Time machine requirements

how much disk space does time machine need? i never got anything close to an answer on this. i did get my question answered about whether or not you can just create a new partition on the same hard drive for time machine. now all i need to know is how large to make that partition.

No one can tell you how much space Time Machine requires because it depends on the initial amount of data that needs to be backed up and how much data changes on an hourly basis on your machine.
A good rule of thumb might be that your backup volume should be at least 2X as large as the total amount of data you initially want to backup. If you have a lot of large files that are constantly changing (for example, you are editing videos) you will want more than that. If you only change a small percentage of your data each day (for example, you primarily use the computer for word processing and web browsing) then less might suffice.
When Time Machine runs out of space it will begin deleting older backups so the more space you have available the longer backup history you will be able to maintain.
Note, that if the partition you are creating for backups is on the same drive as the data being backed up then you risk a hard drive failure destroying both your original data and your backed up copies. That is why Apple advises using a separate drive for backups.

Similar Messages

  • Does Time Machine require add'l backup space?

    I have two 2TB external hard drives which are pretty much full.
    I want to partition a 4TB drive into two 2TB sectors and backup my two drives.
    I don't need additional "archived" backups, those previous changes that Time Machine stores when additional space permits.  I just need an exact backup of the drives in their current state and that's all.
    If one of my current hard drives is full to 99% capacity (say 1.98 TB) and my backup drive has 2TB capacity, will Time Machine let me backup?  Or does it require additional space?
    I ask because I've been reading other posts that talk about "recommending" an additional 20-50% in size for saving previous changes.  I understand the suggestion, but I only have these two 2TB partitions and I don't believe I need those previous backups. 
    Is that "additional" space mandatory or optional?

    Thanks for the reply, ds store.
    I wonder if you (or anyone else) can still answer a question or two for me. 
    Are there any free options for making mirror backups of my drive?  I don't need the thing to be bootable.  It's all media files that don't change, but do get added to from time to time.
    I would settle for a click-and-drag copy of the drive, but the occasional addition of a new file makes it a hassle to remember what I need to add to the backup drive. 
    Sure would like a *free* solution to the problem of needing to backup a mostly full 2TB hard drive to another 2TB drive (ie, not much "work space") and not needing archived time machine-style backups ... just a system for knowing to add that occasional addition to my files.
    Seems like time machine should do something like that ... simply pass on additional archived files ... just copy the disc at hand, but I get the idea it doesn't.  It insists on creating those additional archived files AND requiring me to allocate substantial extra space for "work space".
    I don't want to buy another drive.  I want to back up my 2TB to another 2TB and make updates from time to time - without the wasted space of archived backups.
    Any free solutions to that?  Possibly something already in my Mac that I'm not aware of?

  • Time Machine requires me to reformat my external hard disk

    I have a Maxtor 1TB external hard disk that works fine with my Mac. It has been formatted to FAT32 format so I can use it on Mac and PC. When I tried to setup Time Machine to back up to this drive, I was told I needed to reformat my external hard disk as the format was not recognised. Do I have to get a separate external hard disk to use with Time Machine? Why the discrepancy in formats? If I get another external hard disk and reformat it according to the requirement by Time Machine, will that mean that I cannot use that hard disk with a PC? What is the required format recognised by Time Machine anyway.
    Thanks for your answers.

    If I get another external hard disk and reformat it according to the requirement by Time Machine, will that mean that I cannot use that hard disk with a PC?
    Yes, unless the PC has software such as MacDrive installed.
    What is the required format recognised by Time Machine anyway.
    Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Time Machine has usage requirements beyond Mac OS X's general ones.
    (52969)

  • Time Machine requiring more space than necessary?

