# Time Machine. How big should I go?



## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

I have a 250gb hard drive in my iMac right now.....and I was wondering how big a HDD I should get for time machine.

Total HDD size = 250gb
Windows = 50gb
Mac = 182gb
Used on mac = 104gb (78gb currently free) 

I was looking at the Future Shop Deal on now on a 500gb LaCie drive for $130.

or the Western Digital Mybook on sale for $130 on Tiger Direct
Western Digital MyBook Essential 500GB 3.5" External Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, USB 2.0 WDG1U5000N in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

Thoughts? is 500 enough?


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## polywog (Aug 9, 2007)

I'd say you should be more than fine with 500Gb, but you might consider firewire over USB2 if you can find/afford one. Much faster.

For what it's worth, my Time Machine drive is considerably smaller than my primary drive. But I'm particular about what I back up (mostly my home directory, and my iTunes library) and I prune out what I don't need in the backups fairly regularly.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I have that exact drive. It is a solid drive. Comes with a samsung disk. I have 100 gb on my macbook pro and my lacie is fine.

Time Machine makes one major copy of your whole system. After that it only backs up changes youve made. So my time machine folder hasn't exceeded 110 gb yet and I've had it for a while now.

usb 2.0 is fine for me. Unless you are moving large media or data files you don't really need it.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

well, the problem is finding a Firewire HDD. I can't find any. But either way, USB2.0 runs at 480MBS which is the same rate that Firewire runs at....that being said, however I heard firewire runs by itself while USB is dependent on the CPU.
not to mention Firewire 800 just came out which should be twice as fast.....if you can find a firewire 800 HDD.

So 500gbs should be good? 
It makes sense because its double my hard drive, and Apple sells there new Time capsule in 500gb and 1TB sizes....so I don't they would sell a hard drive that was too small. Mind you Time Capsule is also marked for more then one computer....


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

polywog said:


> For what it's worth, my Time Machine drive is considerably smaller than my primary drive. But I'm particular about what I back up (mostly my home directory, and my iTunes library) and I prune out what I don't need in the backups fairly regularly.


So you can specify which folders to back up? so I could exclude the windows partition?



Adrian. said:


> I have that exact drive. It is a solid drive. Comes with a samsung disk. I have 100 gb on my macbook pro and my lacie is fine.


Yeah LaCie is a good brand....and this IS a good deal.....and its fanless so its nice an quiet. 

LaCie even looks alot better then the WD MyBook


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Myself, I'd aim for a terabyte, if you can swing it and are hoping to get something out of Time Machine other than just a backup of current files otherwise it'll fill up fast and the look back in time feature will be essentially useless.

I guess it depends on what you use your computers for. ie: games and surfing vs. graphics or video.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

mostly surfing, but I have over 40 gigs of TV and Music....


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Terabytes are when you get into video (HD) data. Where its like 5 gb 30 minute clip. I would buy a 500gb and if in two years you have filled it up then go and get another 500 gb for 29.99 :heybaby:


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

I found the link! lol

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10096598&catid=20238

yeah, its a tough call for me....how big do I go.


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> well, the problem is finding a Firewire HDD. I can't find any. But either way, USB2.0 runs at 480MBS which is the same rate that Firewire runs at....that being said, however I heard firewire runs by itself while USB is dependent on the CPU.
> not to mention Firewire 800 just came out which should be twice as fast.....if you can find a firewire 800 HDD.


In my setup firewire is twice as fast as usb2 

You can buy the 500 gb WD/triple interface @ costco for 139 with usb2, firewire and eSATA

http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/61395-ide-sata-harddrive-ebclosure.html


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

Really.....I'll defiantly look at that! 

thanks for the heads up!


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> Really.....I'll defiantly look at that!
> 
> thanks for the heads up!



FireWire vs. USB 2.0 - Speed Comparison

USB 2.0 versus FireWire


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

That just answered my question right there. Thanks


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

Adrian. said:


> Terabytes are when you get into video (HD) data. Where its like 5 gb 30 minute clip. I would buy a 500gb and if in two years you have filled it up then go and get another 500 gb for 29.99 :heybaby:


There's a difference between getting terabytes and a terabyte. 

