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Back up on Time Capsule

I would like to find out more on using the time machine and time capsule. The time machine is now writing over infomation that I want to keep and I do not know how to change that or even start again.

— teddy mccrea

Comments: 5 Responses to “Back up on Time Capsule”

    15 years ago

    Not sure what you mean by "writing over infomation that I want to keep." Time Machine should have a copy of everything on your drive. Then it has copies of files going back in time as they have changed. It does this as much as it can until the hard drive gets too full, then it removes older files so it can have more room for newer backups.
    If you want to extend the number of files back in time that Time Machine saves, then you need a bigger TC hard drive.
    But if you "want to keep" files, then you shouldn't delete them in the first place. Time Machine/Capsule is a backup solution, not an archive solution. If you want to archive files, perhaps burn them to DVD or save them to another external drive to keep them permanently. That's what I do.

    Gary McNeil
    15 years ago

    On the hard drive I have I used Disk Utility to separate the one drive to make it look like multiple drives. Then I can put stuff on it that I can excess separately and not threw time machine.

    Joe Bice
    13 years ago

    I have a 1TB Time Capsule which advises that it only has about 3GB free space. I believed (as stated in the notes on the Time Machine backup setup) that as it fills it will delete the oldest files to make space for the latest backup. This does not happen, instead the TC reports that it could not proceed as it does not have sufficient space. I have tried Disk Utilities to delete all files but no luck. Grateful if you could advise please.

      13 years ago

      Have you used the Time Capsule's drive for anything else? Any other files put there or any manual manipulation of the files on the drive?
      And do you have less than 1TB of data to back up -- it would be possible to have several drives on your Mac or several Macs to backup in the household and have more the 1TB of data.

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