What Third Party Software to Modify Time Machine Backup Schedule?

Question

Hello -
I was hoping to get some suggestions to what third party tool to use that will allow me to change the timing of backups from the regular hour intervals. As far as I know that cannot be changed in Time Machine and am looking for suggestions of software that will allow me to modify the schedule.
Thanks in advance...

Answer 1

Katie 'OConnell wrote:
This may be so, but Time Machine DOES say that it will continue backing up files until the hard disk is FULL. That could be a problem if one doesn't have a massive HD that can be dedicated exclusively to this activity, nor tons of money to purchase extra HDs so that Time Machine can back up to its heart's content.
Frankly, I don't need hourly backups and would prefer to eliminate those altogether.
The hourly backups don't really add much space, since they're only kept for a day, but they do protect you better. If you back up less frequently, you can lose more when (not if) your internal HD fails, or something else awful happens to your Mac.
And there's a much better chance of recovering a previous version of a file that you change or delete in error (ever do "Save" instead of "Save As"?), or that somehow gets corrupted.
As noted on the Time Machine Preference window, after 24 hours, it keeps one backup per day (the first) for a month, then one per week as long as there's enough space. After that, it automatically deletes the oldest backup(s) to make room for new ones.
It varies widely, of course, depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up to keep several months, or more, of backups.
By the way, if you're mixing other data with your backups, in the same partition, that's going to be a problem sooner or later, but it's easily avoided by partitioning it. See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Message was edited by: Pondini