How far back do Time Capsule back ups go?

[krx]

There are a gazillion Time Capsule threads and my question is probably answered in one of them. But I've been skimming them and can't find it. Also couldn't find it in the Apple support docs. So...

Does anybody know how far back TC backups go? Does it just hold on to the latest backup or can you go back awhile to recover your files?

For example, if a file was corrupted six months ago, will I be able to retrieve the prior uncorrupted version of it - or just the latest TC backup version of it (which would of course also be corrupted)?

Thanks.

 

[gauchogolfer]

It all depends on how big of a HD you're backing up to. Here's the info from Apple:

Following the initial backup of your entire Mac, Time Machine automatically makes incremental backups every hour, every day, copying just the files that have changed since your last backup. And it does this all in the background so you can continue working while Time Machine is busy copying your files. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.

 

[Arn1499]

I'm pretty sure it depends on the size of your time capsule and the size of your drive being backed up. For instance, if you have the 2TB TC and only a 250GB drive being backed up, i would imagine it'd go back further than if you had the 500GB TC w/ that same drive...

And according to Apple, Time Machine backs up hourly for the past 24 hours, daily for the past month, and weekly until the drive is full. So I would say it has to do w/ the size of your drives.

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

From Time Machine preferences :

 

[krx]

Thanks for the replies.

I have a 500 GB TC and want to back up two Macs with ~50 GBs each. So the first back up of both will use ~100 GB? - or does it compress?

Do the subsequent monthly backups just store changes to the original backup (a few gigs at most in my case)? Or the whole HDD (ie, another 100 GBs used up)?

 

[gauchogolfer]

Thanks for the replies.

I have a 500 GB TC and want to back up two Macs with ~50 GBs each. So the first back up of both will use ~100 GB? - or does it compress?

Do the subsequent monthly backups just store changes to the original backup (a few gigs at most in my case)? Or the whole HDD (ie, another 100 GBs used up)?

Only changes are stored.

 

[Guiyon]

One thing to note is that TM does not use binary diffs. This means that if one byte in a 30GB (for example) file changes, the entire file is backed up again.

 

[RMo]

One thing to note is that TM does not use binary diffs. This means that if one byte in a 30GB (for example) file changes, the entire file is backed up again.

Is this applicable only to binary files or does it do this with text files, too?

 

[krx]

I assume TM retains the original full backup (since all the subsequent incremental backups are only partial, if I understand correctly) and once the TM HDD starts to get full it overwrites the oldest weekly incremental backups - is that right?

So would downloading the original full backup (just for good measure) and the weekly incrementals every so often (wouldn't probably need to be more than once a year or so) ensure that I have all iterations of everything?