How to delete Time Machine backups completely?

[Whorehay]

I haven't really had the need to use Time Machine (I mean going into space and plucking out a file I wish I hadn't deleted) and it's taking up about 130GB on my External HD, in addition to SuperDuper's bootable backup. I think I'm going to go SuperDuper exclusive to save some space. Do I just delete the Backup.db folder? Thanks.

 

[Ugg]

Yep, that'll do it. Remember to turn off Time Machine.

 

[JNB]

If you give TM its own partition, you can limit how much space (and time) it takes up. It won't overwrite anything other than its own oldest backups once it runs out of empty space, either in its own partition or a shared space.

One thing TM is good about that SD & CCC can't address is when you find that files or directories are corrupted, and have been since before your most recent clone/Smart Backup. In those cases, the clone is corrupted, too, and you're hosed. Happened to me in just the last week, both the original and the SD clone were bad, and only TM had the files from various points in the past that I could pull back into the current, and then re-clone.

 

[Whorehay]

If you give TM its own partition, you can limit how much space (and time) it takes up. It won't overwrite anything other than its own oldest backups once it runs out of empty space, either in its own partition or a shared space.

One thing TM is good about that SD & CCC can't address is when you find that files or directories are corrupted, and have been since before your most recent clone/Smart Backup. In those cases, the clone is corrupted, too, and you're hosed. Happened to me in just the last week, both the original and the SD clone were bad, and only TM had the files from various points in the past that I could pull back into the current, and then re-clone.

Well, it's funny I made this thread yesterday.

I was in the middle of installing Boot Camp when I get a kernel panic... in the MIDDLE OF PARTITIONING. Needless to say, backing up with Time Machine (didn't do SuperDuper) right before the fact and restoring from Time Machine really saved my butt.

I may take your advice and keep TM on a separate partition, but I only have one External HDD, and I don't think I have the balls to repartition on the fly again (I did it once with iPartition, but that was when I just got my computer so I just backed up stuff on my internal HD). Maybe I'll get a friends HD and transfer everything on there, wipe the HD and make 3 partitions, and then transfer again.