900 is therefore the ideal phone for someone of this disposition.. I need to find out blah statistics.. erm.. COMMAND LINE
If you want to wander down such a particularly perverse path, I'm happy to help out and newbieness is always forgiven
But it just shows what you can get away with using nothing more than litterally a few command line commands! pretty neat really!

If I want to create an empty PDF file how much disk space does it require?

I want to creat empty PDF document of A4 size. How much disk space does it require ?
Please let me know.

I think I would have just tried, and probably already have my answer...

How much disk space does Mac OS 10.9.2 take?

How much disk space does Mac OS 10.9.2 take?

5.3 gb if you are upgrading from a lower version of OS X. If you already have 10.9 and update to 10.9.2 it is about 900 mb.

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

if i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?
I just moved my itunes off my macbook pro because it was taking up too much space and put it on an external hard drive. i have a second external hard drive that i use for time machine. when i update time machine next will my itunes files be removed from the backup since they are no longer on my internal hard drive (what time machine backs up?) basically, i want to make sure i have a second copy of my itunes besides the one on my first external hard drive and i was wondering if time machine will still have all of that data (on the second external hard drive).
i cant find this answer anywhere!!! thanks so much!!!

Check to see whether or not it's excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
(63157)

Does time machine do incrementals backups or full backups each time?

does time machine do incremental backups or full backups each time? in other words, is it only backing up changes or everything that itis told to backup?

+is it only backing up changes or everything that it is told to backup?+
Time Machine makes physical copies of new and changed files for each backup but it just establishes hard links to files previously backed up that still exist on the source rather than making new copies of them.
This Ars Technica article explains how the hard links work.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14

I have a power pc (g5) computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

I have a Power PC G5 computer that I will soon be replacing with a current i5 or i7 Mini. How do I transfer the Time Machine files from the internal hard drive on the G5 to an external drive that I will later use with the Mini?

Hi, likely the easiest is to just poll the drive & get something like this...
Get MacScan...
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking_security/macscan.html
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/U3NVSPATA/
But if you have a good external drive already, just clone it.
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/

How much hdd space does mac os take up?

This is an odd question, but I'm going to be getting a mac book soon. I'm going to school to be an audio engineer and I want to get a mac so that I can run pro-tools easily. I'm looking at getting an 80gig hdd, but I'm not sure it will be enough. So I wanted to see if anyone could tell me how much disc space is taken up by mac os. So, if you have a mac book with a 80g hdd, how much hdd space was actually available when you turned it on for the first time?

Hi Daniel -
First off your 80G is going to be a few gig less because that's the reality of any drive. The base install of Tiger is around 3-4Gig. If I were you (and I believe most here would second this) I'd do a 'Custom' install and install only the application you know you are going to use. You can also delete language packs that you'll never need and printer drivers as well.
Your Macbook comes fully loaded out of the box ....play around with thing to see what you like and what you might need - then do a clean install tailored to you liking.
Depending on what you do with your audio - a bigger drive can be handy, but then an external drive may be a better choice to both record to and store info on.
80Gig may sound smallish compared to todays drives - but I think you'll have a hard time filling it up unless you start working with lots of video/graphic information.

How much disk space does a typical system start up disk use?

I am trying to partition a 640 GB hard drive for my 17" MacBook Pro. I created a partition of 30GB for the "System Start Up Disk", and after installing the original Tiger OSX software, and then doing the Leopard Upgrade Install, It says that I am out of disk space on that partition.
Does anyone know how much disk space is sufficient for a typical System Start-Up Disk?
How about disk space for Applications?

molinasky wrote:
I am trying to partition a 640 GB hard drive for my 17" MacBook Pro. I created a partition of 30GB for the "System Start Up Disk", and after installing the original Tiger OSX software, and then doing the Leopard Upgrade Install, It says that I am out of disk space on that partition.
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
Why do you want to partition that disk?
Does anyone know how much disk space is sufficient for a typical System Start-Up Disk?
When not booted from that drive (meaning, I believe, that it's not allocating swap or page space) my OS X 10.5 system uses 68.4 GB, including 10 GB for applications, 2.5 GB for the Developer folder, and 25.5 GB for user folders.

Does Time machine need its own drive exclusively?

Hello,
I want to buy a thunderbolt duo drive from Western digital or use in my MBA. Is it possible to use this drive for time machine purpose as well as normal external drive for itunes and jpegs?
Does this work or does time machine an external drive exclusively?
Thanx in advance

Time Machine will eventually take up all the free space on the partition it's backing up to. In addition, having your backups on the same drive as the original data won't help when that drive fails.
(70080)

How much extra space does time machine need to backup a 512gig drive?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for