How to delete specific Time Machine backups from NAS?

Way way back when the Mac's and the Time Machine backup were formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) HFS +, you could delete some older backups without damaging Time Machines file structure.

Then Apple changed the Mac's and the Time Machine backups format to APFS, which thru a wrench into deleting older backups from the Time Machine backup drive.

With that in mind, you have two options:

1) erase the Time Machine backup drive and start new backups.

2) set that drive aside and start Time Machine backup on a new drive.

Yea' that is how Time Machine works.

It sounds like you need more flexible backup options than just Time Machine.

For that, I suggest using CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper in addition to or instead of Time Machine.

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Plus it sounds like you should be using more than just the NAS for backups.

The NAS and then at least one other large local backup drive for better peace of mind.

That way you have a second source for recovery, incase the NAS/Time Machine backup thing goes south.

PeterAlanF wrote:

I'll just delete the sparsebundle folder on the NAS, not any other data on there.

Just deleting the sparse bundle folder will not solve your issue long term.

I guess the only downside to this operation is that I'll lose all previous versions of current files?

That is true. If you are relying on Time Machine to recover older file versions, then you should consider archiving those old files somewhere else instead of relying on Time Machine. The other problem with using Time Machine for that purpose, is that it starts pruning old backups as the drive space fills up.

This is a perfect example, of why it is a really bad idea to use the same drive for other File Storage, Archives and Time Machine backups.

+1

👍 Just be sure to only erase the Time Machine backups and not one of your other attached drives.