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    How much room for a full Time Machine backup?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by number17, Nov 5, 2007.

  1. number17

    number17 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hello,

    If I want to make a full copy of my MBP's hard drive (160 GB) to an external HD via time machine how much space should be on the external?

    Do you just need 160 GB? Or should it be significantly larger? Since I am not always attached to the external I was going to make backups every few days or so when I plug the notebook into the drive overnight. I was hoping to get by with a 320GB drive?

    Thanks for the help
     
    number17, Nov 5, 2007
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  2. stealthsniper96

    stealthsniper96 What Was I Thinkin'?

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    it depends on how large your files are and how many times you make changes to them
     
    stealthsniper96, Nov 5, 2007
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  3. robfactory

    robfactory Notebook Consultant

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    Also how much Drive space it is taking up now. From there you can add on.
     
    robfactory, Nov 5, 2007
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  4. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    It'll take your full drive size + whatever changes you make in the long run. The hard link system does make it so that it conserves some space, but you'll still need room for anything that's actually changed, especially large files.

    320GB should be fine. I'm only using a 250GB drive for my 74GB drive.

    Of course, this means all my media isn't backed up at all - but that's what DVDs are for.
     
    taelrak, Nov 5, 2007
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