TimeMachine filling up NAS

[eve-ate-it]

I setup a TimeMachine capsule in a synology nas a few years ago and it is already filling up the NAS with a 1.7TB space. I do not see any options in TM to purge the old backups. How can I reduce the file size while keeping a current copy of the files without manually deleting each snapshot entering the useless TM GUI?

 

[sahnert]

By design Time Machine will fill the destination disk and automatically purge the oldest backups to make new ones. I would guess the NAS would have an option to limit the size of the Time Machine volume, but that would have to be defined in advance.

There may be a third party utility that can delete the oldest backups, but Time Machine itself is not designed for that kind of manual management.

edit:
Here is the correct setup procedure from Synology

How do I back up files from my Mac to NAS using Time Machine? - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

The last setup step before backing up is how to set a quota to limit the amount of space Time Machine can use. If you have a secondary backup and are ok starting fresh on the Synology, you could consider just erasing everything and starting over with the quota in place. You would of course lose any ability to go back in time from that point

 

[BigBlur]

You need to set a quota to prevent Time Machine from consuming all of the available space. I don't know if it's too late, but you could try setting a 2TB quota to stop it from getting larger. Otherwise, you'll probably have to start over.

How can I limit the amount of space taken up by Time Machine backup data? - Synology Knowledge Center

Synology Knowledge Center offers comprehensive support, providing answers to frequently asked questions, troubleshooting steps, software tutorials, and all the technical documentation you may need.

kb.synology.com

 

[Black_Mage]

For macOS Sonoma and Later​

1. Initial Setup: When you first set up a Time Machine backup, you can specify a quota. This is done through the Time Machine settings in System Preferences.
2. Using Terminal: If you need to set a quota after the initial setup, you can use the Terminal command:
   
   Code
   
   <span>sudo tmutil setquota {ID} {SIZE_IN_GB}<br></span>

 

[eve-ate-it]

The point is, time machine has stopped taking snapshots because the NAS has run "out of space". So even if i set limit to the snapshot container, once that limit is reached, TM will stop being able to make backups?

 

[sahnert]

It does delete the oldest snapshots to free space, but is apparently willing to completely fill a disk eventually.

Documented here

If the Time Machine backup disk for your Mac is full

If Time Machine runs out of space for your Mac backups, add another backup disk or change your backup preferences.

support.apple.com

I think the options once your backup space fills are:

1. Use tmutil via command line to delete specific backups you don’t want to free up space (and do other maintenance on your existing backup)
2. Keep all existing Time Machine backups and start a new backup on a new disk (can you add storage to your NAS?)
3. Erase your existing backup and start fresh on the same disk (have a second backup or be ok with not going back in time before new backup)

The way I personally use Time Machine is option 2. I use a drive that’s big enough to contain several years worth of snapshots, and once it fills it goes on the shelf and I start a new one. I rarely need to go back to the oldest backups but it has happened once or twice and I’m grateful to have saved them.


Sidenote: certain types of files, like virtual machines, do not work well with the incremental system of Time Machine and will always want to back up very large amounts of data. These kinds of files are best backed up separately and excluded from Time Machine as they will fill your storage faster.

 

[eve-ate-it]

What a rudimentary piece of garbage, and people using MACs still believe it is the superior OS.

 

[sahnert]

You are totally justified to be frustrated with this situation.

There are many kind people on this forum trying to help you out, so if you can be more specific with what’s not working with the solutions people have mentioned hopefully someone will chime in with just the right thing.

If you don’t even want to mess with Time Machine, you will sure get many helpful suggestions for other backup solutions (Carbon Copy Cloner, Super Duper, etc.). If you want to move on from your Mac completely, many people will suggest alternatives. And if you just want to vent about a lousy experience, that’s fine too! Many people will commiserate with you.

best of luck

 

[eve-ate-it]

You are totally justified to be frustrated with this situation.

There are many kind people on this forum trying to help you out, so if you can be more specific with what’s not working with the solutions people have mentioned hopefully someone will chime in with just the right thing.

If you don’t even want to mess with Time Machine, you will sure get many helpful suggestions for other backup solutions (Carbon Copy Cloner, Super Duper, etc.). If you want to move on from your Mac completely, many people will suggest alternatives. And if you just want to vent about a lousy experience, that’s fine too! Many people will commiserate with you.

best of luck

I appreciate the people helping here.
I am just ranting about the useless software that comes with MACs. I understand people's suggestions but there seems to not be a solution to the fact that once TM filled up the space with snapshots, the software just stops working rather than starting to delete the old snapshots. I do not own a MAC, I am a Linux system administrator and I am here asking a few questions to help a few older friends with MACs that are not tech inclined at all.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I have Time Machine with Synology NAS. I set disk quota on the NAS before starting TM. If I am not mistaken, if you didn’t do that ahead of time, you will have to start over on the NAS part if it was part of a folder etc.

 

[!!!]

I am just ranting about the useless software that comes with MACs

I assure you, the experience on Windows is much worse. The built-in backup service is a disaster, and works much worse compared to Time Machine. Microsoft themselves don't even promote it, instead they try to get you to upload your files to their OneDrive, so they can scan them and do whatever else.

The point is, time machine has stopped taking snapshots because the NAS has run "out of space". So even if i set limit to the snapshot container, once that limit is reached, TM will stop being able to make backups?

Your use of snapshot is ambiguous, are you referring to TM's sparsebundle? Or something on the NAS?

I believe if you set the sparsebundle size to whatever, macOS will respect that. If your sparsebundle is larger than the NAS (or the limit of the share), then you'll probably run into the issues you're experiencing.

My advice would be to limit the size of the sparsebundle specifically, to less than the share's limit.

 

[sahnert]

I am a Linux system administrator and I am here asking a few questions to help a few older friends with MACs that are not tech inclined at all.

This is excellent context. as a Linux sysadmin you may be comfortable diving in to terminal and leaning about how tmutil works (use “man tmutil” in terminal on the Mac to read the manual)

This would allow you to, for example, go in and delete the oldest half of the backups to free up storage space on the drive while keeping the most recent backup history intact. After learning the commands, you could probably even script it to happen automatically in the future (maybe once a year) and then you would hopefully not have to touch it again.