Time Machine Backup Clogged w/ Old Files?

[elgrayso]

I have a 1TB Mac HD and a 1TB Time Machine external drive.
I have only used 850GB on my Mac HD, so according to math and logic, I should be able to fit this 850GB on the 1000GB external Time Machine drive...

but according to Time Machine logic, there isnt enough room.
It keeps telling me it needs so and so many GB to back it up and that it hasn't been backed up for 20 days.

I understand that it is backing up old files that I do not need anymore or have purposefully deleted, but I would just prefer it to make a backup of what I have on my computer At the Moment.

Is there a way to turn off Time Machine's extra "feature" of clogging up the drive with old unwanted files instead of backing up important current ones?

 

[Nermal]

I don't believe that there is a way to disable that; Time Machine doesn't (and can't) know the difference between a file that you've deleted deliberately and one that you've deleted accidentally.

As one of the main purposes of a backup system is the ability to restore deleted files (the other being the ability to recover from total disk failure) it's unlikely that there is any way to disable this feature.

I believe that Carbon Copy Cloner can be used to make a 1:1 backup of a drive's current state, but I haven't used it myself.

 

[elgrayso]

i manually deleted my time machine backup and am going to re-sync it. ive read other people did this but eventually they have to do the deletion process again as it gets clogged again (such a silly process to need to do).

however i just noticed time machine says "the oldest backups are deleted when your disk becomes full."

i just wish that were true!

 

[Julien]

I have a 1TB Mac HD and a 1TB Time Machine external drive.
I have only used 850GB on my Mac HD, so according to math and logic, I should be able to fit this 850GB on the 1000GB external Time Machine drive...

I don't believe that there is a way to disable that; Time Machine doesn't (and can't) know the difference between a file that you've deleted deliberately and one that you've deleted accidentally.

As one of the main purposes of a backup system is the ability to restore deleted files (the other being the ability to recover from total disk failure) it's unlikely that there is any way to disable this feature.

I believe that Carbon Copy Cloner can be used to make a 1:1 backup of a drive's current state, but I haven't used it myself.

Also 850MB to 1TB may be too small a ratio for TM to properly record enough deltas. CCC (or other cloner) would likely be a better option.

 

[Weaselboy]

i manually deleted my time machine backup and am going to re-sync it. ive read other people did this but eventually they have to do the deletion process again as it gets clogged again (such a silly process to need to do).

however i just noticed time machine says "the oldest backups are deleted when your disk becomes full."

i just wish that were true!

What makes you think older backups are not being deleted? If you look in Console after a TM backup you can see the log entry showing how much was purged off.

Just go into TM options and tell it not to notify you when the old backups are deleted and you should not get that popup message any more. Then just let TM do its thing.

 

[Nermal]

What makes you think older backups are not being deleted?

If it hasn't backed up in 20 days then it'll be complaining about space instead of deleting files. It "shouldn't" do that, but I've run into it myself.

 

[elgrayso]

If it hasn't backed up in 20 days then it'll be complaining about space instead of deleting files. It "shouldn't" do that, but I've run into it myself.

Exactly...

Well there doesn't seem to be an easy fix so I but the bullet and purchased a 2TB drive to back up my 1TB.... Time machine you better not complain!