Optimum external HD size -- is there a ratio for Time Machine performance.

Due to the needs of Time Machine, I will need to purchase more external HD. I own one, a Maxtor 500G networked. Like it a lot, very reliable, not a true server but handy for everyone to use. Won't work for Time Machine, however. So, what I'd like to determine is what I should do for for each Mac in the house.
(2) MacBooks with 160G capacity, approximately 110G in use (they're teenagers afterall)
1 iMac w/ 500G capacity, two users (separate iPhoto, iTunes folders) and 151GB in use. Also, as there are two users with backup needs, should I partition the External in half?
Is there a handy ratio to use from the Apple folks?

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HT201250 Can I partition my external hard drive and use one partion for time machine and the other one for data that i may want to use in different computers?

I have this doubt. I've just bought an external drive, especifically a Seagate GoFlex Desk 3 tb.
I want to know if it is recomendable to make a partion exclusively for time machine and let another one so I can put there music, photos, videos, etc that I should need to use or copy to another computer.
May half and half, 1.5 tb for time machine and 1.5 tb for data.
I have an internal hard drive of 500 GB (499.25 GB) in my macbook pro.
Any recommendation?

As I said, yes. Be sure your Time Machine partition has at least 1 TB for backups.
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two (2). Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Ideal size of back-up drive for Time Machine

Hi there,
I have decided to start using Time Machine after using SuperDuper for years.
A couple of questions.
How big a drive should I use? I currently have a 250GB internal, with about 180GB in use. Is a 320GB external drive big enough?
Can you partition a bigger drive only for time machine? If so, how big should I make the partition given the size of my internal drive and the amount of space I'm using?
All help is greatly appreciated.
-Matt

aberlin wrote:
but i got about 4 TB attached to my mac that i would all like to be backed up. so far i have been using ChronoSync… but with a purchase of a new iMac plus a 2TB time capulse i wonder how to get 4GB backed up by TimeMachine… can a Time Capuse Join Together connected drives as one backup volume ?
No.
or can i join multiple local drives for TimeMachine to backup onto ?
Yes, you can make a "concatenated RAID set," also known as a JBOD ("Just a bunch of disks") that is treated as a single volume, and use it for TM backups. See Disk Utility's Help for instructions.
That may not be your best solution, though. If any one of those disks fail, you may lose all your backups. And the initial backup will take a very long time.
Depending on what's on the various drives, you might want to use Time Machine to your Time Capsule for your boot volume, and perhaps some others with data that changes frequently.
If you have a lot of fairly static data on some of those other drives, however, it might make sense to back them up separately, and less frequently, to locally-attached disk(s) via another app.
That would also give you the option of disconnecting the externals and moving your Mac around the house but still back it up wirelessly, as long as it's in range of your TC.

New External Drive how do I set it for Time Machine?

I just bought a new 250g firewire to back up my hard drive - I formatted it and it's ok and all but I want to use it to back up my entire hard drive.
I thought I was supposed to make a Disk Image?? but browsing these forums it seems I was supposed to designate it for Time Machine? I didn't know that. Can I still do that? If so what do I do? and how do I do it?
also what is disk image? I thought that was supposed to be the back up feature -
and if anyone else knows and I'm allowed more questions - I really wanted to install Final Cut Studio Pro on the external drive because apparently it ***** up disk space like a --- -well you know ----- - but it says it has to be on my regular drive - does that mean I have to uninstall some programs? can I set other software to work off the external or am I going to have the same problem?
I'm so ******!! I bought the 120 g drive thinking it was enough to run programs off of and use the other for data storage - apparently not!
I'm about 10 gigs short right now and that doesn't even count leaving something for extra space.
I'm in a time crunch too - ok who isn't I know - but really - I'm on vaca now and was supposed to be working on my projects but instead am babysitting this freakin' computer and am really getting ******!!
so anyone that can jump in here and help please do so. I appreciate it very much am used to windows machines am new to mac in case that wasn't already blatantly apparent!

No disc image is required. Prepare the drive as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Connect the drive to a Firewire port. Open Time Machine preferences and select the drive as the TM backup drive and turn on TM.
If you use the external drive for backups you should not use it for installing applications or storing other files. It should be used as a dedicated backup drive. If you need additional storage space get another external drive.
See Disk Image for discussion of what a disc image is.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Backup and Restore.
Hopefully the next vacation you go on you will prepare for more thoroughly in advance. And, don't swear at the computer - it's a machine and only does what you tell it to do. If you need to swear at something look in the mirror!

What size HDD do you need for Time Machine is it the size of iMac HDD?

