how to back up macbook pro on external hdd

If you need significant space for files that you don't need to have backed up (for example, if you are doing video editing and need multiple copies or edits of a video, and the source video is already backed up), then you should use a separate external HDD for those files that you can afford to lose. I'm asking this because I want to know if I should use a separate external HDD for storing my actual files. As stuffe pointed out as well, Time Machine allows you to restore to a previous backup, since Time Machine may keep 7 or 8 backups on that 1 TB hard drive. There is more than one backup stored on that hard drive. The 1 TB hard drive will be filled up because Time Machine keeps your backups and deletes them once your hard drive is filled. Then it'll only take a snapshot that's about 120GB in size, and while that same snapshot will grow over time as I take more recent snapshots of my system, it will never go beyond 500GB because that's the maximum size of my internal HDD. Get one of the messages in Troubleshooting item #C4 (which oneĭepends on exactly what happened, and which version of OSX you're on.) My Answer If your backup disk is on the small side, and Time Machine needs to doĪ very large backup, either because you've added or changed a lot orĭone something like an OSX update since the previous backup, you may Thus, the more space it has, the longer it can keep your backups. Starts deleting the oldest backups so it can keep making new ones. But it won't just quit backing-up when it runs out: it Its backups, since it will, by design, eventually use all the spaceĪvailable. This is a trade-off between space and how long Time Machine can keep Up large amounts of backup space, for various reasons. Tendency to add more and more data to our systems over time, so if inĭoubt, get a bigger one than you think you need now.Īlso, there are some OSX features and 3rd-party applications that take Unfortunately, it's rather hard to predict, and most of us have a A drive that's too small may only have roomįor a few weeks (or even days) of backups. To work, but that's subject to problems any time a large backup isĪnd, of course, the larger the drive, the more old backups Time

If you're a light user, you might be able to get 1.5 times If youįrequently add/update lots of large files, then even 5 times may notīe enough. Sure to add the size of the data on any other drives/partitions youīut this varies greatly, depending on how you use your Mac. Time Machine needs 2 to 4 times as much space as the data it'sīacking-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD). How big a drive do I need for Time Machine?Ī general 'rule of thumb' is, to keep a reasonable 'depth' of backups, You probably want to check out this website for the most information, but here is the answer to your question, quoted from the website above: 1.

How to back up macbook pro on external hdd