Some questions on how to manage my MacBook Pro and ICY BOX Portable Hard Disk Drive

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Hej,

so, I've finally started the big spring clean-up.
My latest backup is from 2015 and I can see that there is only 87 GB space left on my external hard disk (out of 500GB).

First:
I'd like to put most of my videos and pictures from my computer into my external hard disk manually.
The Hard disk does not let me do that by copy paste, it gives me two messages when trying: 1) "Modifying "xxx- MacBook Pro" Requires an administrator name and password. "To move "xxxx" klick Authenticate".
So I click on that and it gives me 2) The operation can't be completed because backup items can't be modified".

My main goal is to create some space in my computer, how should i start? Should I just replace the old backup with a new one and then just delete the pictures and videos that take up a lot of space on my computer. But what happens next time I make a back up? If I replace the old backup with a new one which then does not include all my pictures, do I then loose all my pictures?

I'd just like to manually manage the pictures and everything on the hard disk. I will also start to write my bachelor thesis now and I'd like to make a backup every time I finish writing for the day.

And what if I want to create more space in my external hard drive too? I just deleted a lot of **** from my computer, and I'd like to do that on my hard drive too.

I don't know how to start all this.

Thanks a lot for your advice,
N
 
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Before you do anything, get another separate drive and make a new backup of your entire system. This would mean the new drive should be at least the same size (data/GB) as the internal drive as your MBP's drive. Only after you have a complete backup, should you attempt to move files/data. Do you know if there are files on your original backup drive you want to keep? You may want to copy those over to the new drive also?

Can you tell us about your computer? Model, type, and year, hard drive size and space free/used?
 
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N
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Hej,
thanks for your quick answer.
I'll buy a new separate drive.
From the original backup drive I'd like to keep most of the pictures and videos, many written files + a bit of music. But I also have all those on my computer atm, minus the ones I just cleaned out. So should I just continue cleaning my computer until I make a new copy of it into my new external hard drive?
If I make a complete new copy of my computer into the new hard drive, I will get all the things I have on my old external hard drive there too, right?

And then after that, what about the manually managing the external hard disk?
Any recommendations on the new hard disk? Just something I can buy from my local Mac Store?

I have a MacBook Pro, (13-inch, Mid 2012),2.5 GHz Intel Core i5,4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3.
I have 55,97 GB free space on my computer. Around 89 on my external hard disk.

thanks a lot
n
 
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Whether or not you clean out the old drive first is up to you. Deleting lots of stuff is, to me, a bit risky, so I tend to make backups BEFORE I do that, just in case I get overzealous in trashing stuff. But if you are certain you don't want what you are deleting, you don't have to make a backup first. It's up to you.

Normally a copy of the internal drive will NOT have any of the external drive data on it. Normally, all it will have is what's on the internal drive.

As for drives, just about any drive will do, there are only 3 manufacturers of drives now. What is most important is the speed of the interface and that it fits your Mac. Your system has USB3 ports, so a good drive with USB3 support will do. Don't worry about the format of the drive, you can get any drive and use Disk Utility to format it for the Mac. Mac stores tend to charge more because the drive is formatted for Mac, but you don't need that because you can do it yourself for free.

Once formatted, make a new backup of the MBP to the new drive. When that is done, you can get rid of whatever you want on the internal drive safely, knowing it's in the backup.

As for the old external, you said:
First:
I'd like to put most of my videos and pictures from my computer into my external hard disk manually.
The Hard disk does not let me do that by copy paste, it gives me two messages when trying: 1) "Modifying "xxx- MacBook Pro" Requires an administrator name and password. "To move "xxxx" klick Authenticate".
So I click on that and it gives me 2) The operation can't be completed because backup items can't be modified".
Reading between the lines, it sounds like you tried to drag and drop something from the internal drive into a Time Machine backup, which is a real no-no. TM backups only LOOK like real files, they are actually hard links to the last time the files changed. In fact, for folders, they link to the last time anything in the folder changed. So trying to manipulate TM backups through Finder or Finder actions will destroy the integrity of the backup links. That's why you got the "operation cannot be completed" message. To deal with TM backups you must use Time Machine. Now, given that the new external has a new backup on it, you can decide if you want to keep those old backups or not. If not, and if there is nothing else on the old external drive, you can just reformat the drive and it will be new and empty. IF there are other files outside the backups on the drive, then you can look at the drive and delete the backups.backupdb folder. That will eliminate all of your backups on that drive. There is no recovery from that action, so make sure you really want to do it. Once the folder is gone, empty trash (it could take a while) and the drive will be ready for whatever you want to put on it.
 

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