To them I say, the boot drive is the worst place for backups. Still, it has to be set up and a destination for the backups attached. Time Machine is fine for people who would have no built-in backup option but for TM. Keep in mind that Time Machine backups happen incrementally once the initial backup has been made, which is why they’re usually pretty quick, unless you have added a ton of files or made many changes to the computer in the interim.īy the way, if you haven’t configured Time Machine automatic backups yet on your Mac, you really should do so, it’s quite simple to set up as detailed here. This is the same whether the Time Machine drive is a local external hard disk, a network drive, or an AirPort Time Capsule, and whether the backup is encrypted or not. Additionally, sometimes Time Machine can be inordinately stuck on “Preparing Backup”, requiring intervention from the user, though that is a fairly rare situation. The time shown, typically in minutes or hours, is usually accurate, though since device and drive reading / writing and throughput can depend on other activity going on, the time can change depending on what else is going on with the Mac and the target drive.

Click on “Time Machine” and find the time remaining under the progress bar and “Backing up: ? GB of ? GB” text.Go to the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”.While a Time Machine backup is actively (whether on schedule or started manually) backing up the Mac, you can check the progress and time remaining until completion through the preference panel item by doing the following:

External hard drive time machine full