HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
Learn about Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
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All replies
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Helpful answers
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Aug 27, 2016 9:33 AM in response to fhornickby macjack,If you are using Time Machine will it will use 3X times the space of what you are backing up, or more.
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Aug 27, 2016 9:44 AM in response to fhornickby Eric Root,See question 1. If you are backing up using a clone, something at least 10 - 15 GB bigger than 500 GB.
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Aug 27, 2016 10:47 AM in response to fhornickby keg55,What size of remote back up drive do I need for my Mac Book Pro with retina display and 500 GB hard drive?
In my opinion as a basic user (like me), you need a back up drive that's minimum twice the size of the drive you're backing up. So, in your case, 1TB.
The initial Time Machine back up will back up everything. After that, assuming you leave Time Machine ON, it will back up only updated files. Time Machine also deletes old back ups if the back up drive is running low on space.
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Aug 30, 2016 1:56 AM in response to fhornickby Vishal2014,Time Machine performs incremental backup of your hard drive hence the Time Machine external drive should be larger than the source disk which is Macintosh HD. A large Time Machine drive (say 2 or 4 TB) will help you never run out of free spaces anytime soon. Or may be you can partition the external drive and use it for Time Machine as well as Cloning your Mac HD.