HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac

Learn about Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
BungaEM

Q: Mac White Runs so SLOOOW

My Mac White memory remains only 5 GB, and with this memory left every application i open become very slow.

If i back up my data with time machine, and then erase data in my laptop, will i lost my data in time machine? Or may be i shouldnt

back up anymore after i erase data in my laptop?

 

U see i have many pictures in iphoto, but this use many memory in the laptop, so i think i want to back up everything in my laptop, after that i delete

everything (pictures) in my i photo. But im afraid when i back up again my photo in the back up will be gone. Is that going to happen?

 

Is the back up same as sycronizing?

 

Thanks

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Feb 13, 2012 4:06 AM

Close

Q: Mac White Runs so SLOOOW

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by MrHoffman,

    MrHoffman MrHoffman Feb 13, 2012 5:05 AM in response to BungaEM
    Level 6 (15,637 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 13, 2012 5:05 AM in response to BungaEM

    Five gigabytes of disk space is far below what should be maintained for disk free space.

     

    I'd strive for five to maybe ten percent of the total disk capacity, maintained as free space.

     

    Time Machine is good for backups, but it's not a particularly viable strategy for long-term off-loading of photos or other valued files from an overloaded disk.  It would be far too easy to have your saved data "pruned" (deleted) if you lose track of it in the TM archives over time.

     

    Get yourself a couple of external USB disks, and use those as external storage for your off-loaded files, and as a way to make copies of your important data.  Or see if a local shop is willing to upgrade your internal disk to something larger.  Or both.

     

    If you have a higher-bandwidth network connection available, then hosted ("cloud") storage might also be an option.  But that's a reoccuring monthly or yearly cost to maintain that.

     

    To paraphrase: ten pounds of "stuff" just doesn't fit in a five-pound bag.  You need more disk space, or less "stuff", or both.