Specifying number of Time Machine backups

I assume that Time Machine keeps only a particular number of backups in order to conserve hard drive space, but perhaps this is an erroneous assumption. I've been backing up my MacBook Pro to an external hard drive using Time Machine and I'm wondering whether old backups eventually get purged. Does Time Machine automatically limit the amount of storage space allotted to backups on an external drive or the specific number of Time Machine backups? If so, is there a way to change the settings so that (1) only a particular number are saved or (2) so that particular backups are never purged? In reference to (2), is it best to simply move (or copy) backups I wish to never purge (or a subset of files within) outside of the Time Machine folder and into the root of the external drive? Thank you for your assistance!

Entropee wrote:
Does Time Machine automatically limit the amount of storage space allotted to backups on an external drive or the specific number of Time Machine backups?
Time Machine keeps making backups until the external drive is full. When your disk is full, it starts deleting old backups automatically until it has enough space to make backups.
Entropee wrote:
If so, is there a way to change the settings so that (1) only a particular number are saved or (2) so that particular backups are never purged?
As far as I know, they are not possible. If you want to use your external disk to store more files, you can create a second partition on the external drive, so you can use a partition for Time Machine and another one to store files, although it's better to use a drive for Time Machine and another drive to store other files.
Entropee wrote:
In reference to (2), is it best to simply move (or copy) backups I wish to never purge (or a subset of files within) outside of the Time Machine folder and into the root of the external drive?
It's much better, as Time Machine won't delete them

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  • Imac won't restore from time machine backup after HD (hard drive) recall replacement

    I have an imac bought in 2011, running Snow Leopard.  It required an HD replacement due to the 1 TB Seagate recall - the replacement was done by a certified Apple repair station yesterday.  Before the guy left he started a backup/restore from my latest time machine backup set.  It failed.  I attempted it two times and got error messages that it failed and the computer needed to be restarted to try it again.  No luck.  I called the guy back and he told me to call Apple Care.  Not thrilled about that response since the guy had just left my house I did what he told me to do.  (A quick sideline here:  I recognize that a time machine backup should be no big deal and SHOULD work everytime, but it doesn't.  It irks me that Apple is replacing my HD through no fault of mine and yet they don't allow the restore of data to be a "covered" expense in this process - this isn't just because this was an authorized repair guy - the Apple store would have done the same). 
    Back to the issue.  When I called apple care they pretty much had me try the same thing again with an earlier back up set.  To my knowledge, it didn't work.  I say this because it looked like it was working and when I came back to the imac later, it had restarted and once again booted to the OSX install.  (The boot disc is still in the imac).  When I tried to boot from another location, one did not show up to boot from so I assumed that the data didn't transfer and it forced another restart.  So, I tried something else.  I tried to re-install the snow leopard OSX without using the restore function.  That appeared to work and then when the machine restarted it asked if I had another mac and I chose the option to get the files/apps/etc. from my time machine backup.  The computer chose what I can only assume is the most recent backup set (It chose what I know to be a subfolder that appears under the dated backup folder - Macintosh HD--which btw is confusing seeing as that's always the name of the HD on the imac).  I again stepped away from the computer so it could do its thing for two hours.  When I returned, I was back to the MAC OSX screen that asks you to choose a language.  There were no more options to choose DISK UTILITY or RESTORE FROM BACKUP, etc.  When I clicked on English it took me right back into the screen where you say whether you have another Apple that you want to transfer data from.  I realized that the imac must have restarted and I assumed maybe it was because the boot disk was still in - except how do you get the disc to eject?  I also initially assumed that the backup had somehow failed again and triggered a restart.  I tried to choose the option to just set up the machine without transferring data and when I got to the choose a name for your HOME folder message I tried to enter the same name I had it as before and it wouldn't allow me to do so, saying that that name was already in use.  I also tried a different name and that didn't work either - got the same message (I assume if it is not the same name that it won't sync up with the time machine data from the backup set).  So, I almost tried the "select time machine backup" option again until I looked at my HD space.  Clearly, there is space that has been used.  HD space was 997 at the start and now it's 636. My initial thought is to somehow get back into the setup area where I can use disc utility and erase the whole thing and then start over but 1) I don't think it's going to work even if I could get back there 2) I have no idea how to get this thing to reboot into that mode 3) I can't get the boot CD out to even try to restart to see if this thing did what it was supposed to, SO NOW I AM TOTALLY STUCK!  I have not called Apple Care back because quite frankly they were useless the first time.  I have a call into the repair guy but who knows how much help he will be.  In the mean time, I have a million things to do and a computer that isn't working - Whoever said Apples never have issues needs to be seriously censored!
    A few other notes:  I use Time Machine Editor to run my backups weekly.  It was set up that way from the get go by an Apple rep who came to my house to get us up and running.  Editor should not effect the way that time machine does its work, so I doubt there is relevance but thought it worth mentioning. 
    One other note is that the Apple Care agent tried to have me do something called a "Source" something or other from the disk utility screen but when she realized that my backup file (shown by date) contained many other sub files (11-27-12/MacintoshHD/MyNamesIMAC/etc.), it was not possible to run this operation - thus we aborted.  Sorry I don't remember the name of the process and unfortunately now can't access that option to go find it. 
    If you can help me, I would be eternally grateful!  I am open to having a phone conversation if you are willing to give me your email to mail you my number. I have so much work to do this week and this was the last thing I needed.  Did I mention this was supposed to be EASY?
    I used to be quite the geek with my PC - still on the learning curve with the mac but not enjoying it.  I am fairly tech savvy and I can follow instructions for a step by step solution if you've got one. 

