Yet Another Time Machine Question (Re: Space)
 

Ok, so Time Machine is designed to eventually take up as much space as it can. This will not gel nicely with SuperDuper's smart update feature because Time Machine will fill the drive and SD wont be able to write new data.

Did SuperDuper gain the ability to look at time machine data and delete the oldest folders in there to make room for it to function?

Eventually, that's right, you'll end up with a full drive. Time Machine should start pruning its space, but if not, you'll need more disk space to continue (and can copy the data to the new drive), or you'll have to use Time Machine to remove backups (or files) you don't need. We don't have the ability to prune Time Machine, since there's no API for it.

This, though, is a good reason to use separate partitions if that's an option for you.

Is there any chance that you could simply have SD look at the folder names (they are just date/time) and delete the oldest folder(s) (not including the original) until there is enough space for a backup? Or would Time Machine spaz out and die from that sort of behavior due to its fake file linking.

I worry about separate partitions because I don't want to artificially run into a wall down the road where I gave too much to Time Machine and not enough to SD or the other way around... any thoughts on that?

In general, I think interfering with another application's data like that, without an API, is a good way to get ourselves and users in unexpected trouble.

Alrighty, thanks for the info.

hidden Time Machine functions
 

Hi there, I was wondering the same thing, what happens when TM has used 'too much' space so that SD can't run a backup. I'm buying a new external drive for my iMac, but I don't want to buy 2 drives at this point if I don't have to (1 for TM, 1 for SD).

I've finally found straight forward instructions for deleting old TM backups. Thankfully, crawling around in Finder and/or Terminal is not necessary.

Instructions are here, and also re-explained here.

As I understand it, just navigate in TM to your oldest backup date, then click the "Action" menu (the cog wheel thingy), and you can select "Delete Backup", which should delete the backup from that date. You can also highlight a file and select "Delete From All Backups", or something like that. But I think I prefer the first option.

I'm hoping that this action will then allow SD enough space to complete. Once I get my new drive, I'll find out for sure I guess. Might have to do it a couple times to free up enough space depending on what gets deleted from TM.

Anyway, hope this helps!