Video isn't the only medium that has high-storage requirements. There's also music, animation, 3-D design, multimedia, etc. As a graphic designer I have dozens of high-res files that are easily a gigabyte each and go through revisions on a daily basis. A single project folder itself can be over 10 Gb in size. As a project evolves over time, those backups in TM add up very fast.

But, like the OP clarified afterward, their requirements aren't as demanding.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

so whats your take MannyP? 

LaCie 

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10096598&catid=20238

Or 

WD Mybook Home Edition?

Costco - Western Digital® My Book™ Home Edition™ 500 GB Storage System


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## MannyP Design (Jun 8, 2000)

I'm a fan of LaCie products, but they can be on the pricier side. I myself prefer FireWire, if I can get it, but USB 2.0 is fine.

I saw the WD at Costco the other day and I was very tempted.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

So which one would you prefer? They are basically the same thing except for brand name, Firewire and looks...


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

USB-2 comes close to matching FW 400 transfer speeds *ONLY* when moving very large files. With the normal assortment of file sizes, FW will be at least twice as fast.

Additionaly Firewire and combo cases seem to be more reliable than USB only. This may be because people who buy USB only are usually looking for the cheapest solution and get what they pay for. 

I'm a guy who is still using a five year old computer and a razor from the 1960s so when I say do not cheap out on your back-up you know I'm serious.


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Its a no-brainer ... the Lacie doesnt have firewire! FWIW, the WD is $139 in the store.,so you get Firewire & eSata for 10 bucks more than the Lacie.


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## polywog (Aug 9, 2007)

Guitar King said:


> So you can specify which folders to back up? so I could exclude the windows partition?


Unfortunately, you only get to specify directories to exclude from the backups. So for instance I have ~/Movies/ in there, because there isn't anything in there I'll ever need backed up.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Guitar King said:


> well, the problem is finding a Firewire HDD. I can't find any.


Don't look in big box stores. Look online, they're everywhere. I like LaCie, but there are others. You can also buy an empty case and then buy any cheap SATA or ATA drive and put it in.


> But either way, USB2.0 runs at 480MBS which is the same rate that Firewire runs at....that being said, however I heard firewire runs by itself while USB is dependent on the CPU.
> not to mention Firewire 800 just came out which should be twice as fast.....if you can find a firewire 800 HDD.


Uhm... Firewire 800 came out about four years ago. My PowerBook G4 1GHz had a firewire 800 port. And yes, it is noticeably faster than FW400 and defintely USB 2.


> So 500gbs should be good?
> It makes sense because its double my hard drive, and Apple sells there new Time capsule in 500gb and 1TB sizes....so I don't they would sell a hard drive that was too small. Mind you Time Capsule is also marked for more then one computer....


I think 500 is fine and spend extra for firewire.


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## Mr. Fartleberry (Dec 17, 2005)

I was going to post the first reply but Rogers has been down a few hours. 

Quite a few people here seem to be using that 500 Lacie drive as well as me. My gripe is the silly recessed power button. 

I'm only putting a few Gigs of data a week onto it. Firewire is not an issue unless you need to daisychain IMHO. But remember to disable transferring some of the large items unless you want endless copies of your Applications, iTunes, or digital photos library. 

TM has been greatly improved in the 10.5.2 update.


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## spicyapple (Aug 17, 2006)

Futureshop had the LaCie 500GB on sale for around $150, but yesterday I saw them priced at $279.  I suppose I will wait again before buying another two.

Just upgraded to Leopard from Tiger because of 10.5.2.  

Hmmm... my main system drive is 500GB and I have TM on an external 500GB hard drive. For now, it should suffice because moving to 1TB is quite pricey at the moment.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

eSATA is only beneficial with servers. An eSATA on a single external will not go any faster than firewire 400.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Guitar King said:


> or the Western Digital Mybook on sale for $130 on Tiger Direct
> Western Digital MyBook Essential 500GB 3.5" External Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, USB 2.0 WDG1U5000N in Canada at TigerDirect.ca
> 
> Thoughts? is 500 enough?


