Backup Issues w new drive

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Have a new 1TB Seagate drive for backup as I got message my 750G Western Digital was out of space.

Backed up w/ my Seagate, but got message that there's still 800+ gigs available of space.

So I assume it's not backing up entire hard drive.

How do I remedy?

Thank you for your feedback.
 
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What are you using to backup? And most backup utilities will compress the files. Time Machine does not backup the OS.

Lisa
 

chscag

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I believe Lisa meant to say that Time Machine backups are not bootable. Time Machine will backup everything provided you did not exclude anything when setting it up. The reason you have so much space remaining on the new Seagate drive is because it's your first backup with it. Your old drive had an accumulation of backups which is why it ran out of space.
 
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Thanks for the diplomacy chscag! You are right. I know the OS is available on Time Machine. I did not phase that right at all! But you are correct - TM is not bootable. It would be nice if that feature was added though.

Lisa
 

Rod


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Time Machine performs incremental backups of changes to your HD. So after a time any drive you attach will become full. I usually recommend an external drive twice the size of your devices' internal HD for TM. But that is dependent on how many changes you make to the system and how far back you want to go for Restore purposes.
My attitude is that if you lost or damaged a file you would know about it fairly soon. So chances are you would only need to go back a week or two to Restore it but like some people who never erase their old emails (just in case) some want backups that go back years. If this is the case you will need to buy a new external HD every year.
Time machine has the ability to erase the oldest backups to make room for new ones and that default behaviour is what I allow.
Given that TM is really only good for restoring data in the case of accidental erasure or damage or to a new device when you upgrade there are much better alternatives for long term archiving.
I think of TM as good short term insurance so every time I upgrade to a new macOS I erase my TM backup and start a new one.
For most users a bootable clone is a much better alternative and I personally would rather have a clone than a TM backup if I had to choose between the two but obviously both is better.
For portability and convenience I have one 1Tb USB EHD partitioned into two halves, one for TM and one for Carbon Copy Cloner and another 1Tb EHD just for CCC which I back up to once a week.
 
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Another vote for a cloned backup with CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
 

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