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My Mac will never use much more than 75GB of its 1TB hard drive. Can I use an old Toshiba 500GB external HDD as TimeMachine's destination for backups?
Thanks in advance.
iMac Pro
I would reconsider that 500GB drive to one with larger capacity.
I am running macOS Mojave on a Late-2013 iMac with an internal 250 GB SSD. I have used 114 GB of that drive, and this is a relatively stable figure. The external Time Machine drive is a 1 TB Crucial SSD, and to date, I have used 300 GB of that drive, which was a new drive, when I upgraded to Mojave about 18 months ago.
Hmmm. So you have nearly twice the data on your internal drive as the OP and have 18 months worth of backups. I understand why it's best in general to have a larger Time Machine drive than one's internal but it's not an absolute.
The consensus seems to be that, while 500GB will work, it's not ideal. So maybe I'll use that one to back up my laptop (which has a much smaller hard drive), and get the Western Digital 1TB or 2TB at Best Buy.
Yes. You will be limited to how much you can add to your internal drive and how far back in time you can recover data but yes you could use the drive.
You're welcome.
I do not enjoy outgrowing a TM drive, and having to eventually merge that with a newer, higher capacity drive. Been there, done that.
When I read (somewhere) that if Time Machine started to run out of space it would delete the oldest backup(s) to make more room, I assumed that it would never use it all up. Is that incorrect?
That is true, but if you should start to get into photography, or edit videos or... You can quickly get to the 500 GB of your time machine drive,
My Mac desktop has a 1TB hard drive with only about 75GB used, and it will never use much more than that. Can I use on old Toshiba 500GB external HDD for TimeMachine backups
