New Mac mini: move your files in, then size the backup drive

Apple’s M6 and M5 Pro Mac minis ship Sept. 22. A new mini needs two things before it’s useful: your files and a backup. Apple’s migration tools are free, and a drive you already own may be big enough for the backup.

The short answer

Job	Free or owned route	When money helps	The catch
Move in from a Mac	Migration Assistant, wirelessly or with a cable	Not required	Moving from another Mac mini needs a display on each Mac
Move in from a Windows PC	Apple’s free Windows Migration Assistant	Not required	Both computers near each other with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on
Back up at the desk	A spare drive at least twice the Mac’s storage	No spare drive is big enough	Time Machine should have the drive to itself
Back up over your network	A Mac you own, sharing a folder as a Time Machine destination	A NAS that supports Time Machine over SMB	The destination has to be on your network
Keep a copy away from home	A second drive kept somewhere else	A cloud backup service, such as Backblaze at $9 a month	Another subscription

• 256GB Mac mini: a 1TB drive meets Apple’s rule. A 500GB drive falls short, because twice 256GB is 512GB.
• 512GB Mac mini: twice is 1,024GB, so a 1TB drive falls just short; shop for 2TB or more.
• 1TB Mac mini: 2TB or more. 2TB: 4TB or more.
• Hard drive or SSD: Apple’s rule is about capacity, not drive type. For a drive that stays on the desk, we’d pay for capacity before speed.

What size backup drive to buy

Apple’s Time Machine instructions say to use a storage device with at least twice your Mac’s storage capacity. Apple also says to use the backup disk only for Time Machine backups, not for other files.

Mac’s internal storage	Apple’s minimum backup size	Size to shop for	Samsung T7 at that size
256GB, M6 base model	512GB	1TB	$274.99
512GB, M5 Pro base model	1,024GB	2TB	$549.99
1TB	2TB	2TB	$549.99
2TB, M6 maximum	4TB	4TB	$1,094.99

Prices are from Samsung’s U.S. T7 page on Sept. 15, before tax and shipping. The 2TB T7 showed as out of stock. Samsung’s rugged T7 Shield cost $13-$50 more at the same sizes, according to the prices in our storage guide.

An M5 Pro configured with 4TB or 8TB needs 8TB or 16TB under Apple’s rule. Samsung’s T7 page tops out at 4TB, so those buyers should look at larger hard drives or a network destination.

Hard drives. On Sept. 15, Seagate’s U.S. store showed its Portable and Expansion hard drives as out of stock, and Western Digital’s store did not display My Passport prices, so we don’t quote a hard drive price. Seagate lists a USB 3.0 interface for its Portable drive. Samsung rates the T7 at up to 1,050MB/s read and 1,000MB/s write over USB 3.2 Gen 2. Compare the price of a hard drive and an SSD at the same capacity before paying for the speed.

Room beyond the minimum. Apple says Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months, and deletes the oldest backups when the disk is full. A drive larger than the minimum keeps more of that history. It also leaves room if your next Mac has more storage: a 2TB drive covers any Mac with up to 1TB.

Apple says the first backup might take longer than you expect and that you can keep using the Mac while it runs.

Moving in

Migration Assistant comes with the Mac. It runs inside the setup assistant that opens the first time a new Mac starts up, and later as an app in the Utilities folder.

Coming from	Route	What Apple says to check
A working Mac	Mac to Mac, wirelessly or with a cable	macOS up to date on each Mac, though the versions needn’t match; Wi-Fi on and the computers near each other
A Time Machine backup	From a Time Machine backup, startup disk or other storage device	The backup disk connected to the new Mac and turned on
A Windows PC	Windows Migration Assistant, installed on the PC	Windows and macOS up to date; the computers near each other with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on

A cable is optional. Apple’s Mac mini migration guide says a direct cable connection to your previous Mac is often faster than Wi-Fi, but it doesn’t name a cable type. Wireless transfer is a supported route, so you don’t have to buy a cable to migrate.

Moving from another Mac mini. Apple says migrating from a Mac mini, or from another Mac without a built-in display, requires two displays, one connected to each Mac. If you have only one screen, there’s another route: back up the old mini with Time Machine, then connect the screen and the backup drive to the new mini and migrate from the backup.

