Time Machine, the always-there, always-ready backup solution included with OS X 10.5, is generally a wonderful tool. Once you’ve connected a drive and set up your backups, Time Machine just. 12/8/16 7:48 am MacMost: How Do I Turn Off Time Machine In Sierra? I used to have a Time Capsule. But I was having issues with it, plus most everything is backed up to iCloud now, so I replaced it with a new Airport Base Station (without the built in Time Capsule). I then went into Time Machine preferences to turn it off so it wouldn’t continue to try backing up but there’s no on/off switch. I’m almost certain there was in older versions of MacOS. Instead there’s a box next to “Back Up Automatically.” So I unchecked it thinking that would do it. But now I keep getting notifications that I haven’t backed up in so many days, or that the last back up didn’t finish. I’ve tried going into “Select Disk” to see if I can unselect the old one, but no luck. How do I tell Time Machine to stop trying, or to turn it off completely? 12/8/16 @ 7:48 am Unchecking “Back Up Automatically” is how you turn off Time Machine. It is the same checkbox as before, just with a new label. Now all you need to do is to remove the current backup disk. To do this, Control+click on the disk icon on the same screen. It should be right above the “select disk” button. You get an option to “stop” using the disk. But I would urge you to keep using Time Machine. ICloud (or any cloud storage) does help protect your data in some ways, but not others. For instance what if you accidentally mistake one file for another and delete the important one. Then some time later you realize your mistake. The file is gone from your Mac, iCloud, everywhere. But with Time Machine you would be able to go back and find that file. Or what if you get hit with some future not-yet-invented malware? It corrupts/encrypts your files — and that all syncs to iCloud so all of your files are gone. But a Time Machine backup may have let you roll back the clock and restore. So there are lots of situations where a Time Machine backup will save you that a cloud “backup” would not. That’s why I do both. Plus drives are cheap. You can plug a USB drive right into your Airport Extreme (I assume that’s what you have) and use it like a Time Capsule. ![]() Or, plug directly into your MacBook while it is on your desk. My 13' MacBook Pro has 500GB internal hard drive space, and I bought a 1TB external HDD to use as my Time Machine backup. I only read from many articles that the backup should be about 2 to 3 times the size of my hard drive, but I feel like 1TB will never be filled up, and in fact, leave a lot of free space. I understand that Time Machine takes a snapshot of my whole system and stores it in the backup drive. But say, for example, only about 120GB of my internal HDD is in use. Then it'll only take a snapshot that's about 120GB in size, and while that same snapshot will grow over time as I take more recent snapshots of my system, it will never go beyond 500GB because that's the maximum size of my internal HDD. Or do I have it wrong? How does Time Machine work, really? I'm asking this because I want to know if I should use a separate external HDD for storing my actual files. You probably want to check out for the most information, but here is the answer to your question, quoted from the website above: 1. How big a drive do I need for Time Machine? A general 'rule of thumb' is, to keep a reasonable 'depth' of backups, Time Machine needs 2 to 4 times as much space as the data it's backing-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD). Be sure to add the size of the data on any other drives/partitions you want to back up. But this varies greatly, depending on how you use your Mac. • © 2018 Quicken Inc. If you frequently add/update lots of large files, then even 5 times may not be enough. If you're a light user, you might be able to get 1.5 times to work, but that's subject to problems any time a large backup is needed. And, of course, the larger the drive, the more old backups Time Machine can keep for you. A drive that's too small may only have room for a few weeks (or even days) of backups. Unfortunately, it's rather hard to predict, and most of us have a tendency to add more and more data to our systems over time, so if in doubt, get a bigger one than you think you need now. Also, there are some OSX features and 3rd-party applications that take up large amounts of backup space, for various reasons. See question 9 for details. This is a trade-off between space and how long Time Machine can keep its backups, since it will, by design, eventually use all the space available. But it won't just quit backing-up when it runs out: it starts deleting the oldest backups so it can keep making new ones. Thus, the more space it has, the longer it can keep your backups. If your backup disk is on the small side, and Time Machine needs to do a very large backup, either because you've added or changed a lot or done something like an OSX update since the previous backup, you may get one of the messages in Troubleshooting item #C4 (which one depends on exactly what happened, and which version of OSX you're on.) My Answer Then it'll only take a snapshot that's about 120GB in size, and while that same snapshot will grow over time as I take more recent snapshots of my system, it will never go beyond 500GB because that's the maximum size of my internal HDD. No, not quite.
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