    Hi all,
    Since I only have a 60gb external drive (whereas my laptop has 250gb) I burned some files to DVDs and then excluded them from the Time Machine backup so the backup would fit in 60gb (~56gb, really).
    Anyways, when I managed to reduce the size of my backup to around 51gb, I got a message saying that the backup would require 64.7gb. I thought it was okay, maybe TM needs a bit more space for whatever reason. But even after shrinking by backup to only 41gb, it still says 64.7gb are needed!
    I'm desperate because I haven't been able to find a solution and thus I've been unable to backup my files.
    Thanks in advance

    Thanks for your replies, but I am perfectly aware of how TM works and that I need a bigger hard disk to back up.
    A friend also has a computer with a 250 HDD and he backs up perfectly around 50gb of files in a 60gb hard disk.
    I've formatted my disk and I'm doing this as my first backup, so I know there are no 'extra files' to be backed up besides those I've chosen not to exclude.
    But my question is why does TM require exactly the same disk space (64.6GB) with different backup sizes (from 35GB to 53GB), it's ALWAYS the same space!
    I really appreciate your replies, though. =)

  • Time Machine requires 4.51 TB after FileVaulting drive

    OSX 10.6.8, iMac, external 3 TB user account drive, external 2 TB TM drive.
    I just FileVaulted the external 3 TB drive on which my user account resides.
    Now when I try to run TM to an empty 2TB drive, it gives me this error message:
    Time Machine could not complete the backup.
    This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup
    requires 4.51 TB but only 2.00 TB are available.
    Note the df command output below. The external account drive now has 2 mount points.
    The FileVault mount shows 5.85 TB --- on a 3 TB drive, go figure!
    When I issue a du -s on my account, it comes back with only 573 GB used.
    $ df -k
    Filesystem    1024-blocks       Used  Available Capacity  Mounted on
    /dev/disk0s2    976426672   52170964  923999708     6%    /
    devfs                 114        114          0   100%    /dev
    map -hosts              0          0          0   100%    /net
    map auto_home           0          0          0   100%    /home
    /dev/disk3s2   2929930672  694447552 2235483120    24%    /Volumes/External
    /dev/disk1s1   1952795648     832288 1951963360     1%    /Volumes/TM_Drive
    /dev/disk4s2   5859861216 3624410864 2235450352    62%    /Volumes/External/Users/transini
    Is there some way to reset TM or overcome this glitch?

    fsck on the boot drive made only 2 minor corrections. For good measure I redid fsck on the other external drives. No problems found. I even ran DiskWarrior on the external drives and FileVault partition. No problems found. Still, the TM backup insists that my FileVault user "partition" is 4.51 TB. Sounds like busted software to me.
    Guess I'll have to undo FileVault.

  • What is the equation for Time Machine required space?

    Once again Time Machine says it has run out of room to do my backup. I guess I just don't understand the equation for figuring this out.
    These are my specs:
    Disks being backed up - 2 drives
              Internal Drive - 640gb, 482gb in use
              External Drive - 500gb, 105gb in use
         587gb total data in use
    Time Machine disk - 1TB, 715gb in use, 284gb available, asking for 303gb
    TM wants space that is more than half of my total data in use. I have one (old) 2gb file, all others are 99mb and smaller, mostly much smaller.
    Why isn't TM removing older backup files to make room for the latest? Why does it think it needs a block of 303gb when the new files it needs to back up are all in the sub 10mb range?
    On the surface it seems like TM is using disk sizes to do it's caluclations instead of file size.
    What is the equation it uses to figure this out? I am puzzled...

