Is external hard drive large enough?

I am new to Time Machine. I currently have an external 750G hard drive that I plan to use with Time Machine. My question is: Is this hard drive large enough to do a system backup? My concern is will this hard drive serve my needs for future backups. I am an average user and don't plan to back up large data files other than photos and music. Also I plan to upgrade to Snow Leopard(OS 10.6).

You might want to review these:
Time Machine Tutorial
Time Machine 101
How to back up and restore your files
Time Machine Features
Apple - Support - Mac OSX v10.5 Leopard Time Machine
and perhaps browse the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
If you have a problem setting-up or using Time Machine, start with the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post a new thread with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.

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    You might have better luck in the Snow Leopard community. I'll ask the hosts to relocate your post.
    10.6 Snow Leopard

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    bump

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    Read carefully to the end, it is not a long text.
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    - for external disks or flash drives intended to smoothly work with Windows, format should be FAT 32 and Master Boot Record; NTFS may be done with an additional utility like NTFS-3G or NTFSmounter

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    Your backup drive has half the capacity of the internal drive. Depending on how much of the iMac's drive is full, the external drive may or may not be sufficient.
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  • How can I use an external hard drive for capturing? I don't have enough mem

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    Hi artdrake
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    Click Here for example/s:
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    (3) G4 PM's/(3) S-Drives/Sony TRV900/Nikons/6FWHD's/PS7/iLife06/FCPHD/DVDSP/etc. Mac OS X (10.4.8) My ichatav AIM account is: SDMacuser1 (Please use Text chat prior to video)

  • Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's

    Every time I try to back up my Macbook Pro with an external hard drive using Time Machine, I receive the error of "the disk does not have enough space". I have a 500GB external hard drive and only 120GB Macbook. It worked fine before the latest Maverick's update. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    My guess would be it has created an entirely new backup of your drive when you upgraded to Mavericks.
    See Here: http://pondini.org/TM/1.html
    And here: http://pondini.org/TM/9.html
    Peruse the whole site. There is a lot of information there.

  • My Lacie external hard drive will not back up on Time Machine. Says there's not enough space. This has happened with every single external I've purchased. Thought TM was supposed to delete old backups??

    My Lacie External backed up on Time Machine after the first back up but now says there's not enough room. I thought TM deleted old back ups to save new versions. What am I doing wrong. This happens to me constantly. Every single external hard drive I've purchased for the MacBook Pro (5 of them) has not worked either initially or at the second back up. It either isn't formatted properly so I have to go to Genius bar to help me set up for the first back up, or after the first back up, it says there's not enough space and I have to go back to Genius Bar. Is there a way I can fix this on my own?

    I just purchased 2 external hardrives. a LaCie Minimus and a G Drive. Each 1 TB. The guy at Apple told me that would provide 2 good TM backups for me. My internal HD has 750 GB capacity, of which I'm using 700 GB. Perhaps the ratio is not great enough. I do wish they would have told me this before I purchased the two Bummmmer! I even had them format and get the first back-ups going because of issues I've had in the past. I also just bought a 750 GB for photos.
    So, I won't be able to buy another bigger external since I've just purchased 3. Ugh. Well, I'll just exclude some files and divide things up. Eventually, I just want my 20,000 iphotos on one of the 1TB externals, and a TM back-up on another so that iphoto will function once more. It really hates how many photos I have and is brutally punishing me for it.I seriously need to do some housecleaning!
    Thanks for the advice. Just moved from US to Australia last week and was hoping to upload a few photos and the domino effect has lead me to this. Just went to Genius Bar in Perth today and they told me how to reformat drive to transfer iphoto library over, but I got stuck at trying to back-up my TM.

  • If you delete a large file from the mac hard drive does it also remove it from time machine on external hard drive

    if you delete a large file from the mac hard drive does it also delete it from time machine on the external hard drive ?

    As the others say, no, the backup copy won't be deleted immediately, but it will eventually.
    If you want to delete all backups of a selected item, such as for space or security reasons, see #12 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • When I try to import, I receive the following message: "An internal error has occurred: not enough memory".  I always download my photos onto an external hard drive.

    Yesterday,I downloaded an update for Lightroom 5.  Now when I try to import, I receive the following message: "An internal error has occurred: not enough memory".  The message comes up right after I click import, before I choose a file to upload.Here is the information I can think of that might be needed to answer this question:
    - I always download my photos onto an external hard drive.It is about 10 % full.
    - It says I have Lightroom 5.6  64 bit
    - I am working from a newer laptop (Windows).  The internal drive on the laptop has 289 gb and I am using 61 gb total memory.
    - I have edited 2794 photos in Lightroom and it is all in one catalog.
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    Adrianne

    Not Enough Memory typically refers to RAM.  How much RAM do you have on your 64-bit OS computer?  Do you have other programs running that may be using most of the memory?

  • I moved files off my computer to an external hard drive now time machine won't back up like it used to.  It says there is not enough room.

    My hard drive was completely full (mostly with pictures) so I moved several years worth of photos from the hard drive to an external hard drive I regularly use with the laptop. (Basically my master copies of all my photos back to 1997)  I have always had Time Machine set up to back up both the laptop AND that external drive.  It's always worked seamlessly until I moved those files.  Time Machine has been full for a while now and regularly gives me a message that the oldest files will be deleted.  That's fine. 
    I don't understand why moving files from the laptop to the external hd would now cause the following message (not an exact quote): Time Capsule cannot complete backup.  You need 233 gb to backup and time capsule only has 107 gb available. If time capsule was already set to backup up both the laptop and the external hd, why would moving those photos from one hd to the other cause a space issue?  It should equal out.   And now when I look at the files on the time capsule, it only shows me a recent backup and a partial incomplete backup.  None of the older backups are visible anymore. I have not deleted anything directly from the time capsule so I'm thinking somehow the index got damaged.  How can I fix this?  The error message says to change the settings but I really don't know what settings to change.  Help!!

    It does not immediately delete the files that are missing.. it merely tries to backup the new files it has discovered on the external drive. Since you moved the files there, the backup at least for a while will contain both copies.. and that is why it doesn't have enough space to backup.
    Fixing the problem.. hmm pondini is the expert.. you should be able to delete the backup of the photos in existing backup.. there are instructions to do it.. but it is a very poor way to do things.
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    The alternative is to use the USB drive as a new target.. but it is much slower than the TC internal drive.
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  • Can't download iOS 5 to my old iPhone 4 - I get an error message saying I don't have enough space on my computer, but I know that I do.  How can upload successfully?  Or can I hook up an external hard drive to ENSURE I have enough space? If so, how?

    I just tried to download the new iOS 5 software during my sync with iTunes on my computer to my iPhone 4, however, I got an error message saying that I did not have enough space on my computer to continue (even though I am pretty sure I do).  It offered me the choice of deleting much of the media on my iPhone in order to continue, which of course I declined.
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    Why, if it told you you have insufficient space on your computer, would it suggest making more space available on your phone?
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