fusionmaster
Level 1
(4 points)
Q: Reducing the Time Machine sparsebundle size on my NAS
I keep backups from my Mac (OSX 10.11.6) on my Synology NAS drive. The sparsebundle disk image has grown to a size of 1.2 TB (of my 3TB NAS) for a 256 GB SSD, as backups for more than 2 years are stored. For me these very old backups are not that important and I would like to reduce the size of the sparsebundle disk image. I haven't set a quota for the Time Machine partition and I also didn't try to compress the disk image using the hdutil compact command from the terminal. I also don't want to scrap all the backups and start from scratch. Is there a way to tell Time Machine to remove backups before a certain date?
MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
Boyd Porter
Level 3
(997 points)
1. You cannot configure Time Machine to remove backups in a date range
2. The sparse bundle grows, but does not shrink
3. Let Time Machine do what it does--hourly backups
4. At some point Time Machine will start deleting your old backups to make room--it is not an archival program
5. Backup disks you can use with Time Machine - Apple Support
Have a nice day.
