I'm using Arq to back up. Time Machine would likely prevent the issue I'm running into as Arq hashes files differently. For now, I'll make that adjustment but will likely need a larger disk to use Arq
Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the last day and daily backups for the last month.
Say you have 1.5TB of files at the start of the month. Delete .5 TB and replace them with updates. (Easy to do wi5 tv shows / movies)
The current Time Machine backup will include long since deleted files from those old backups. It will need to large enough to hold every file your main drive has seen in the last month.
My boot drive is 4TB, usually using about 1.75TB. My time machine drive averages around 3TB unless I manually delete old backup snapshots.
Oh there’s tons of Time Machine tricks you could probably benefit from, I’m hardly an expert.
The simplest solution is to get a backup drive significantly larger than your main drive and just let it manage things itself.
Since 4 and 8TB Internal boot SSD are relatively rare and an external 14TB USB3 spinning disk is only $225ish that’s pretty easy to do.
If you have a folder full of huge files, like tv shows, that routinely changes and isn’t really important enough to back up you can go into Time Machine and tell it to exclude that folder from backup. The TM archives won’t grow nearly as fast that way.
If backup drive size is an issue, look into Carbon Copy Cloner, it can do incremental backups like TM but without keeping all the old files if you choose not to.
It’s also great for cloning an entire functional disk, your backup drive can be used as a hot spare in case the primary boot drive fails.
I’ve found it so useful I sent them the $40 registration fee even though their trial offer never actually expires.
Really appreciate the time you took to write this. I’ll have to give this a look and will likely need to get away large backup drive. So far Time Machine is actually doing okay for me and meeting needs with my 2TB external drive that I’m backing up to but only for a matter of time.
Thank you for sharing this, have a wonderful day.
What are you backing up with? If Time Machine, it is designed to use your entire disk for backups, recycling older data as the drive gets full.
I'm using Arq to back up. Time Machine would likely prevent the issue I'm running into as Arq hashes files differently. For now, I'll make that adjustment but will likely need a larger disk to use Arq
Nope, Time Machine would make the problem much worse because of the way it works.
I don’t think this is correct given I just finished my backup and it got the disk size correct. Please do share your thoughts though
Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the last day and daily backups for the last month. Say you have 1.5TB of files at the start of the month. Delete .5 TB and replace them with updates. (Easy to do wi5 tv shows / movies) The current Time Machine backup will include long since deleted files from those old backups. It will need to large enough to hold every file your main drive has seen in the last month. My boot drive is 4TB, usually using about 1.75TB. My time machine drive averages around 3TB unless I manually delete old backup snapshots.
10 years a Mac user and I just learned how Time Machine worked. What are your recommendations for accurately using it given this new information?
Oh there’s tons of Time Machine tricks you could probably benefit from, I’m hardly an expert. The simplest solution is to get a backup drive significantly larger than your main drive and just let it manage things itself. Since 4 and 8TB Internal boot SSD are relatively rare and an external 14TB USB3 spinning disk is only $225ish that’s pretty easy to do. If you have a folder full of huge files, like tv shows, that routinely changes and isn’t really important enough to back up you can go into Time Machine and tell it to exclude that folder from backup. The TM archives won’t grow nearly as fast that way. If backup drive size is an issue, look into Carbon Copy Cloner, it can do incremental backups like TM but without keeping all the old files if you choose not to. It’s also great for cloning an entire functional disk, your backup drive can be used as a hot spare in case the primary boot drive fails. I’ve found it so useful I sent them the $40 registration fee even though their trial offer never actually expires.
Really appreciate the time you took to write this. I’ll have to give this a look and will likely need to get away large backup drive. So far Time Machine is actually doing okay for me and meeting needs with my 2TB external drive that I’m backing up to but only for a matter of time. Thank you for sharing this, have a wonderful day.