Advice on time machine backup drives
08/07/20 Filed in: time machine
I guess I need to set up another appointment about the email, screen shot I sent you a couple of days ago while trying to set up my seagate back up. The error message about the back up being case-sensitive? Know we ran into that before.
But before I set it up, I want to make sure I have what I need to be “all set.” In the process I noticed that my existing 4 TB Seagate back up is very close to being full. SOOO if I want to active back ups feeling like I should replace that one as well? But perhaps go bigger? And would appreciate your thoughts on what to get. There is a 5 TB for $114 and an 8TB for $134. Thinking 8TB…
Thoughts?
___________
When we format drives, we do have to choose whether they should be case sensitive or not. That could be something I overlooked. I would not normally choose case sensitive as it’s just an additional hoop to jump through for security reasons that’s not really necessary in my opinion. But yes, let’s look at that.
That 4TB drive being close to max capacity: It is time machine’s job to fill up with data. The larger the drive, the farther back in time your backup can go. Another way to say it would be, the longer it can continue to backup unique data before it needs to make space for the redundant copies of data that will be inevitable. One way out is to just by a bigger drive and not bother with the old one that is full. Another solution to the problem is to erase the backup and start the process over again. In a perfect world, time machine should spend some time doing a little math then free up space based on how much data you are asking it to add to the already existing data.
On buying a new drive: an 8TB for $134 is pretty crazy cheap these days and as I’ve said previously, the performance of your backup drive is not really that important. It doesn’t have to be fast as you are not ever really accessing data on it for work. It’s just a safety measure. You could also always keep it disconnected while working if you felt it was slowing performance down. So overall, my vote would be to just buy a new drive. It would future proof you for a pretty long while I would think.
But before I set it up, I want to make sure I have what I need to be “all set.” In the process I noticed that my existing 4 TB Seagate back up is very close to being full. SOOO if I want to active back ups feeling like I should replace that one as well? But perhaps go bigger? And would appreciate your thoughts on what to get. There is a 5 TB for $114 and an 8TB for $134. Thinking 8TB…
Thoughts?
___________
When we format drives, we do have to choose whether they should be case sensitive or not. That could be something I overlooked. I would not normally choose case sensitive as it’s just an additional hoop to jump through for security reasons that’s not really necessary in my opinion. But yes, let’s look at that.
That 4TB drive being close to max capacity: It is time machine’s job to fill up with data. The larger the drive, the farther back in time your backup can go. Another way to say it would be, the longer it can continue to backup unique data before it needs to make space for the redundant copies of data that will be inevitable. One way out is to just by a bigger drive and not bother with the old one that is full. Another solution to the problem is to erase the backup and start the process over again. In a perfect world, time machine should spend some time doing a little math then free up space based on how much data you are asking it to add to the already existing data.
On buying a new drive: an 8TB for $134 is pretty crazy cheap these days and as I’ve said previously, the performance of your backup drive is not really that important. It doesn’t have to be fast as you are not ever really accessing data on it for work. It’s just a safety measure. You could also always keep it disconnected while working if you felt it was slowing performance down. So overall, my vote would be to just buy a new drive. It would future proof you for a pretty long while I would think.
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