1. Avoid Tiger Direct.
2. Costco -- same price, only WITH firewire.
3. You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much HD space.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

So I hear this WD "Spins down" when you sleep your computer. 

Is this a good thing? Will this kill the drive faster? What if I go into sleep mode alot?
Does it wake up quickly? 
Does TM take a backup if your computer is sleeping?

wow, thats alot of questions.
thanks


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> So I hear this WD "Spins down" when you sleep your computer.
> 
> Is this a good thing? Will this kill the drive faster? What if I go into sleep mode alot?
> Does it wake up quickly?
> ...


Spinning down during inactivity keeps the drive cooler, quieter and it should make the drive last longer. Wake-up is almost instantaneous. 
TM does not backup during sleep, there would be no point.

The Mediasonic that I recommended will spin down during sleep mode and also during inactivity ONLY if connected with Firewire. It does not go into standby when connected with USB2. I have another external HD (Iomega) that works the opposite way, it will go into stanby ONLY if connected with USB2 and not with Firewire. Since transfer speed is important to me and I want my drive to go into standby during inactivity, I am happy with the Mediasonic. Perhaps someone with the WD can shed some light on how it's standby mode works with Firewire vs USB2.


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> So I hear this WD "Spins down" when you sleep your computer.
> 
> Is this a good thing? Will this kill the drive faster? What if I go into sleep mode alot?
> Does it wake up quickly?
> ...


Spinning down during inactivity keeps the drive cooler, quieter and it should make the drive last longer. Wake-up is almost instantaneous. 
TM does not backup during sleep, there would be no point.

The Mediasonic that I recommended will spin down during sleep mode and also during inactivity ONLY if connected with Firewire. It does not go into standby when connected with USB2. I have another external HD (Iomega) that works the opposite way, it will go into stanby ONLY if connected with USB2 and not with Firewire. Since transfer speed is important to me and I want my drive to go into standby during inactivity, I am happy with the Mediasonic. 

Perhaps someone with the WD can shed some light on how it's standby mode works with Firewire vs USB2.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

As my Time Machine backup seems to be filling up the disk, I decided to go in and selectively exclude some files and folders from being backed up. There's a whole pile of bloat hanging around that I haven't taken the time to basically file somewhere or delete.

I used the free app Disk Inventory X which is a great little utility for giving one a visual map of the HDD. For the visually oriented types like me this helps greatly. 

For instance I found a few iMovie projects that I had forgotten about and really were just playing around, that totalled almost 10 GB. That and some albums that I inadvertently ripped in .aiff that took a pile of space. Nothing I would be worried about losing, if the HDD kacked. All in all I excluded almost 30 Gb of stuff that didn't need backing up.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

How big is your internal Hard drive (and how much of it is free)? 

Second how, big is your External TM HDD?


thanks


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

Mr. Fartleberry said:


> But remember to disable transferring some of the large items unless you want endless copies of your Applications, iTunes, or digital photos library.
> TM has been greatly improved in the 10.5.2 update.


Tm creates only 1 copy of any Application and 1 copy of your iPhoto and iTunes libraries.
After it does this it only backs up the changes made to these libraries and uses hard links to keep things in order.
For instance, using TM since Leopard came out in October, system information shows the the size of my TM drive is only 7.3GD larger then the size of my boot drive.
TM does have one very bad habit though, and I'd like to see it addressed,
if you ever do a total system restore, either from TM or say Carbon copy, then TM will proceed to do a complete backup doubling the size of the TM drive.
I assume this is because of the changed time stamps of all the files due to the restore.
Sorry for the long post, but this is worth keeping in mind.
jb.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

ok so I bought the 500 GB WD from Costco for $140!!! 
I conectied it with Firewire and it sychned my computer which is 105 GB, however it took 2 hours to do so.

I know that will be/was the slowest backup ever because it had to do everything.....but I honestly thought Firewire would be faster then that.


