Backup disk management questions

Question

1. Can't I use the backup disk for anything else than time machine?
2. How can I see the status of the disk - how much room left?
3. Any controls on the how backup is performed, such as how many generations I want to keep, how mcuh space do I allow etc.

Answer 1

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
1. If you have a relatively large disk you can partition it and use one partition for Time Machine. Apple says you can keep other files on the same partition as Time Machine but suggests that it is ideal if Time Machine has its very own disk or partition.
2. Click once on a disk icon in the Finder. Type Command "i". or choose Get Info from the File menu. You can also see the information if you run Disk Utility which you can launch from the icon on your dock or go to the Utilities folder by choosing Utilities from the Go menu. Once you have launched Disk Utility click on the volume (volumes are the indented ones) in the left pane and it will tell you that volume's capacity and used/available space at the bottom of the Disk Utility window.
3. Time Machine does an initial backup and then does hourly incremental backups after that. The hourly backups are automatically deleted daily to save disk space. There are no user controls for the timing. You can, however, choose to start or stop Time Machine at any time and you can also turn the program on or off. Once the partition is nearly full Time Machine will start to automatically delete prior backups as it needs disk space starting with the earliest backups. There is an excellent thread on how to calculate what size backup drive might suit your needs here.