Ok, looking to buy iMac, to use Time machie do you need the same size HDD that is in your iMac? ie Im looking at getting the 250Gb iMac, so do I need a 250Gb external HDD to use time machine?
I plan to also get a NAS drive so can time machine be used with this or do you need n external HDD attached direct to the iMac all the time to use time machine?
cheers

the loc-man wrote:
so you can pick and choose what backup? eg Music, Pics, Docs, emails etc?
Yes you can choose everything or just parts.
does it compress stuff though to utilize the space better?
No, look here for more detail. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html
its not like a ghost image?
Not that I know of.
so if the iMac had to be re-installed could you then reconnect the Time machine HDD and restore everything?
You could insert the Leopard disk and instead of doing a new install you could restore directly from the Time Machine Back Up. This depends on if you do a full back up or just parts of your system. Either way it is easy to recover your system using Time Machine.
Also if the external HDD is used for time machine is that all it can be used for? or can you also use it on other computers both Mac and PC?
It is best if you use Time Machine on a partition by itself. Then the other partition can be used for normal stuff.

Is there a solution for Time Machine error?

I got an error in Time Machine saying backup had failed, a couple of days ago. Spent the next day or two trawling the web and found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution.
(At least, some people had a solution - they were using PC-formatted hard drives.)
I've been using Time Machine for a few weeks, and it has only now taken a dislike to my external hard drive, which is connected by FireWire.
Is there a solution to this problem, or should I revert to using SuperDuper, which I was using successfully before?
I haven't put in lots of information about the apps I'm running, because this is a general query rather than a specific one. If there's a solution, I'll use it; otherwise I'll wipe the drive and go back to using SuperDuper.

OisinOg wrote:
Pondini - Thank you for your slightly hostile reply.
On the contrary. The statement was: +"found thousands of postings from people with the same error, but no solution."+ I don't know where you found thousands of posts -- there are many here, but certainly not thousands. If you're talking about, say, a Google search, if you actually look at them, many are duplicates, unrelated to your problem, or unrelated to Macs at all -- and there are a number of solutions that seem to have fixed many of the real ones.
The error message was the standard one: "Time Machine Error - Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup directory."
There's most likely another, better message in your logs. Thus the suggestion about Time Machine Buddy. You can also use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Click on Show Log List, then navigate in the sidebar to your system.log (or system.log.0.bz2, etc. for previous ones). You can filter for backupd to get the same TM messages as the widget, but I prefer to view the full log at the date/time in question, as messages from other concurrent processes may have a clue.
I've gone through the suggestions in some of the helpful replies to those thousands of postings, by wiping my drive, erasing it and reformatting it, first in two partitions using the GUID method in Disk Utility, then in a single partition. But Time Machine still doesn't want to back up to it.
Sounds a bit like a problem communicating with the drive. The logs may clarify that.
The hard drive of my computer is 250GB; the external drive is 300GB. Both are SATA drives; the external is connected by FireWire.
How full are they?
Thanks for your suggestion of downloading the Time Machine Buddy widget; I'll give it a last try tonight.
What is the difference between a SuperDuper clone and a Time Machine backup?
The initial backup of both copies almost everything on your HD, excluding only some caches, temp files, etc., although you can exclude other things. This takes quite a while, of course. Thereafter, only the items that changed are backed-up.
SuperDuper (and CarbonCopyCloner, which I use, and other, similar apps) are most often used to make bootable "clones" identical copies of your HD -- if your HD fails, you can boot and run from them immediately. With TM, once your HD is repaired/replaced, you restore your system to it from your TM backup.
Score one for the clones, but TM has it's advantages, too (which is why many of us run both).
First is, CCC and SD look at every file and folder on your HD to see what changed. This is quite time-consuming and CPU-intensive, so most of us run it once a day (or less often), usually automatically at, say, 3 am. TM, however, runs hourly, but uses an internal File System Event Log of changes, so it is far quicker and less intrusive. There are exceptions, but most users rarely even notice the backups unless they see the icon revolving. On my small system, for example, TM rarely runs over 30 seconds; CCC is at least 15 minutes.
Second, not only does TM keep previous versions of changed files, but it manages the space and backups for you. It keeps those hourly backups for 24 hours; except the first of the day becomes a daily backup which is kept for a month; one per week becomes a weekly backup that is kept for as long as there's space (it will fill the drive/partition). But it's smart enough, as it deletes the old weeklies, that it won't delete it's copy of anything that still exists on your HD.
There isn't room to have two 250GB sections on a 300GB drive. I suppose I could get another 250GB drive - I have an IDE enclosure somewhere - but I don't fancy the expense right now.
Your CCC or SD partition only needs to be as large as your HD, although in a pinch it only needs to be somewhat larger than what's actually used on your HD. If you don't have room for both on the one drive, an even better solution might be to get a pair of smaller portable HDs for CCC/SD. Use one daily for, say, a week, then take it to your safe deposit box, workplace, relative's house, etc. and start with the other. Now you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lightning strike on your power lines, etc.

