Can I use a USB 3.0 Flash Drive with Time Machine as backup?

I have the same question (flash drive for time machine?). I understand that an external disk is better, but cost is not my main concern--I don't like the idea of having a sleek, slim, lightweight MacBook only to have to fumble with an external drive dangling off of it all the time. I know it can be unplugged easily enough, but everyone recommends leaving it plugged in all the time so that time machine can do its thing. If that's the case, it would be much nicer to use USB drive or SD card memory so that my MacBook keeps its compactness and portability.

williamwallace96 wrote:

Thanks very much for the quick reply. A couple other questions:

The Local Snapshots feature you mentioned--are these local copies deleted once the external backup is connected and they're moved to it? Or do they continue to take up space on the local hard drive and need to be manually removed?

Apple typically keeps a few copies around (so that you usually have something to restore, for when you are next disconnected), purges what is deemed unnecessary or deemed no longer necessary, and that “borrowed” storage usage and that background activity varies based on the volume of (user) storage usage, and the amount of user file activity.

About Time Machine local snapshots - Apple Support

Also, do I have the option of simply doing Time Machine backups manually at times of my choosing? That way I would only need to connect the external drive when doing a backup.

Time Machine is automatic, by default.

You can back up manually, but—when wirelessly connected to a NAS—it all happens silently in the background.

Which means you don’t need to think about it. Don’t need to connect. Whenever in Wi-Fi range, it just happens.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

Backup disks you can use with Time Machine - Apple Support

Somewhat counter-intuitively: free memory, and free storage, is wasted memory, and wasted storage. You paid for it, you want to use it, which means using it as a cache or for backups puts it to beneficial use.

Remember the good old days when cassettes were used? 😎

williamwallace96 wrote:

I have the same question (flash drive for time machine?). I understand that an external disk is better, but cost is not my main concern--I don't like the idea of having a sleek, slim, lightweight MacBook only to have to fumble with an external drive dangling off of it all the time. I know it can be unplugged easily enough, but everyone recommends leaving it plugged in all the time so that time machine can do its thing. If that's the case, it would be much nicer to use USB drive or SD card memory so that my MacBook keeps its compactness and portability.

Flash drives have rotten reliability, particularly for heavy use, and lack capacity.

For capacity, two or three times the capacity of the internal storage is a typical recommendation, and in the last few years a 4 to 6 TB HDD is a reasonable (inexpensive) choice for many Mac internal storage configurations. That’s enough capacity to get some depth of backups.

As for leaving the Time Machine backup always plugged in, there are a couple of minor considerations:

1: if your backups are embedded into your device, it likely all disappears at once, backups and all. Makes any recovery problematic.

2: Time Machine already provides this local backup feature. It’s called Local Snapshots. Local Snapshots takes copies into “spare” storage—another reason why purchasing too little storage can cause problems—when external backups are configured, but nit currently connected.

In aggregate, macOS transparently already does what you want here, and arguably better.

If you want sleek and such (and have the budget for this), acquire a NAS (one with Time Machine support), and connect that to your Wi-Fi network. Time Machine will detect your Wi-Fi and start up backups, and without plugging in any hardware. It’ll also cycle through multiple NAS targets, if configured for that, such as one NAS located at home and one at an office.

Synology is one of various vendors here, and a Synology NAS can be anything from a couple of HDDs on your network for Time Machine, to a whole lot of storage for backups and storage and services for many other purposes.

Thanks very much for the quick reply. A couple other questions:

The Local Snapshots feature you mentioned--are these local copies deleted once the external backup is connected and they're moved to it? Or do they continue to take up space on the local hard drive and need to be manually removed?

Also, do I have the option of simply doing Time Machine backups manually at times of my choosing? That way I would only need to connect the external drive when doing a backup.

Thanks again.

They should get deleted once the backups complete.

Yes, you can choose & there's a neat tool, Time Machine Editor...

TimeMachineEditor (tclementdev.com)

Or what I use...

Carbon Copy Cloner...

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Yes indeed. :)

You shouldn't.

Flash drives are not that reliable and are more likely to fail than an external disk would be. Use an external disk. They are not that expensive.

+3... least reliable backup you could ever do.