what is this backups section of my hard drive? (screenshot)

[bigjnyc]

So I was looking at my hard drive to see how much space I am using and trying to decide if I would be ok with a 256gb SSD. One of the items taking up the most space on my drive is backups (54gb), I use time machine with a time capsule to back up my mac so what is this backups section on my local drive?

 

[user418]

Time Machine creates local backups on your MBP. If you open TM preferences and turn if off then back on it will delete them and you will regain your space.

 

[AlanShutko]

A bit more detail: if you're away from your time machine disk, the computer can still create backups, and you can still access them. You could be away from home but still get back to the file you had an hour ago. Then when you get back to your time machine, it'll upload the local backups so that you have the full record of what happened.

If you get low on space, the system will delete local time machine backups so you have more free space.

You can disable this, but since you have plenty of disk space, I'd suggest leaving it alone.

 

[GGJstudios]

For Time Machine users on notebooks running Lion, space may being consumed by Time Machine local snapshots, which can be disabled.

OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs

 

[bigjnyc]

Cool thanks for the info guys. I'll just leave it on like Alan suggested since I have plenty of space.