Make room on old backup drive for new mac's backups

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I just got a new computer and I want to use Time Machine with it like I did with my now-old mac. Trouble is, the time machine drive I used is only 500GB, and my old comp used up 300GB of it. I am still grabbing old files from it (I opted not to just transfer everything over--so I can't just reformat it), but I'd like to remove everything but the few most recent backups. I would just do it by dragging the folders to the trash in Finder, but I know TM makes hard links in later folders to files in earlier folders that haven't changed, and I don't want to screw over my backups by deleting the actual copies of various files.

Is there any way I can safely delete bunches of old backups? Or must I get a whole new backup drive? If I want to hope to get enough room?

(also, could I do it by connecting the drive to my old comp and somehow deleting the old backups from there?)

Thanks. The final option would be go through the entire drive, ensure I have everything I want from it, and then just reformat.
 

chscag

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The best way is to attach the hard drive to your old machine, run Time Machine from there and remove those backups you no longer need. Eventually when you have everything transferred over you can erase and reformat the drive getting it ready for backups with the new machine.
 

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