    I got a recall and had the drive replaced. I have retored 3 timesa dn even had apple do the job and it is still not right. I still can't get a simple ghost of the data from time machineback tot he new drive. 
    This is Apple's explaination as taken from their web page.:
    Restoring your entire system from a backup
    If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
    With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
    Note: If "You can't restore   this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears  when restoring  a backup that was  made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
    I even posted this information on the community and apple removed it... because they don't like the:
    Off-topic or non-technical posts
    Non-constructive rants or complaints
    But here is my experieince:
    Take in 27iMac running 10.6.8, 5-7 days, what a joke, my boss will be happy to pay for a week without working. Finally get, "if you have TM back up, 3 days." Get machine back with 10.6.3, hit the R recovery, click TM back up, runs for 2 hours, reboots, looks great. Box up take back to office... update to install - OH NO, still running 10.6.3. Updates crash with no specific error on install, BUG PROBELM, nothing runs.
    Call Apple... after hours, tells me to boot using 10.6.2 disk, wipe, reinstall OS, udate to 10.6.8, THEN do the restore. GREAT! Only thing 10.6.2 DVD won't read... now back on phone... take back to the store, Genius says, he'll ix it just like it was. PROMISES it'll be fixed.
    Pick up next day, supposedly, booted to disk, wiped drive, reinstalled, updated to 10.6.8 and THEN did the RIGHT restore... Looks GREAT... apps run and 10.6.8 OS. Back to the office... NOT RUNNING right!!!... fonts messed up, drop box app needs new install, cocktail needs upgrade, Fetch not working, memorized paths gone... back ups locked out of permissions... ***!!
    4 hours on phone with apple and still no rsolution - to missing "settings". Seems there are THREE WAYS TO RESTORE (according to apply tech)... Running MIGRATE ASSISTANT and being able to choose your files, including settings, "R" RESTORE after they load a new OS... or NOW WAITING for them to send me a bootable 10.6.3 disk and then boot from disk, w/o installing OS and doing a restore from TM. I think this is done via the disk Utilties application.
    So now can't back up without doing a full 400 GB back up since permissons are screwed and possibly destroying any good back ups... can't work, like having hands tied behind back. WAITING for solution! Very upset!!!
    I did my first restore just like they said and now an 10 days without proper machine. Just FYI. I thnk I am going to make the store do the tech work so I have somthing to fall back on.

  • When is Apple going to fix the problem with slow Time Machine backups with Mavericks?

