Time Machine

I bought a 500GB Ex HDD and started using Time Machine. It backs up every hour. Can I slow it down to once a day?

you can turn time machine off and back up manually by hitting back up now once a day... Is there any reason why every hour is not good for you?

Is there any reason why every hour is not good for you?

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1.He/she may be using a notebook and therefore be on the move constantly
2. save USB ports on the Macbook (there's only 2!)

I agree, why do you need to reduce the frequency of backups? If you don't have it plugged in all the time, you don't have to worry about missing backups as Time Machine caches what to backup and does so the next time you plug in the external drive.

If you're worried about disk space, again, you have nothing to worry about. Over time, those hourly backups are consolidated into daily backups, which then become weekly backups, and I suppose after long enough they'll become monthly backups. So your drive isn't going to become cluttered with hourly backups over time.

It backed up nearly 80 gigs in one day...at that rate my drive will be full in a week.

me1303 said:

It backed up nearly 80 gigs in one day...at that rate my drive will be full in a week.

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Well, this first go-around was to create a base image of what you have. From now on, it will only back up files that have been created or changed. Hourly is the way to go.

PerryLynch said:

Well, this first go-around was to create a base image of what you have. From now on, it will only back up files that have been created or changed. Hourly is the way to go.

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Well, that makes sense and makes me feel better about it. Thanks

If you Really want to adjust the interval you could try this App
http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html