    jlmcvay wrote:
    Starting pre-backup thinning: 286.19 GB requested (including padding), 265.05 GB available
    That's your main problem; wanting to back up about 238 GB (plus 20%).  Curiously, that's a bit less than the previous messages.
    See what's shown for Estimated size of full backup under the exclusions box in Time Machine Preferences > Options.  According to the figures in your first post, it should be about 587 GB.  If it's considerably larger, then there are two possibilities:
    Something else is connected, and Time Machine is trying to back it up.
    There's a directory problem on one of the disks being backed-up, so Time Machine thinks it's much larger.  If so, try verifying your internal HD, and repairing the external, per #A4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    But if the estimate is reasonably close, then something very large has changed.  See #D4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for some of the common culprits.  Unfortunately, there's no way to tell in advance what it is;  you can only see that after a backup completes.
    If nothing there helps, try excluding the external HD and trying again (per #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions) -- that should tell us whether the problem is on the internal or the external.  Then we can try to narrow it down.
    Seems like there is a problem with the Event store UUIDs for my internal drive.
    Not a major one.  That message means that Time Machine isn't sure that the previous backup was completed normally (which it obviously didn't).  When that happens, Time Machine can't use the Event store, but has to do a "deep traversal" to compare everything on the drive to the backups to figure out what's changed and needs to be backed-up.  That takes a while, of course, and means your backup will take considerably longer than usual. 
    I commonly have iPhoto open all the time. If TM cannot back up iPhoto while it open that would explain why it needs to backup a lot of data.
    That's a possible explanation, but 238 GB is a lot of photos.  How large is your entire iPhoto Library? 
    Time Machine can sometimes back the iPhoto Library up when iPhoto is open -- it seems to depend on just what you've been doing.  So it's fairly unusual for it to be missed for very long.  (It ought to send a message after a certain time, but it doesn't.)
    If excluding the external HD doesn't turn up a clue, try excluding your Pictures folder.

  • Does Time Machine require a dedicated external drive, or can it include other files?

    After a misplaced library file, I'm having problems restoring some of the content on my MacBook Pro. I have a Time Machine backup on an external drive, but the drive also includes lots of other files that I want to exclude from the restore process. I'm concerned whether the Migration Assistant will scoop up everything on the drive.
    The laptop is still running on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 for specific reasons (although I have Lion 10.7.5 on my iMac). I presume Time Machine and the Migration Assistant are the same on both operating systems -- but I'd better ask here first.
    Thanks for any help with this question.

    David Henderson7 wrote:
    Another good idea. Thanks, FatMac!
    For a long time, I was leery of putting too much stuff on one drive. It breaks, and you lose everything. But you're right -- the prices allow for even two 3TB externals that could manage backups of backups for paranoid types like me. And that's in addition to the internal drive.
    Welcome to paranoidville. Staples has been selling Toshiba Canvio 3 TB externals for $120 and even though they must have green drives inside because they run a lot cooler than Seagates (of course they do, also, have ventilation), being fed from an SSD I've seen transfer rates of 130+MB/s connected to USB 3.0 ports. I have one set up with 4 partitions and maintain a rolling backup of the boot disk with BU dates recorded for each partition. A second Toshiba has a single periodic BU of the Mac Pro as well as a bootable backup of the rMBP and what passes for a Windows 8 backup of a Lenovo laptop. A third has the rMBP TM partition and a series of rMBP backups (that was originally used for testing and using the rMBP for a week without touching the rMBP SSD in case there was an image retention problem or some other issue, since the internal SSD can't be securely erased and I had 14 days to simply return it).
    You can never be too rich, too thin or too backed up.

  • Want to use Time Machine but my external HDD is NTFS formatted

    Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...I need to backup my Macbook before installing Bootcamp and then I can use Windows on my Mac. I'm a new mac user and have just switch platforms. I don't want to loose the data on my Mac OR format the external HDD which is the backup of my previous WIN machine.
    What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?

    Lancer 10 wrote:
    Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...
    It's only 4 MB. Perhaps you should try again. If your satellite broadband can't handle that, perhaps you need something better, like 3G or dialup.
    What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?
    Time Machine requires HFS+ to work. It will create an HFS+ disk image when used with a server. For an external hard drive, I suggest you partition it into 2 volumes, one being HFS+ and the other NTFS.

  • Time Machine: Can I use a smaller external hard drive with larger internal?

