How to stop Time Machine from deleting historical backups

Landon,

Time Machine is not really designed for an archiving purpose. It is designed in case you accidentally delete a file or need to recover your entire system. External storage and DVD's are more for archiving and storing important files. Time Machine more or less keeps a copy of everything on your computer and makes incremental copies of the files that have changed. If you no longer have the file on your computer then it will only stay on Time Machine as long as your backup drive has space to allow it and all the other backups it is doing.

Is there a was to make Time Machine just stop backing up or warn you before it erases old backups? Some way where it cannot erase them on it's own? Perhaps some Terminal command or anything?

The only way to make Time Machine stop backing up is to disconnect the drive or turn Time Machine off in System Preferences.

Again, if the files are important enough that you need them months later, it would be best to keep a separate copy of them. In fact, many of us do multiple backups in different locations for this among many other reasons.

Landon White wrote:
So for the first time I encountered what happens when Time Machine runs out of room - IT DELETES THE OLDEST BACKUPS UNTIL IT HAS ENOUGH ROOM!!!

That's exactly what it says in Time Machine Preferences (you know, the place where you select your TM disk, and turn TM off and on.

It says very clearly that it only keeps it's hourly backups for 24 hours, and it's daily backups for a month, then weeklies for as long as it has room.

Is there a was to make Time Machine just stop backing up or warn you before it erases old backups? Some way where it cannot erase them on it's own? Perhaps some Terminal command or anything?

Yes. Turn it off.

Hello L:

Open system preferences>time machine>options. Be sure the box is checked.

I agree with the other poster, incidentally. If you have old files that you want to be sure to preserve, back them up on another drive periodically.

Another option would be to buy a "really" big drive for your TM backups.

Barry

I guess I forgot to mention that getting a NAS with 4 x 2TB drives and room for expansion might help... at least for a little while longer 😉

theonlydean wrote:
I guess I forgot to mention that getting a NAS with 4 x 2TB drives and room for expansion might help... at least for a little while longer 😉

TM can back up to mounted USB or F/W drives, Time Capsule, or a disk connected to an Airport Extreme Base Station. Otherwise NAS is not officially supported.

You might get NAS to work, but see V.K.'s post here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1854013&tstart=15

Landon White wrote:
So for the first time I encountered what happens when Time Machine runs out of room - IT DELETES THE OLDEST BACKUPS UNTIL IT HAS ENOUGH ROOM!!!

That's terrible if you rely on those backups. We've been using it like an archive and it's been spectacular. Work on a project and delete it when I'm done because I know Time Machine has a copy.

Well, I no longer have copies of my work from Arpil until July because Time Machine deleted those AUTOMATICALLY to make room. I had always thought that it would warn me it was going to delete older backups and I could just decline.

in system preferences->Time machine->options there is a check box "warn when old backups are deleted". if this box is checked TM is supposed to warn you when it first starts deleting old backups. However, that particular feature is quite buggy and TM is well known not to do that on occasion. there are also other situations when it might decide to delete old backups without warning. Therefore you should NOT use TM as an archiving utility. apart from the above issues it also thins old backups and THAT is always done without warning. TM is a backup tool not an archiving one and you shouldn't use it as such.

Message was edited by: V.K.

Same problem, lost six months of weekly backups due to Time Machine creatively wiping out backups to free up room. Leaves one wondering if anybody at Apple who worked on this was conscious at the time. Wholly unacceptable behavior in any backup system.

Are you serious?

First, they're no longer BACKUPS if you delete the originals. What do you think will happen to them when (not if) your TM drive fails? Will that be Apple's fault, too?

Second, did you ever bother to read the little area on the TM Preferences screen (where you turn it on or off, select/change your TM drive, etc.)? What did you think the line about keeping, hourly backups for 24 hours, daily backups for a month, and weekly backups until your disk is full actually means?

The user was unconscious, not Apple.