Using External HD connected to Airport to use for Time Machine - Problems

Hello,
I have an Airport Extreme (1 USB port on back) and want to use an external HD as the Time Machine. Originally I had the HD connected to the Airport and just using as storage. We have 2 Macbook Pros and both could see this HD when used this way.
I have since decided to use the HD as a dedicated Time Machine storage device (my MacBook crashed). I was instructed to reformat HD (which I did) and plug into each laptop to initialize the Time Machine (which I did). Both laptops saw the HD and did a backup.
Unfortunately when I went and plugged the HD back into the Airport it was not reconized by either laptop and I could not initialize Time Machine (TM did not "see" the HD as the storage device.
I can still plug the HD into each laptop and it will do a backup but would like to get this conected so it is automatic.
Both laptops have Snow Leopard installed
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thx
Jim

Sorry, the older "round" (looks like a flying saucer) AirPort Extreme cannot support a hard drive. It will only support a compatible printer at the USB port.
You need the "square" AirPort Extreme to be able to connect a hard drive at the USB port. It looks like this AirPort Extreme. Or, do you mean to say that you have this model?
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Transferred external hardrive - is it sfae to use for time machine?

My previous PC crashed but i managed to save the hard drive and have copied it to an external hard rive. i have now pulled all this on to my new mac. Has anyone had any problems with using stuff on it, i now have office for mac do that sorts out all my office stuff. I want to now use the external hard rive as my time machine back up but am a little nervous of formatting it. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Phil

See #5 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).

Can external drive connected to TC be used for Time Machine?

My 1 TB TC is running out of space and I can't afford the 2TB version. It's much cheaper to buy a 2 TB drive and plug it into the USB port on the TC, but before I do so, can someone savvy tell me if I will be able to select the drive connected to the TC as a Time Machine backup drive?

disconnekt wrote:
Thank you for this answer, and for that very helpful link. I can see that the Archive feature will not be practical for everyday backups,
Right.
so I'll have to find another solution...
See Kappy's post on Basic Backup, complete with links to the web sites of each product. You might also want to investigate Chrnosync: I've seen some posts that it can back up a network drive, but don't know if that's true.
Basically, if you run out of space on the TC's internal drive and decide to repurpose it for storing data, you have to be OK with not having that data backed up. I don't get this decision on the part of Apple—maybe they want me to shell out $400+ for a new 2TB TC?
Doubtful. Backing-up network drives, especially to another network drive, would be even slower and less reliable, and not something most Mac users would want to do. And even if you got a 2 TB, Time Machine still couldn't back up a network drive.
And they won't let you use a hard drive connected to Airport Extreme for TM backups either, which I'm guessing is another ploy to pry more dollars from our hands.
Now, don't be paranoid! They don't prevent it, but they don't support it, either. Some of us do it anyway, but it's generally not especially reliable, so we make sure to always have secondary backups. Nobody here can say why they don't support it, but unreliability sounds like a pretty good reason.

External hard drive partition for Time Machine wont mount

I have an external HD that I've partitioned half for Time Machine, and half for external storage. Today the Time Machine partition wouldn't show up on the desktop. I checked Disk Utility and it recognizes both partitions, but the Time Machine partition is greyed out. When I selected it, in the stat list at the bottom it said "Mount Point: Not Mounted." I then clicked on "Mount" at the top, and after a bit a popup told me it couldn't mount and I should attempt to repar the disk. So I clicked "Repair Disk," and after a while, I finally got the message "Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
Why is only one partition affected? Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched? Are there any other options before I do this?
One other item that is probably related: I've been having an issue with a flash drive that seems to constantly unmount itself, giving me "error, disk ejected improperly" messages. Earlier today I believe I had the same thing with my external HD.

Why is only one partition affected?
The drive malfunction that caused the problem only affected that partition.
Can I reformat one petition but leave the other untouched?
Yes.
Are there any other options before I do this?
This is not an option, it's mandatory: start a new backup on another drive. The one you have has lost data once already. If it were mine, it would be in the recycling bin now. You need more than one backup to be safe anyway. Apparently you have no backups at all of the data on the other partition. That means you're going to lose that data, sooner or later.