    Can I use a 250G external hard drive with and 500G unfilled internal drive with time machine? Or will time machine require I a 500G? I don't plan on filling the internal drive for a long time and don't want to buy a new external drive right now.

    Yes, but you are very likely to get in trouble very quickly.
    The problem is that TimeMachine saves multiple versions of any file modified, and if that file happens to be large, you can quickly fill up your TimeMachine drive such that it is throwing away older versions faster than you would desire.
    Also if your boot drive's storage usage gets even close to the 250GB external drive's capacity, TimeMachine is likely to stop working.
    If possible, I would suggest an external drive that is twice as large as your boot drive, or at least 1.5 times larger.
    I guess you could repartition your boot drive so it is smaller than your external disk so you would be less likely to use more space than could fit on the external.
    Personally, my opinion about backups is that much of my data is impossible to replace (family pictures, etc...), and spending money on backup hardware is a small price to pay for securing those memories. I also try to have it backup in more than one location in more than one way.

  • Time machine won't let me include external hard drive in backup

    My memory was full on our computer so I got an external hard drive to move over our iphoto library to (I have a large iphoto library ~22,000 pictures that continues to grow).  For discussion purposes I'll call this - IPhoto HD.
    I also have another external hard drive that we've had for quite some time that I use as our time machine backups.  (Time Machine HD).
    I copied over my iphoto library to the new external HD (IPhoto HD).
    I then went into my time machine under settings and wanted to make sure that the IPhoto HD was being backed up on the Time Machine HD.  (after I got verification of this I was going to delete the iphoto library from our computer to free up some space).
    When I go into time machine under options - the Iphoto HD is greyed out - and it won't allow me to delete it from the "do not back up" list.  (however the Time Machine HD is not greyed out - I could delete it if I wanted to).
    I tried searching for the answer in the forums and couldn't figure it out.  I did verify that the format of the IPhoto HD is Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
    I should note that both external Hard drives are WD My Book for Mac 2TB.  Not sure if that makes a difference.
    Thanks in advance for your assistance.

    Sorry, but Time Machine does not back up reliably, if at all, to most network drives, except Time Capsules or a shared drive on another Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard on the same local network.
    Here's the criteria they must meet: Disks that can be used with Time Machine. And be careful here: just because some 3rd-party hardware claims to support Time Machine doesn't necessarily mean that Apple supports it, or that it will work in all circumstances.
    The messages indicate that Time Machine found the volume, but couldn't write to it. That may be some sort of sharing or permissions error, or it may be that the device doesn't support all the things Time Machine requires, per the link above.
    Are you sure that it's compatible with Snow Leopard? Some NAS devices that worked with Leopard didn't seem to work with Snow Leopard, at least when it first came out.
    You may need to check with LaCie or the place you got it.

  • Time machine problem. Switching from one external drive to another. Problem started when upgrading to Mavrics, and changing to a WD drive

    I am a long time Mac user, running my business on an apple  platform since 1984. I currently use a 17" MacBook Pro as my primary computer for work. when it is at work it is plugged in via thunderbolt to my monitor and a one tb back up drive. I use time machine to back up the laptop to the one tb drive. When I go home, I take the laptop with me and use another drive at home as a back up. This way I have redundant back ups, in two separate locations. I have been doing this for years, and Time machine has worked flawlessly, automaticity switching from one drive to another.
    I recently switched to Maverics, and got a new drive for home. Now whether I am at home or at work, time machine fails to automatically back up. It will alert me every hour that backups cannot be completed, and I  must go to the time machine control panel and manually select a drive and click, "back up now". I also see an alert that says "waiting to complete first back up" even though each backup has been completed.
    This is quite annoying, and sometimes embarrassing. When giving lectures in large venues, the backup failure alert appears and shuts down my keynote presentation (again, something new since switching to Maverics and the new WD drive.
    I have reformatted the WD drive, and also spent time trying to change parameters in the time machine control panel, but so far no luck.
    Any advice out there?

