Time machine requires external hard drive?

I have been looking and looking and have yet to find a definitive answer. Is an external hard drive required to use time machine? If that is the case, where I can recover files that are lost when not connected to an external drive? I currently use an external drive with time machine to backup, but cannot carry that everywhere I go. Any advice?

 

Then get a portable drive. Backing up on the same hard drive as your main drive is stupid, if that drive dies you lose your back up.

 

This. You can easily get a USB powered portable HDD for cheap now. Somewhere around $70-80 should get you 320GB, and likely cheaper if you looked anywhere other than local retailers.

 

ummmmm yeah.

 

Right, I understand that. I don't want to lug a portable drive everywhere either. So, the question is, in the meantime, what is the best way to save temporarily and conveniently until I get back home? My time machine is only allowing me to recover files if I am hooked up to the external. It is not allowing me to save or recover otherwise.

 

Just exactly how often a day do you need to recover your files? If it's that often, then perhaps you should reconsider before deleting files next time. If you're running low on disk space, then perhaps carrying a portable flash drive or putting a larger HD into your Mac would be the best solution?

 

It is not happening that often. I don't need to recover them often. I am concerned with the times a document is deleted on accident or lost when a program quits spontaneously. What is the best way to recover without lugging around extra hardware when time machine does not give the option? So on a macbook, will time machine only operate when connected to an external device?

 

I have my Mac backing up to my Windows Home Server over my WiFi network, but while I'm away from home obviously it doesn't back up.

There is no sure fire way to use Time Machine AND still backup files that were changed while away from home since the last TM backup. You either have to carry a drive with you if you need to always have a backup handy, or be more careful when deleting files.

 

the few files I need to keep on the go and not worry about.. I use Dropbox for. Up to 2GB of storage is free, and it just automatically keeps everything in your dropbox folder synced on every machine you have it running on... even works with iOS devices

Time Machine Hard drives do not have to be external, you could swap out your optical drive with another hard drive that was a dedicated Time Machine drive if you wanted to... it just doesn't make much sense, cuz while it might protect you from problems if your main drive dies, it wont prevent some really bad laptop damage or theft.

 

No you do not need an external drive. You can even backup to the same disk you installed osx on (but different partition). However, this would hardly be robust as if your disk dies, so does Time Machine.

 

Thanks Captain Redundant!

 

If its something you need to have available on the go, and for small amounts of data such as word processing, then the suggestion below if perfect.

As for the part about lugging around a HDD, the one I use it about the size of a small wallet, or cell phone. Should easily fit into any carrying case, or even your pocket, and has only one small USB cable.