Watch the new Mac’s storage. Migration Assistant calculates how much space your apps, user accounts, files and settings take up, then lets you choose which categories to transfer. If the old Mac holds more than a 256GB or 512GB mini can, decide first what will live on an external drive. Our storage guide covers what should stay internal.

Allow time. Apple says large transfers might need hours and might seem to pause. If the new Mac already has an account with the same name, Apple lets you replace it or rename the old account so both are kept.

From a PC. Apple says Windows Migration Assistant copies user accounts, email, contacts, calendars, documents, photos, media files, browser bookmarks and some settings, such as known Wi-Fi networks. It doesn’t delete anything from the PC. Which macOS versions work depends on your Windows version, so check Apple’s page before starting.

Where the backup lives

A drive at the desk. Apple says Time Machine backs up your files, including apps, music, photos, email and documents, to an external USB or Thunderbolt drive. If the drive isn’t formatted for Time Machine, your Mac might ask to erase it. Turning on Encrypt Backup asks you to create a backup password; keep it somewhere other than the Mac. Eject the disk before unplugging it.

Another Mac you own. Apple documents sharing a folder as a Time Machine backup destination using SMB file sharing. Other Macs on your network can back up to it, and an optional “Limit backups to” setting caps how much space the backups take. An old Intel Mac mini can do this job. Our Intel Mac mini guide lists used prices and those machines’ security-update limits.

A NAS. Time Machine can back up to a third-party NAS that supports Time Machine over SMB, according to Apple’s list of backup disks. Apple no longer recommends AirPort Time Capsule backups because of compatibility issues between its AFP protocol and macOS 27 or later. That makes a used Time Capsule a poor buy for this job.

iCloud. iCloud includes 5GB free. U.S. iCloud+ plans cost $0.99 a month for 50GB, $2.99 for 200GB, $9.99 for 2TB, $29.99 for 6TB and $59.99 for 12TB. Apple presents iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos as places to store documents, photos and videos, and Time Machine as the tool that backs up a Mac’s apps, email and files to a disk. We’d use iCloud alongside a Time Machine backup, not instead of one.

A copy away from home. A backup drive on the desk sits in the same room as the Mac. A common practice is to keep a second copy somewhere else, on a drive stored at another location or with a cloud service. Backblaze Personal Backup lists $9 a month or $99 a year for unlimited data, with a Mac app and backup of connected external drives. Backblaze will also mail you a USB drive of your data and refund its cost if you send the drive back within 30 days. Read its version-history terms before relying on it.

Before you buy

• Check what you own. Disk Utility shows a drive’s capacity. If a spare drive holds at least twice the new Mac’s storage, it can be the backup drive. Copy off anything you want to keep first, because the Mac might offer to erase it.
• Don’t double up. A drive that holds a moved Photos library or other working files isn’t a backup of those files. Apple rules out Time Machine backup drives as a place for a Photos library; our storage guide has the details.
• Splitting one large drive. Apple says advanced users can add APFS volumes, one for Time Machine at twice the Mac’s capacity and another for other files. A single drive failure would still take both volumes, so a separate backup drive is the simpler choice.
• Ports and cables. Both new models have USB-C ports on the front and back, and the front ports are rated up to 10Gb/s (port table). That covers the T7’s USB 3.2 Gen 2 rating and a USB 3.0 hard drive. Check the cable in the box: a drive that ships with a USB-A cable needs a USB-C cable or adapter that fits its connector.

Where to buy

Free first. Migration Assistant is already on the Mac, and Windows Migration Assistant is a free download from Apple. A spare drive or a Mac already on your network costs nothing extra.

Manufacturer and service pages: Samsung T7, Seagate Portable, Backblaze Personal Backup and Apple’s iCloud+ plans.

Samsung T7 Portable SSD, 1TB, Titan Gray (MU-PC1T0T/AM), on Amazon, check current price. A 1TB drive meets Apple’s rule for a 256GB Mac.

Seagate 2TB Portable Hard Drive (STGX2000400) on Amazon, check current price. A 2TB drive meets Apple’s rule for a Mac with up to 1TB. Check the included cable against your Mac’s USB-C ports.

Find 4TB portable hard drives on Amazon. Unbranded and lookalike listings appear in the results, so confirm the brand, the 4TB capacity and the seller on the listing.

Still deciding how much internal storage to buy? Our storage guide compares Apple’s upgrade prices with external SSDs.