Hi Neil, On 23 Jul 2014, at 12:41 pm, Neil Houghton <[email protected]> wrote:
> A quick question for the TM gurus. Might be a quick question for you... but it will be a very long answer for anyone to give you advice. Firstly you are not really using Time Machine the way it has been designed to work. Plus I would be using a 3TB External Drive or 3TB Time Capsule to store your TM Backups on. I created a document back in October 2010 explaining and showing "How Time Machine Works - How Time Machine Works Its Magic". There are two main bits of "Magic" behind Time Machine: 1. The File System Event Database -- How changes are found 2. Multiple Hard Links -- How backups are stored It might be beneficial for you to read this document first so you understand more about how Time Machine works. If you wish I can email my document to you "Offlist". Post back to WAMUG if you do. > > I have my entourage database included in my TM backup - it has masses of > emails filed in various folders & sub-folders and I need a back-up of these > filed emails. > > Since the file is very large (my main identity folder is currently 4.32GB) > and changes with every email send/receive - it takes up a significant chunk > of space!! Entourage database creates massive files on TM - database programs do: Any change, no matter how tiny, means the whole file or database is marked as changed, and will be backed-up the next time. > > I don't have TM set to automatically back up - I prefer to do it manually as > any valuable work is done - which keeps it manageable - but I am approaching > the point where my 1TB TM disk will become full and TM will start deleting > the oldest backups. When your backup volume gets close to being full, Time Machine automatically deletes old backups to make space for new ones. It doesn’t warn you about this, by the way, but the first time it happens— and optionally thereafter—Time Machine does inform you that it has just deleted some backups, suggesting that you select a different disk to avoid having more files deleted. (If, instead, you’d like to migrate your Time Machine backups to a larger volume you can 'Migrate to a Larger Time Machine Disk'). I have done this when I upgrading from a 2TB Time Capsule to a 3TB Time Capsule. > > My problem is that I would prefer not to delete most of these oldest backups > across the board. I know that I could slash the space currently used by TM > if I could selectively just delete the oldest backups of my Microsoft User > Data main identity folder (whilst still keeping more recent back-ups of > this). If I could do this manually I could soon free-up a few hundred GB > whilst still retaining maximum backups of the other files. > > What I am not sure of is the safest way to do this. > > Whilst I could easily go into the TM volume using finder and manually select > the earliest instances of the files/folders I wish to cull, I seem to > remember dire warnings about messing with the innards of the TM volume > structure - is it OK to manually delete individual back-ups that I know I no > longer need - or is this likely to give problems. In Snow Leopard Apple warning was: never, ever, move, change, or delete anything in your backups via the Finder or Terminal. That can corrupt them beyond repair. While deleting backups via the Finder is, technically, supported on Lion, Mountain Lion & Mavericks, you may have some of the same problems. I can give you instructions - How to delete individual backups from Time Machine - but I take absolutely NO Responsibility if any corruption or problems occur after deletion. That out of the way: If you decide to exclude a file from Time Machine after Time Machine has already backed it up. Contrary to what the user interface implies, Time Machine doesn’t let you purge just one instance of a particular file from your backups. You have two choices: delete a single entire snapshot (that is, all the files from a particular hourly run of Time Machine) or delete all instances of a single file from a certain location, regardless of how many times that file was backed up. Delete an Entire Snapshot To delete all the files Time Machine backed up during a particular hourly run, follow these steps: 1. Click the Time Machine Dock icon or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu to show the “time warp” display. 2. Using the arrow buttons or the timeline control on the side of the screen, navigate to the snapshot you want to delete. Note that if it occurred within the last day, you’ll delete just that hourly run; if it occurred earlier, you will delete the only remaining backup for a particular day or week. You can verify which backup you’ll be deleting by looking at the large bar at the bottom of the window. 3. From the pop-up Action menu, choose Delete Backup. (It doesn’t matter whether you have any file or folder selected.) Time Machine removes that entire snapshot from its backup. (You may be prompted to enter an administrator password first.) Delete All Instances of a Single File To delete every backed up copy of a given file from your Time Machine backup, follow these steps: 1. In the Finder, navigate to the folder that contains (or once contained) any version of the file you want to delete; if you’re unsure where it is (or was), do a Spotlight search. 2. Click the Time Machine Dock icon or choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu to show the “time warp” display. 3. Using the arrow buttons or the timeline control on the side of the screen, navigate to any previous version of the folder that contains the file you want to delete. Click the file once to select it. 4. From the pop-up Action menu, choose Delete All Backups of “File Name”. (You can also right-click or Control-click the item and choose Delete All Backups of “File Name” from the contextual menu.) Time Machine removes from its backup every copy of that file, in that location, that it ever backed up. (For some files, you may be prompted to enter an administrator password first.) > > Is there a "right way" to selectively delete, say, the first 2 years worth > of backups of one specific large item - whilst not compromising later > backups of the same item - and definitely not compromising any (old or new) > backups of any other items. > > > I hope the above makes sense ;o) > > > Any thoughts/advise? Cheers, Ronni > > > Cheers > > Neil > -- > Neil R. Houghton > Albany, Western Australia > Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 > Email: [email protected] >
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