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    External HDD Time Machine Help

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by chipper3152, Dec 19, 2007.

  1. chipper3152

    chipper3152 Notebook Consultant

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    Ok...so I'm getting the White Macbook with 120GB hdd and I have heard that in order for time machine to work you have to have a bigger external hdd than internal hdd? Is this true, could I get a 120GB external and would it work or do I have to get something over 120GB? Thanks
     
    chipper3152, Dec 19, 2007
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  2. stealthsniper96

    stealthsniper96 What Was I Thinkin'?

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    ive never heard that and i dont think its true. you would only need a bigger one if you had ur entire HDD full plus other stuff. if you think you only have 80gb worth of stuff needing back up, or you can only afford a 80gb drive, i think it would would fine.
     
    stealthsniper96, Dec 19, 2007
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  3. WilliamG

    WilliamG Notebook Deity

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    Right. You only need as much space as is actually taken up on your system hard drive. So if you have a 120GB internal drive with 50GB used, you'll only need about 50GB on the external drive. Though as you add more stuff to the internal drive, your external will be used more, of course.
     
    WilliamG, Dec 20, 2007
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  4. coyoteunknown

    coyoteunknown Notebook Consultant

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    I'd say whatever the size of your internal drive, get the external twice as large so you'll have room to backup your laptops entire hard disk plus some extra.
     
    coyoteunknown, Dec 20, 2007
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  5. niemassacre

    niemassacre Notebook Evangelist

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    I would advise getting an external drive larger than your internal, especially if you think you might fill it all up at some point. You can get a 250 or 300 GB drive for not much these days. I too have heard that Time Machine uses up more room than just the size of the files it's backing up (I think my TM drive is currently around 78 GB, while I've used about 50 on my MBP HD), so I would advise against just getting the same size drive for your TM one.
     
    niemassacre, Dec 20, 2007
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  6. M@lew

    M@lew Notebook Evangelist

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    You actually need an external that is bigger than the space you have taken up.

    I tried to back up my 118GB HD with 100GB full onto a 120GB external. It wouldn't let me unless I excluded a lot of things.

    Now I have a 400GB partition to back up, but that was my experience.
     
    M@lew, Dec 21, 2007
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