can i change frequency of time machine backups

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Level 1

10 points

can i change frequency of time machine backups

I haven't used TM since my Time Capsule died last winter, i was waiting for new wifi AC TC. since then i purchased a new imac. now i'm deciding between the TC and the Airport Exteme. TC seem slike no brainer due to cheaper memories. the problem is tha tmy new imac is obviously only WiFi N. my last N mac took FOREVER to update my TC...it slowed my computer and seemed to eat my wifi. So ideally i'd love to get the AX unit and then a thunderbolt extermal drive. Altough i now realize the cost of the thurderbolt option on these drives...sweet lord! (Is the tech really that expense? apple controlling distribution to keep sales of TC?) . i probably could have avoided this if i had the patience to wait for an AC imac...but i don't have that much control!

So i figure the way around this would be to limit the backup. i really don't need hourly backups, not a work computer. Is there anyway to change the frequency of backups? daily or even weakly would be sweet for me. Thanks for any help in advance.

Posted on Aug 5, 2013 6:03 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Aug 5, 2013 6:06 PM in response to jmf007

Use TimeMachineEditor to do that.

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Answer 2

Csound1

Level 9

59,973 points

Aug 5, 2013 6:06 PM in response to jmf007

Rather than using TM in a manner it was not designed for use a different backup utility.

Apple do not license Thunderbolt, Intel does, it's Intels technology.

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Answer 3

Aug 5, 2013 6:21 PM in response to jmf007

Time Machine consolidates the hourly backups into daily backup which are then consolidated in monthly backups. So the hourly backup schedule really has very small impact on the amount of disk space used by Time Machine.

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Answer 4

Aug 5, 2013 7:39 PM in response to jmf007

To change the frequency of Time Machine's backups, you would have to use a tool like Time Machine Editor; however, Time Machine only keeps hourly backups for the past day, and then daily backups for the past week, followed by weekly backups indefinitely. This means that it does exactly what you already want, with the added feature of hourly backups that are cycled through. As was mentioned above, in most cases these wont take much space at all, so adjusting Time Machine's behavior for the sake of saving space will not do much in the grand scheme of things.

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