What is the best action when the TM backup drive is filling up?

[hajime]

I have been using a 1TB drive to backup my MBP for almost a year. The drive is going to be filled up soon. What is the best action in this case? Buy another 1TB drive, get a 2TB drive and move existing backups to the new drive or simply remove old backups from the current drive when TM prompts me to? Is it a good idea to remove old TM backups? I suppose that if I delete too many incremental backups, I may not be able to recover some files when I need them in the future.

 

[JRob65a6]

I think that TM will keep going over the oldest data you have on your backup once it is full.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Unless your boot disk is getting more full than the capacity of the TM disk there's no reason to move to a larger disk. I recommend having at least 40GB more on the Time Machine disk than the volume it's backing up.

 

[PilotWoo]

Do nothing. Time Machine will overwrite your oldest data and the Time Machine disk will stay around 100% used now until you stop using it. Would you ever need to go back that far?

 

[mrkgoo]

Do nothing. Time Machine will overwrite your oldest data and the Time Machine disk will stay around 100% used now until you stop using it. Would you ever need to go back that far?

yup. Remember, Time Machine is for backing up, not archiving.