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What size HDD do I need for backups?

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I am buying a new drive which will be used to store backups of a 256 GB SSD and a 2 TB HDD. What size drive will I need to store everything I need for those backups? Is there a formula to calculate the maximum amount of space that would be required?

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Chris,

This depends on a lot of factors, but mostly on your backup scheme.

A full backup will be about the size of the used space minus 40% percent at normal compression (recommended), making sure that the sector by sector option is disabled, for an OS drive like your SSD, and about the same size as the data for a data drive with lots of compressed file formats like videos, music, photos, PDFs, ZIP etc.
You always need enough free space on your backup disk for a new full backup before ATI deletes any older backup(s).

For example, let's assume you have set up a daily incremental with a new full after 6 incrementals, ie a full every week. I tend to use 50% of the size of a full backup for a proxy of a chain of incrementals. Let's assume you have set up the auto-cleaning options to keep only one most recent chain.
With these assumptions, you would need at least 2.5 to 3 times the size of a full backup: 1 for the first full backup, 0.5 for the incrementals, and another full before ATI deletes the first chains.

Note: if you have a lot of compressed file formats, consider this: for movies, videos, music, and for most photos, you don't need to keep versions. Therefore consider using synchronization to backup these files. One safe copy suffices.
For irreplaceable content (something you cannot recreate or repurchase), use a redundant backup online for example.