    I have been with Apple tech support and they got my Time Machine working by doing a spotlight re-indexing and a safe boot.  This worked for about three days and I am back to very slow backups.  It is impossible for Time Machine to back up every hour when it takes six hours to do the back up.  I don't want to take hours to re-index with spotlight all the time.  I think taking six hours to do an incremental backup is a bit much.  I see that there are many people that have this trouble and it all started with an upgrade to Mavericks.  The question is when is Apple going to fix this problem of slow backups with Time Machine for Mavericks.  I have wasted more time than I care to.  I am think of going back to Windows.  I need good solid backups of my machine and Apple has taken it away with the new Mavericks. Oh, I am using the UBS 3.0 connection so the drive should not be the problem.  Also this has occurred in about the last five months, so I am not sure this problem was in the original Marvericks.

    Allen Thanks for your reply.  All I can say is several months ago Time Machine quit working in a reasonable manner.  Right now I have a Time Machine backup that has been running all night and still has three hours to go to backup 6 GB of data.  I am using a OWC 1.5 TB drive connected directly to my MacBook with a USB 3.0 connection.  In the resent past I have added Dropbox, GoogleDrive and a MAMP server on which I am using a program called Learning With Text from Sourceforge.  There have been a lot of questions on the forum about people having very slow Time Machine back ups, so it appears to be a general problem.  I should also state I am getting this very slow backup after doing the Spotlight re-indexing and the Safe Restart procedure that was told to me by apple support.  I have a 750 GB drive in my MacBook Pro which I am constantly trying to keep at a 5% level of free space.  This might be a problem also.  However, I am working on a lot of things and like to have a lot of things on my drive.  Also the heavily loaded drive has not be a problem in the past.  This slow backup business started about three months ago, so something has happen in a very short time period.  Now it seems even the procedure that Apple support gave me is not working.  Currently I am in China and it is difficult to interact with Apple support to solve this problem, but because I am in China having my computer backed up is critical. I have run the EtreCheck and am attaching the results below. I would appreciate any suggestions.  If necessary I will clear out more of my hard drive if that appears to be a solution.  The Time Machine drive was recently reformed so I only have a few backups on it.  I also don't run the Time Machine all the time as I don't want multi-hour backups running all the time.  I run it every few days.
    Here is the info from EtreCheck:
    Hardware Information:
              MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)
              MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,1
              1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores
              8 GB RAM
    Video Information:
              Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1024 MB
              NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 1024 MB
    System Software:
              OS X 10.9.2 (13C1021) - Uptime: 0 days 10:18:59
    Disk Information:
              APPLE HDD HTS727575A9E362 disk0 : (750.16 GB)
                        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 749.3 GB (54.06 GB free)
                        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
              HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS31N 
    USB Information:
              VIA Labs, Inc.    USB3.0 Hub       
                        OWC Elite Pro mini C 1.5 TB
                                  EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                                  NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1 (disk1s2) /Volumes/NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1: 1.5 TB (691.6 GB free)
              Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
              Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
              Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
              Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
              Logitech USB Receiver
    Thunderbolt Information:
              Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
    Gatekeeper:
              Mac App Store and identified developers
    Kernel Extensions:
              [not loaded] com.LaCie.ScsiType00 (1.2.2) Support
              [not loaded] com.lacie.driver.LaCie_RemoteComms (1.0.1) Support
              [not loaded] com.oxsemi.driver.OxsemiDeviceType00 (1.28.0) Support
              [not loaded] com.roxio.BluRaySupport (1.1.6) Support
              [not loaded] com.roxio.TDIXController (2.0) Support
              [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecDriverCore (5.0.1) Support
              [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_4 (5.0.1) Support
              [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_5 (5.0.1) Support
              [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.SeagateDriveIcons (5.0.1) Support
              [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.SymAPComm (11.2.2f3) Support
              [not loaded] com.symantec.kext.confidentialData (1.4f5) Support
              [not loaded] com.symantec.kext.filesecurity (1.4.3f19) Support
              [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.fw (1.0.3f5) Support
              [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.internetSecurity (1.3.2f5) Support
              [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.ips (1.3.1f7) Support
              [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.pf (4.2.1f7) Support
              [not loaded] com.wacom.driver.HIDTablet (5.0.1) Support
    Startup Items:
              cma: Path: /Library/StartupItems/cma
              MySQLCOM: Path: /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
              ParallelsDesktopTransporter: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsDesktopTransporter
              ParallelsTransporter: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsTransporter
              Tablet: Path: /Library/StartupItems/Tablet
    Launch Daemons:
