Stop Using Time Machine And Deleting All Its Backups

Apple checks in here every now and again. By and large however, this group is comprised of users just like yourself. So you will get both sides of the advice here as well.

I'm assuming the drive is partitioned now maybe 1.5 Gb for each back up solution? I'm also assuming this is your only backup drive, you don't backup periodically to another location or disk, in case something happens to this one?

If it were me: I'd ensure I had another disk of my complete back up, then based on my assumptions above, I'd reformat the partition that TimeMachine is using.

This is also a good time to point out, not so much for you, but for other readers. That because of the auto removal of "old" backups, TimeMachine is not as much of a back up system as it is a recovery system in the event your computer has a data loss. In that regard, TimeMachine is good at restoring it to the last saved state. If you delete files and don't realize until a year later, depending on file size and frequency of saves, that file may be gone forever by the auto purge feature.

The most consistent answer I see out there is this one:

https://soundsupport.biz/2013/05/05/manually-delete-time-machine-backups-from-a- hard-drive/

I have never personally done it as I take the brute force approach and clear the hard disk to start fresh, through a reformat.

Having said that, if you do the linked approach, make sure nothing else was accidentally copied into the backup folder they indicated in the process.

You will be able to boot from GUID Partition if needed, so if it houses the OS if you need to reinstall, you will want that. And yes, MacOS Extended (Journaled) is what I use.