Ideal Drive Size for TM Back Ups

I have a new iMac with 250GB hard drive, recently we have been receiving notifications that the 140GB external drive used for TM is full, and we are only getting 5 days of Back Up.
Could someone advise what is the Ideal size BU drive for Time Machine? I think I would like to have a least 30-45 days worth of Back up maintained. I am looking a purchasing a new external to put TM onto.
Any advice on Firwire vs. USB?
Thanks.
MK

Is this a home setup, or a business setup?
Do you have TM configured for full backups each run (default), or have you configured it to backup only selected folders? That will make a huge difference in the size of each backup.
I forget if TM supports incremental and/or differential backups.
Differentials/incrementals only BU files that have been modified since the last backup. Obviously a space saving method.
If it does not support dif/inc, then to get 30 days of backup, you need to calculate the total size of the folders you are are backing up and multiply by 30.
That'll be a rough estimate of your minimum drive size.
However, best practice says you should store backups off site. (If something takes out your system, it may also take out your connected BU device as well)
A lot can happen in 30 days, so you may want to consider rotating backup media on a periodic basis - meaning you'll need at least 2 devices. The unused device needs to be stored somewhere other than in the computer room.
Since the backup period will be shorter, the size of the device can be decreased.

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Ideal Drive size for Time Machine?

Hi:
I've been clearing out some space on 2 Lacie external drives (250 GB each) for Time Machine to use as its destination drive. 2 things are clear.
1. There's not enough space on either of these (even after trashing some stuff)
2. It seems like a wiser course of action to buy a third drive, dedicated to backup purposes. It won't be accessed unless I need to do a restore kind of operation with my MBP, unlike my other external drives which I do access regularly.
Anyway, I was thinking that a 500 GB external drive would be the ideal size to use. Thats pretty big, and the cost is dirt cheap these days. At the moment, I have 124 GB of space remaining on my MBP drive, so that may help determine what size of backup drive I need.
Thanks,
Michael Stryker

I'll give you my real world experiance. I have a MBP with 160GB, with 123GB committed (8GB free) to OS X and the rest to Vista.
I have an external 500GB Maxtor USB 2 drive I use for TimeMachine, Vista and SuperDuper!, partitioned to give 300GB to TimeMachine.
I've used TimeMachine since October 29th, and I have about 23GB of the 300GB free -- so you should be fine with a 500GB drive dedicated to TimeMachine.

Time capsule vs. External hard drive for periodic back-ups

Hope this is the right forum. At home I have the old "Back-Up" program that I use for quarterly back ups of certain files as scheduled. Love it. Was gonna set that up on our new(er) Macs here at work only to discover that program was replaced by Time Machine. Time Machine won't let me even in to see how it works without a Time Capsule or other External Hard Drive to connect to...
What I'm trying to do: Schedule monthly (or quarterly) back-ups for settings, certain important files and possibly certain programs from 4 office computers (3 iMacs and 1 Powerbook). Would love to back up to Mobile Me but can't seem to figure out how (Time Machine certainly won't let me). But then want to store the backups either online (like Mobile Me) or in a fire safe...
What I'm looking at: Possible options I've thought of include DVDs (which is really impractical), a 32 GB flash drive (but only would know how to get certain files on there), an external hard drive or a time capsule. But if I get either of those we'd only want to use it once a month and then keep it in the fire safe. Now I know Time Capsule is designed to do regular (daily, weekly, etc) backups... but can I use it to select what is backed up only at certain times and how hard/easy is it to plug in and out if I'm doing it that way. Or would it simply be better for what I'm looking for to get some other external hard drive?
I'm not very good at backing up info - but have to be responsible to at work (plus my brother just had a fire and he lost all his computers and info)... so simply not sure what is best suited for my needs?

Mongul Sec wrote:
At home I have the old "Back-Up" program that I use for quarterly back ups of certain files as scheduled.
Where has your "Back-Up" program been writing those backups?
What I'm trying to do: Schedule monthly (or quarterly) back-ups for settings, certain important files and possibly certain programs from 4 office computers (3 iMacs and 1 Powerbook).
Can you really afford to lose a month's worth of work on those computers?
What I'm looking at: Possible options I've thought of include DVDs (which is really impractical), a 32 GB flash drive (but only would know how to get certain files on there), an external hard drive or a time capsule. But if I get either of those we'd only want to use it once a month and then keep it in the fire safe.
In that case I'd use an external disk drive. Time Machine isn't really intended for what you want to do.

Maximum hard drive size for 350 MHz slot loading?

Hello,
What is the maximum hard drive size for a 350 MHz slot loading imac?
I am aware of a 128 GB limit on imacs. Does the 128 GB hard drive limit apply to all imac CRTs or just the earlier models?
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Yes, the last CRT iMac was in 2001. The first machines with built-in greater than 127 GB support were released in June 2002, as this article explains:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86178
So all CRT iMacs have that limiation.
http://support.apple.com/specs/imac/
The 8 GB limit is explained here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106235

Ideal file size for photos

If I am making photo albums in iWeb, what is the ideal file size for the photo file?
My camera now is 7 megapixel, so the original file sizes are about 3 MB, obviously that'll be very slow to load.
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In case this is a factor, the typical album I make would have about 40 - 50 photos.
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If you are importing your photos directly from iPhoto to iWeb, they will be scaled down to a max dimension of 800x600. If you are using a photo template page or making a gallery page using the following method...
http://www.mac.com/web/en/Blog/013C4180-4787-4847-BAAB-319222AFC652.html
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Seth

For now, the nearest available information may not be fully suggestive of
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Since a similar-spec Time Capsule has the option for either a 2TB or 3TB
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Hi - from the research I have done, there is a BUG in the OS. A solution is to boot with an older version of OS X and format the drive with the version of disk utlity on the older OS, or yank out the drive and put it in one of those 'drive toaster' type devices and format it EXTERNALLY. The problem seems to be localized when it's formatted with the drive INSIDE the MacPro.
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Hello to all,
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Hi All
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Matt

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Max Hard Drive size for Ultra 10s

Hi,
I'm kinda new to sun and I have a ultra 10s with a 9 Gig factory installed HD.
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I'm not sure what the max drive size supported on an Ultra-10, but most
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Max disk drive size for dv7-6187cl

what is the maximum disk drive size? I have one failing (still under warranty) but I might want ot upgrade to a 2TB mobile drive. Does anyone know if this laptop will support anything larger than the 750GB drives that came with it?

Hi,
My dv7 has 2 HDD's each is 1TB in size.
Hope this helps.
BH
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Maximum external Hard Drive size for Airport Disk?

Is there a maximum size for the hard drive that's being connected to the USB port on the new Airport Extremes?
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Ideal Drive Size for TM Back Ups

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