              [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
              [loaded] com.adobe.versioncueCS4.plist Support
              [loaded] com.barebones.authd.plist Support
              [not loaded] com.barebones.textwrangler.plist Support
              [loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist Support
              [loaded] com.mcafee.virusscan.eupdate.plist Support
              [running] com.micromat.TechToolProDaemon.plist Support
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist Support
              [loaded] com.prosofteng.DriveGenius.locum.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.avscandaemon.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.deepsight-extractor.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.diskMountNotify.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.MissedTasks.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.navapd.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.navapdaemonsl.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.Sched501-1.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.Sched501-2.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.Sched503-3.plist Support
              [loaded] com.symantec.Sched503-4.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.sharedsettings.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.symdaemon.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.symSchedDaemon.plist Support
              [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support
    Launch Agents:
              [loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist Support
              [running] com.lacie.safemanager.daemon.plist Support
              [running] com.micromat.TechToolProAgent.plist Support
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
              [running] com.seagate.SeagateStorageGauge.plist Support
              [failed] com.sogou.SogouServices.plist Support
              [running] com.symantec.uiagent.application.plist Support
              [running] net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist Support
              [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support
    User Launch Agents:
              [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
              [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
              [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
              [running] com.wondershare.mobilegodaemon.plist Support
    User Login Items:
              GeekTool
              SIMBL Agent
              QQ
              Safari
              Calendar
              Google Drive
              Dropbox
              Day One
              Dictionary
              SymSecondaryLaunch
    Internet Plug-ins:
              Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.2.1.11  Support
              FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 Support
              iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0
              Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
              AdobePDFViewer: Version: 9.5.5 Support
              Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
              QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
              OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin: Version: 12.3.6 Support
              RealPlayer Plugin: Version: (null) Support
              Silverlight: Version: 4.0.51204.0 Support
              JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 Check version
    Safari Extensions:
              Video Converter: Version: 4.0.0
              AllMyTube: Version: 4.1.0.0
              Open in Internet Explorer: Version: 1.0
    Audio Plug-ins:
              BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
              AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
              AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
              iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
    iTunes Plug-ins:
              Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
    User Internet Plug-ins:
              QQMail: Version: 1.0.2.0 - SDK 10.7 Support
              txftn: Version: 1.0.0.6 Support
    3rd Party Preference Panes:
              Adobe Version Cue CS4  Support
              Flash Player  Support
              GeekTool  Support
              Growl  Support
              Java  Support
              MacFUSE  Support
              MenuMeters  Support
              MySQL  Support
              Norton\nQuickMenu  Support
              Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X  Support
              Pen Tablet  Support
              Perian  Support
              TechTool Protection  Support
    Time Machine:
              Skip System Files: NO
              Mobile backups: OFF
              Auto backup: YES
              Volumes being backed up:
                        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 697.84 GB Disk used: 647.49 GB
              Destinations:
                        NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1 [Local] (Last used)
                        Total size: 1 
                        Total number of backups: 11
                        Oldest backup: 2014-03-18 15:09:46 +0000
                        Last backup: 2014-04-29 23:24:28 +0000
                        Size of backup disk: Too small
                                  Backup size 1  < (Disk used 647.49 GB X 3)
              Time Machine details may not be accurate.
              All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
    Top Processes by CPU:
                  47%          SymAVScanDaemon
                   7%          Finder
                   7%          WindowServer
                   2%          mds
                   1%          NortonAutoProtect
    Top Processes by Memory:
              385 MB          NortonAutoProtect
              262 MB          mds_stores
              180 MB          Safari
              139 MB          WindowServer
              115 MB          Finder
    Virtual Memory Information:
              1.15 GB          Free RAM
              2.87 GB          Active RAM
              1.83 GB          Inactive RAM
              1.05 GB          Wired RAM
              1.02 GB          Page-ins
              380 MB          Page-outs
    I hope you can see something that can be fixed.

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