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> ok so I bought the 500 GB WD from Costco for $140!!!
> I conectied it with Firewire and it sychned my computer which is 105 GB, however it took 2 hours to do so.
> 
> I know that will be/was the slowest backup ever because it had to do everything.....but I honestly thought Firewire would be faster then that.


You could start over and do the same thing using usb2.0. It would be interesting to know the speed difference with your setup.

Also, can you let us know if your WD spins down during inactivity, when connected via firewire?


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

k, I ran a test.
The test was 2.2GB
USB 2.0 clocked in at 1:23
Firewire Clocked in at 1:19

Not a huge difference, for small updates.


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## Starkicker (Jun 12, 2007)

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry about derailing this thread - I have a question about Time Capsule/AEBS + USB/FW Hard drive.

I have 2 Windows XP PC's on my home network and I'm looking to get a Mac(Book). I also want to have a communal network storage area, which I'd also use to dump my backups. Everything is wired (my house is networked) as well as wireless for the laptops.

I know OS X uses HFS+ as it's file system and Windows XP uses NTFS. When I set up Time Capsule/AEBS + Hard drive, which file system should I use to set it up (if I'm given the option) so that all machines can see the networked storage area?

Thanks!


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

Guitar King said:


> k, I ran a test.
> The test was 2.2GB
> USB 2.0 clocked in at 1:23
> Firewire Clocked in at 1:19
> ...


Hmm, that's not very much data transferred. BTW, What are your computers specs? Does the WD spin down when connected via firewire? and/or usb2??


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

what, is that slow? its not every hour that 2.2 gigs change.....and it takes car of it quickly.
However, I was suprized that Firewire 400 is not that much faster then USB. someone told me that it does not really make a difference with small files....only large ones.

iMac, Intel Core Duo 2Ghz, 1.5 Ram, 
The HDD, is louder then I thought. I thought fanless would be silent, but its not, mind you I am picky about sound  
It comes with 4 ft firewire and USB cables, so I set it up under my desk to muffle the sound. 
It does spin down after like 10 minutes of no activity with firewire, however, as seen as you click on spotlight it kicks in because it thinks you want to search it. 
I have not tested it with USB for "spinning down"


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## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

I think that usb2 transfer speed varies with the computer. I have also been told that usb2 is slower on Mac's than on PC's. Perhaps that only applies to older Macs like mine (PB G4) I have a Mediasonic case with a WD 500gb inside - it is fan-less and not vented which makes this combo very quiet but it will get hot when connected with usb2 because it _only_ spins down when connected with Firewire. 

Its good to know that your WD will also go into standby mode with Firewire. I am more comfortable recommending it to friends knowing this.


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

ok man, I'll switch it over to USB and let you know if it spins down in a day or two


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

ok so its does spin down with USB too. If fact, maybe more often! However, I do not have any USB ports to spare, so I'll stick with firewire.

The weird thing about it is, that it takes an AC cord. It cannot be powered by USB or Firewire by itself.....


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

**UPDATE**

So, I owned the WD for exactly 1 month, before it died. 
Not sure why it died, but its costco....so I'll get my money back.
So I went to Best Buy and picked up the same LaCie I was looking at 1 month ago. 
Remember how I posted how USB is 2 seconds slower then Firewire on the WD? Well, the USB on the LaCie is about 50% slower then the USB on the WD. who knows why, but I don't really care because there are some things I have learned from Time Machine.
The biggest file I backed up was 9 GB, so I really don't need the speed of Firewire. 
plus, the LaCie looks cooler, and is MUCH quieter, which is a must for me.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I am all about the LaCie Porsche design.


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## spitfire (Feb 26, 2008)

Go Big or Go Home

1TB and I would get a D-Link USB Switch with that and attach 7 more external HDDs to it 

Then it will be like storage haven!


By far this has been the most useless advice I have ever given.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

7 TBs of space is roomy


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## Guitar King (Sep 24, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> I am all about the LaCie Porsche design.


Why do they call it Porsche design? Whats the difference?


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