Using External Hard Drive For Time Machine

Hi. I will be buying a new iMac and plan to use an external hard drive by Lacie for Time Machine backups. I haven't used an external hard drive for this purpose before -- previously I've always used Apple's Time Capsule. So, I don't know if I can leave the Lacie hard drive unejected and powered on even when I've shut the computer down. The Time Capsule never needs ejecting from the desktop and is always on, but I'm not sure if the same can be done with an external hard drive when using it for time machine backups.
So, I just need to know if, when using an external hard drive such as a Lacie for Time Machine backups, I can 1. leave it unejected even when I shut down the computer? and 2. Can I also leave the hard drive powered on even when I shut the computer down? It would be good if I could do this because then it would just always be on and ready for hourly time machine backups without my having to remember to turn it on and the eject it when it's finished for the day.
I'd appreciate any advice or information.
Thanks in advance.
John

pulp3au wrote:
1. leave it unejected even when I shut down the computer?
What are you referring with "unejected"? You should know that LaCie drives have got three modes: "On" (permanently turned on), "Auto" (when you turn off your computer, your external disk turns off or you unmount it) and "Off". Choose the one you want.
pulp3au wrote:
2. Can I also leave the hard drive powered on even when I shut the computer down? It would be good if I could do this because then it would just always be on and ready for hourly time machine backups without my having to remember to turn it on and the eject it when it's finished for the day.
Of course. You can leave the external disk turned on when your Mac is turned off without any problem. In "Auto" mode you won't have to do anything in order to turn it on again

Green Desktop Icon (for the external HD) for Time Machine

After I choosed my external Lacie HD as the BackUp Volume for Time Machine, the icon (on the Desktop) didn't change into the green (original) Time Machine Volume. How can I change that? Thanks a lot for your help, Beat.

I had a similar problem where my HD desktop icon originally changed to the green TM icon then reverted back to the original icon after I made some changes to TM preferences. To get the green TM icon back select the HD icon on your desktop and Get Info (Command-I). At the top of the Get Info dialog box next to the drive's name, click on the icon of the HD. It should have a light blue halo around it when selected. Once selected press the Delete key and the green TM HD icon should appear in place of the original HD icon.
That worked for me.

What size for External HD for Time Machine?

Hello. An Apple Support Tech suggested an external HD, twice the size of the internal for Time Machine backup. I presently have 1TB in the iMac and a 500GB Lacie--a long way from double! Do I need to rush out and get a 2TB one? Hope not due to the $$$!
Comments would be appreciated. Cheers.

A few additional points:
You can use Time Machine to back up more than just your internal drive. If you have a FireWire drive that is also primary storage, you can set Time Machine to back up both the internal drive and external FireWire drive. So be sure to include data on any other drive that you may want to also back up, when determining the required size of the Time Machine drive
You don't need to get a fast FireWire drive for use with Time Machine. A less expensive USB 2.0 drive works just fine. Capacity is more important than speed.
You don't have to use the entire external drive for the Time Machine backup. If you get one that is larger than currently needed, you can partition it and use one partition for Time Machine. You don't even have to partition it. The volume used by Time Machine can also be used to store other data.
You can exclude specific files and folders from being backed up. For example, if you use VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop, you may want to exclude the virtual hard disk image files used by the virtual machines. Those files are huge and every time you run the virtual machine, those disk image files change, and therefore, Time Machine will save another copy. That will chew through your available Time Machine backup space really fast. Also, you may feel like there is no need to backup files in your Downloads folder (because you can always download those files again), so you can exclude it. So be sure to consider things you don't need to backup, when figuring out how large your Time Machine backup drive should be.

HT201250 Is there a possibility to recover erased files from an external hard drive that was reformatted by the Time Machine?

Is there a possibility to recover erased files from an external hard drive that was reformatted by the Time Machine?

Basics of File Recovery
Files in Trash
If you simply put files in the Trash you can restore them by opening the Trash (left-click on the Trash icon) and drag the files from the Trash to your Desktop or other desired location. OS X also provides a short-cut to undo the last item moved to the Trash -press COMMAND-Z.
If you empty the Trash the files are gone. If a program does an immediate delete rather than moving files to the Trash, then the files are gone. Recovery is possible but you must not allow any additional writes to the hard drive - shut it down. When files are deleted only the directory entries, not the files themselves, is modified. The space occupied by the files has been returned to the system as available for storage, but the files are still on the drive. Writing to the drive will then eventually overwrite the space once occupied by the deleted files in which case the files are lost permanently. Also if you save a file over an existing file of the same name, then the old file is overwritten and cannot be recovered.
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

On a 500G MBP running Lion what's the best size to partition a 2T WD external hard drive to for Time Machine? Thankse

Just picked up a 2T WD external HD for my new MBPro with 500 G drive. Looking to use part of the external drive for Time MAchine. Not sur if I should designate 1T of it or 750G. I'm running Lion. What's the best way to format the external drive. Disk Utility?
Thanks,
Dennis

Ask in Lion: TimeMachine / MacBook Pro even - this is workstation territory
I would not use the same drive for data and for backups.
If I had to, I'd make a partition large enough to boot your Mac from though, whether 50-500GB to clone your system.
You should still be able to use Lion's Recovery boot mode.
I don't think there really is much choice in what to format with, unless you want to spend over $100.

Optimum external HD size -- is there a ratio for Time Machine performance.

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