    Time machine requires a GUID partion scheme, as well as a Mac OS X extended, journaled Volume.
    It needs these to correctly:
    1) copy the files
    2) run a modified spotlight index pass on the files
    Both are required to complete a abckup, and most new drives do not conme this way from the factory.

  • My external hard drive has been used for Time Machine, now it doesn't work on my TV?

    I bought a new external HD 3TB, I used it as a back for Time machine and also wanted to use it for watching my movies etc on my TV. The TV won't recognise any video's on the HD. Is there some reason this would happen due to using it for Time Machine?

    If you are talking about a drive that you connect directly to your TV, typically they will recognize only drives formatted in some specific way & only certain kinds of movie files. You can check your TV users manual or its manufacturer's web site for information about this, but in general they will not recognize drives using the format Time Machine requires.

  • Do i need to back up applications with time machine?

    I received a message that Time Machine was running out of room to back up. I've only used 112GB on my computer, but my Time Machine drive has a capacity of 163GB, so I don't understand why I am running out of room.
    Do I need to back up my applications? Is there anything that I can omit from a backup to save space? I already keep all of my photos and movies on a seperate hard drive, and I don't include that in the backup.
    Running 10.8.4 on a new iMac.

    denisefrombay village wrote:
    ... I don't understand why I am running out of room.
    Time Machine requires sufficient space to keep one complete copy of your entire hard disk's contents, plus additional space for older backups. You are likely to need much more than 163 GB for Time Machine to function as designed. See Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ: How big a drive do I need for Time Machine?
    Do I need to back up my applications?
    Strictly speaking no, but I would. The way in which Apple (and others) are moving in favor of the download-only method of app distribution, a Time Machine or similar backup has now become the only way to revert to a previous release of an app should a newer one not perform as expected.

  • I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine.  It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive.  I am not deleting them.  Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening?  Can I retrieve them?

    I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine.  It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive.  I am not deleting them.  Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening?  Can I retrieve them?

    ... I didn't know that Time Machine was more a last resort back up instead of main back up.
    Don't rely upon Time Machine to the exclusion of all else. I compliment Time Machine with a periodic "clone". TM is much better than nothing, but it's a safety net, not a hammock
    Here is my understanding of Time Machine's file deletion algorithm, distilled from Pondini's FAQ, Apple's KB articles, and my own observations.
    Time Machine deletes ("thins") files from the backup disk as follows:
    Hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first backup of the day
    Daily backups over 30 days old, except the first backup of the week
    Older backups get deleted when Time Machine requires space and you deleted them from the source disk.
    Therefore, assuming TM has been performing at least one backup per day, backup files will remain available:
    at least thirty days, if they existed on your Mac for at least a day
    until you run out of space, if they existed on your Mac for at least a week
    In addition to the above, Time Machine always keeps one complete copy of your source disk so that the entire volume could be restored if necessary. Any files that remain on your source volume will be present on the TM backup, no matter how old they are.
    If you are using 250 GB of space on your source disk, its Time Machine backups are likely to require at least twice that much. A good estimate of the minimum required backup volume size would be about three times the size of your source disk - 1.5 TB in your case.
    A more thorough explanation would require Pondini since he has plumbed Time Machine's mysteries far more than I have.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

  • Restore iphoto library from Time machine using external drive

    I keep my iPhoto library in an external drive (iomega 1 TB) I use Time Machine (Time Capsule) for my back-up of iphoto.  The external drive is failing.  I have bought an new external drive and wish to restore my iPhoto library to this new drive.  The steps for restoring from Time Machine require me to click on the iphoto library and then enter time machine.  I cannot do this as the folder is now unreadable in the drive and I do not wish to restore it to this old drive in any event. 
    I have accessed the time machine drive and can see the iphoto back up is there. 
    What is my next step?
    Robert

    See my answer to your duplicate question
    LN

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