I have Time Machine backups on an external hard drive that is nearly full. I do not want old backups to be overwritten. I want to be prompted instead.
How much space do incremental backups take?
How can I prevent deletion of old backups?
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.3
jjjefff wrote:
How much space do incremental backups take?
That would depend entirely on what needed to be backed up.
How can I prevent deletion of old backups?
Remove the drive from Time Machine and start a new set of backups on a new drive.
jjjefff wrote:
How much space do incremental backups take?
That would depend entirely on what needed to be backed up.
How can I prevent deletion of old backups?
Remove the drive from Time Machine and start a new set of backups on a new drive.
And physically label the TM drive that you remove with "Big Sur version TM backup 1, 2023-09-05" so you know what is on it for any future restore need. Label its replacement drive as "Big Sur version TM backup 2, 2023-09-05" to keep them organized. The word version should be replaced with the last version of Big Sur that was applied via Software Update for that given drive.
Consider a larger capacity replacement drive unless you know you will be soon upgrading to a new major version of macOS where in that case, you would need yet another suitably sized backup drive to segregate the operating system backups.
jjjefff wrote:
I have Time Machine backups on an external hard drive that is nearly full. I do not want old backups to be overwritten.
Then you are seeking an archival system, not a backup system. Time Machine is not an archival utility.
Got it. Do you have suggestions on archival tools that can create full backups including the OS and all files?
dialabrain and VikingOSX both provided suggestions worth considering.
Time Machine no longer backs up macOS itself. It's Apple's new and improved way of ensuring operating system security.
How can I prevent Time Machine backups from being deleted?
