I have searched online for solutions to limit the total size of my Time Machine backup on my 4TB external Western Digital drive.
Before, I had two partitions: 3TB for Time Machine, and 1TB for Other Files. I deleted the 1TB partition, and allocated the free space to Time Machine, so now I have the full 4TB for Time Machine.
The two different solutions were recommended:
1. Set the maximum size of your Time Machine on your drive, then create a new empty partition after shrinking the Time Machine partition.
2. Use this command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 3584000
(where in this example 3584000 is equivalent to 3500GB as the maximum size)
I used terminal to run the command, with no problems.
However, the next hour, I see a massive backup in several hundreds of GB being backed up to my 4TB partition, and filling my drive nearly empty.
Has anyone used this command before successfully? It seemed like the command didn't work.
Or can anyone recommend other solutions, commands, or software to set a size limit on my Time Machine?
I would prefer if I didn't re-create an empty partition for my external drive, as I only just deleted that partition for more space for Time Machine. Also, I would have to go through the process of shrinking / deleting my Time Machine backups (which am clueless how to do it) so that I can free up space again.
I'm running macOS Mojave 10.14.6
Thank you.
Before, I had two partitions: 3TB for Time Machine, and 1TB for Other Files. I deleted the 1TB partition, and allocated the free space to Time Machine, so now I have the full 4TB for Time Machine.
The two different solutions were recommended:
1. Set the maximum size of your Time Machine on your drive, then create a new empty partition after shrinking the Time Machine partition.
2. Use this command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 3584000
(where in this example 3584000 is equivalent to 3500GB as the maximum size)
I used terminal to run the command, with no problems.
However, the next hour, I see a massive backup in several hundreds of GB being backed up to my 4TB partition, and filling my drive nearly empty.
Has anyone used this command before successfully? It seemed like the command didn't work.
Or can anyone recommend other solutions, commands, or software to set a size limit on my Time Machine?
I would prefer if I didn't re-create an empty partition for my external drive, as I only just deleted that partition for more space for Time Machine. Also, I would have to go through the process of shrinking / deleting my Time Machine backups (which am clueless how to do it) so that I can free up space again.
I'm running macOS Mojave 10.14.6
Thank you.