05-08-2008, 12:15 AM

Hi,

I will have a 500GB HD on my imac. I'm looking at getting the time capaule for back-up - is there any point in getting a time capsule with a bigger capacity than my hard drive???

Thanks

05-09-2008, 05:40 AM

Yes, if you use a lot of your HD.

No, if you're only using 100GB or whatever.

I'm not even backing up to mine at the moment and I've managed to fill 150GB with random stuff and movies in a month, and it's only going to get worse...

On the other hand you can add another HD to the TC via USB if you did run out of space.


To sum up: if I were you or you were I, I would get a 1TB TC, mostly because I know I horde data and will fill the iMac HD and need the space on the TC to back up. And the backup won't just be the size of your HD. Because Time Machine keeps backing up, it'll eventually fill the drive (I think...).

Sorry, tis early, I'm a bit vague today.

05-09-2008, 09:40 AM

Different people use different formulas to decide how big the TM backup drive should be. Some say twice the size of the drive your backing up. After using TM for a while, this is way overkill.

If you legitimately have 500gb of data to backup and want to use Time Capsule, then you will need the 1tb model. With the 500gb model, once the initial backup is completed, you would have no room for the incremental backups (and there are no other Time Capsule options in between).

However, if you think you will never use more than 350gb of the 500 available, then the 500gb will work fine.

So here's my formula--If will be happy storing a couple months worth of backups and don't think you will need to go back any farther than that to retrieve data, then you need a MINIMUM of 1.2x the size of the amount of data you will be backing up. 200gb to backup 160gb. 500gb to backup 400gb. Note: MINIMUM.

If two years from now, you will want to go back and retrieve a change you made today, then, you'll need a drive twice the size of the original.

05-10-2008, 07:58 AM

THanks for the reply. What happens with the TC when it fills up. Does it just start to write over the oldest files?? One of the main uses for me will be the saf(er) storage of photos and videos. At the moment I have an external hard drive I back up to on a fairly sporadic basis and I thought the TC whould be a big improvement. I wouldn't want old photos to get deleted though.

Andy

05-10-2008, 03:59 PM

It will only delete duplicate backups:

For instance, if I have a word document backed up from 6 months ago and I change it more recently, Time machine will store separate backups of both copies.

If the backup harddrive fills up and there's new stuff to be backed up, it will delete the older copy.