Why are my backups on my internal HD?

[NikkiJayne]

Sorry if this is a total n00b question, but anyway: I recently bought a 1TB Samsung external hard drive so I could back up my Mac with Time Machine.

Anyway - why is my Mac showing that 161GB is being taken up by backups? I thought my backups were on my external hard drive?!

 

[NikkiJayne]

Just saw someone else had literally just asked the same question. Apologies!

 

[dictoresno]

you need to go into time machine settings and assign the backup disk target to the correct drive.

 

[Macman45]

TM also keeps local backups...open up time machine prefs, then select the external drive as your backup location as posted above. The initial backup will take a while, and remember to exclude any folders or items you don't want backed up.

 

[rudo.ba]

About Time Machine local snapshots:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878

Disable Time Machine Local Backups in OS X:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/28/disable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion/