time machine space

jammin · Jun 26, 2008

how much space does time machine backups take?? its already used 120 of my 160GB hard drive...is there any way for me to make it use less?

skaheadpunk · Jun 26, 2008

It just keeps making backups until the drive is full... not sure if anyone's figured out how to stop that yet.

cuhnool · Jun 26, 2008

They just copy your HDD the first time you back up. If your internal has used 120GB, it will back up the 120GB. But every hour, it checks for new files. If there are none, it makes no changes. It will only add new files that have been downloaded or uploaded to your internal. So really, you don't need to worry about filling it up to the top, unless you're adding a bunch of 2 hour movies everyday, you shouldn't be worried.

jammin · Jun 26, 2008

but my internal drive has only used about 40GB...

cuhnool · Jun 26, 2008

jammin said:
but my internal drive has only used about 40GB...

When you click the Time Machine volume logo on your desktop (or wherever it is) the files that should be in there are:

>Backups.backup.bd
>yourlaptopname's MacBook, iMac, etc.
>(all the back up files should be here. they will be organized into something like "2008-06-06-183562"
>Macintosh HD (then from there it goes into all yor apps and other things)

if theres anything else in there, reply.

skaheadpunk · Jun 26, 2008

It doesn't just copy your HDD. Initially, it makes a backup of everything, then every hour it checks what has changed - applications, settings, files and folders you've edited, new stuff you've downloaded or installed or whatever - and adds that data to another back up - that's how you can chose when you go back to, not just the most recent backup but beyond that, hour by hour, day by day, week by week.

And that, my friend, can take up a lot of space!

jammin · Jun 26, 2008

yup thats all thats in there, other than a folder of my movies which i put in there myself. even so, thats only about 27gb

cuhnool · Jun 26, 2008

skaheadpunk said:
It doesn't just copy your HDD. Initially, it makes a backup of everything, then every hour it checks what has changed - applications, settings, files and folders you've edited, new stuff you've downloaded or installed or whatever - and adds that data to another back up - that's how you can chose when you go back to, not just the most recent backup but beyond that, hour by hour, day by day, week by week.

And that, my friend, can take up a lot of space!

Yup. And you should probably get a larger volume. At least thats what i would do..

rich6490 · Jun 26, 2008

Is there a simple download out there that lets you limit the maximum size that time machine takes up on a disk. I know there is one that allows you to reduce backup intervals (change from 1 hour to 1 day or 1 week). I would like to find something like this instead of partitioning (and splitting apart to do so) my new time capsule. Thanks,

Zach