M2 for Time Machine instead of USB3 HDDs that run hot

[ced89]

Hi,

the title says a lot, I basically ended up to the conclusion that is better to buy an M2 2TB PCI 3 (v3 at least) instead of a 5TB HDD...
These HDDs run too hot, especially on the initial Time Machine backup, which would last for around 5h for 1.5 TB (my max expected content).
My WD 5TB goes up to 57 degrees with a 19 degrees room................ Without writing on it, it stays around 33, just before the 35 degree optimal max declared by WD.

I'm not sure if the 4TB model runs so hot, but it's anyway a risk, plus, with daily turn on and off, I'm afraid that it wouldn't last too long anyway...
Hourly snapshots no way, that would kill the disk very soon... It already makes a weird sound when it shuts off .
Online people reported the same, so it seems that there is no way to cool down such HDDs, and it's obvious, they are stuck inside the case without heatsink and air flow, I mean, it's completely closed, unbelivable...

I need to backup up 1.5TB of files but the daily changes are very little, stuff for 100MB.
I'm thinking to buy a 2TB M2, these days the prices are quite close to a 5TB HDD, and an HDD is quite risky compared to an M2, that btw it has 1200 TBW.
I know that I'm comparing a 5TB HDD with an M2 2TB, but it is what it is, it's sufficient for Time Machine.
Plus, very soon I'll remove 1TB of data, just the time to transfer them to another cloud provider , so I'll have 500GB + 300GB for a VM in the worst case scenario.

Questions
1. Any remark?

2. Do you know any M2 adapter compatible with MacOS? Something official I mean, not some random soldered board .

3. I'll be able to look at an heatsink by myself, but any suggestion is welcome.

4. I'd like to connect it through USB3, I don't need the Thunderbolt speed, in this way I don't need to attach another cable to the MacBook (let's save the MacBook ) plus those enclosures are very expensive... Anything wrong with it?

 

[MacInWin]

If you need to back up 1.5TB, Apple recommends a drive twice that size for TM, and most of us would back that recommendation. So a 2TB drive will run out of space sooner than you think. You may imagine only small changes, but you would be surprised how much actually changes daily.

 

[ced89]

If you need to back up 1.5TB, Apple recommends a drive twice that size for TM, and most of us would back that recommendation. So a 2TB drive will run out of space sooner than you think. You may imagine only small changes, but you would be surprised how much actually changes daily.

Oh right, I remember that thing...

Let's make the math, I'll have 2 different cloud locations, 1 cloud sync and 1 cloud backup, plus 1x 5TB HDD and the M2 for a quick restore in case things breaks.

It would be great to have a long history with Time Machine, but with 500GB of data used, or better, 800 max, I think is fine...
Even if I reach around 1.5TB in 1-2 years, it will be on a much later date anyway, when the M2 will be probably half the price, time for an upgrade at that point.
Sounds good?

 

[ced89]

Unless when my VM shuts down, TM may re-create a new file, and that's a big one (up to 300GB)...
And then, I don't think that TM will destroy the previous big VM file, it may start to delete other files that it's better to keep...
What do you say?

In any case, the VM size would burn out my HDD and every large backup should be controlled...
I'm not even sure if I can pause TM..........................

 

[MacInWin]

I need to backup up 1.5TB of files but the daily changes are very little, stuff for 100MB.

Maybe you need to explain that sentence for me to understand. I took it to mean you needed to backup 1.5TB of data. Now you throw around a bunch of numbers that don't seem to match, or, to me at least, mean anything. What does the cloud have to do with TM? How much data do you need to backup today, not years from now? And yes, VM systems are usually stored as one or two big files and when run, are changed, triggering a backup flag being set so TM will copy the new data. Some VM systems have one big file, others have two, one for the VM system and the other for the VM storage (virtual drive).

Bottom line, don't overthink it. Get a reasonably good drive, twice the size of your backup demand, it will last you years. Dedicate it to TM, nothing else. Doesn't have to be fast, either, just reasonable. When/if it gets full, swap it out for a new, empty storage of whatever kind is available then, put the full backup aside for a while until you are reasonably confident you won't need to go back that far, then either recycle it or re-purpose it. Don't spend a ton of money on it. Unless you are running a major business on the Mac and need years of data, say accounting or sales stuff or taxes, then maybe you would need an archive of those files, but in that case TM is NOT the best tool. I generally don't keep files older than the day I upgraded the system to the latest version of macOS. So, I have backups now of Ventura, but not Monterey, not Big Sur, etc.

 

[ced89]

1.5TB of data is the max I have now, but 1TB is just about videos that can stay only on cloud, I don't use them every day...

So, the production usage is 500GB, max 800, which will need to stay on the primary disk because Apple doesn't have an expansion slot...
They would be backed up by TM the first time, but then nothing, or probably I'm just creating the problem because at some point (in a late future), TM may always remove those files and I wouldn't even notice...
I think I'm good at keeping these data on Cloud and on another 5TB disk that I already have, at this point...........

So, technically a 2TB external HDD would be good too, but I'm afraid that even this one will run hot, at least the first time, when I say hot I mean around 60 degrees.
I could manage TM, stop means pause actually ,I think I found the trick...