Hi all
A few years ago, I started doing an off-site time machine backup of my MacBook that I left at a friend’s, while I had another time machine drive at home. Whenever I’d go to his place, I’d update TM on his drive. The other TM backup I had at my place was updated quite frequently. Not perfect, but more than good enough.
Now he’s moved too far for it to be practical, so he gave me the drive back, and I got a new drive I gave to someone else. So I want to repurpose it, but I also have some stuff on it that I want to keep (old Aperture Libraries that I want to backup manually).
The big question: Is there a way to completely delete the Time Machine backup from a drive without deleting anything else?
The thing is, if I tell my Mac to stop using that drive as a TM drive, I believe it will stop backing up there but it will also not delete any of the existing backups. However, I’ve also read that if you delete manually the backups.backupdb folder, it can create a lot of problems down the road.
tl;dr: I want to stop using a Time Machine backup and claim back the space, not just stop backing up to it. What’s the best way to do it?
Thanks
A few years ago, I started doing an off-site time machine backup of my MacBook that I left at a friend’s, while I had another time machine drive at home. Whenever I’d go to his place, I’d update TM on his drive. The other TM backup I had at my place was updated quite frequently. Not perfect, but more than good enough.
Now he’s moved too far for it to be practical, so he gave me the drive back, and I got a new drive I gave to someone else. So I want to repurpose it, but I also have some stuff on it that I want to keep (old Aperture Libraries that I want to backup manually).
The big question: Is there a way to completely delete the Time Machine backup from a drive without deleting anything else?
The thing is, if I tell my Mac to stop using that drive as a TM drive, I believe it will stop backing up there but it will also not delete any of the existing backups. However, I’ve also read that if you delete manually the backups.backupdb folder, it can create a lot of problems down the road.
tl;dr: I want to stop using a Time Machine backup and claim back the space, not just stop backing up to it. What’s the best way to do it?
Thanks