Old Time Machine backups on external drive

theMouthPiece · 03-21-2012, 09:44 AM

Hi All

I have recently purchased a 2TB Time Capsule with Airport Extreme, and all seems to be working well. For my Time Machine backups, I used to use an external Firewire drive, which of course, is no no longer used as the backup device.

Is it safe to simply delete the Backups.backupdb folder on this firewire drive...?

Thanks

DeltaMac · 03-21-2012, 10:02 AM

Do you mean "safe", as in "I hope no one can recover my old back ups"

Or, "safe" as in "Will deleting the backup cause a major explosion, or create a black hole in the galaxy?

Or- if you are at the point where you don't need that back up - and it's all on your Time Capsule - or you don't care about that back up now - then, sure, drop it in the trash, and empty your trash, or (even better) erase that external hard drive, using with a multi-pass secure erase if you prefer that level of security (not really needed, except for the highly-paranoid

) I say that, yet the multi pass erase WILL assure that any bad blocks are mapped out, and shouldn't then interfere with other uses for your hard drive.
And - I should also remind you to stop at the simple drag-to-the-trash, if you have other files stored on that hard drive, in addition to your time machine backup file. Make sure that files you want to keep are not erased by mistake.

theMouthPiece · 03-21-2012, 10:14 AM

#3

Many thanks...

MariaPeter · 03-27-2012, 02:12 AM

Hey,
If you delete the Backups.backupdb folder it will delete all the backup which you had kept in your time machine backup drive. If you do not wish to keep this backup in your drive you can easily delete this folder but make sure you do not need this back otherwise after deleting this folder you will not be able to recover this data again.

03-21-2012, 09:44 AM	#1
theMouthPiece All Star Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Wales Posts: 572	Old Time Machine backups on external drive Hi All I have recently purchased a 2TB Time Capsule with Airport Extreme, and all seems to be working well. For my Time Machine backups, I used to use an external Firewire drive, which of course, is no no longer used as the backup device. Is it safe to simply delete the Backups.backupdb folder on this firewire drive...? Thanks __________________ Macbook \| Synth freak \| Amateur Photographer

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes	Rate This Thread
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode	Rate This Thread:

03-21-2012, 10:02 AM	#2
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,958	Do you mean "safe", as in "I hope no one can recover my old back ups" Or, "safe" as in "Will deleting the backup cause a major explosion, or create a black hole in the galaxy? Or- if you are at the point where you don't need that back up - and it's all on your Time Capsule - or you don't care about that back up now - then, sure, drop it in the trash, and empty your trash, or (even better) erase that external hard drive, using with a multi-pass secure erase if you prefer that level of security (not really needed, except for the highly-paranoid ) I say that, yet the multi pass erase WILL assure that any bad blocks are mapped out, and shouldn't then interfere with other uses for your hard drive. And - I should also remind you to stop at the simple drag-to-the-trash, if you have other files stored on that hard drive, in addition to your time machine backup file. Make sure that files you want to keep are not erased by mistake.

03-21-2012, 10:14 AM	#3
theMouthPiece All Star Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Wales Posts: 572	#3 Many thanks... __________________ Macbook \| Synth freak \| Amateur Photographer

03-27-2012, 02:12 AM	#4
MariaPeter Prospect Join Date: Feb 2012 Posts: 11	Hey, If you delete the Backups.backupdb folder it will delete all the backup which you had kept in your time machine backup drive. If you do not wish to keep this backup in your drive you can easily delete this folder but make sure you do not need this back otherwise after deleting this folder you will not be able to recover this data again.