Am i filling up all my space with duplicates exponentially multiplying each back up

WD External Drives External Drives for Mac
1

****i think this is a better explanation, am i duplicating every file each time it backs up and now i have a duplicates of duplicatess of duplicates growing exponentially more massive each time it does antother backup, i feel like its become a data black hole becoming gravitationally infinite from sucking down the same files over and over, can i just keep the last backup and vamoosh the older twins? ok go ahead and laugh if this sounds as stupid as i think, i jsut bougt a macbook with only 80g hd and im gonna be selling my g5 with 250g hd so i need to just keep whats necesarry on the wd hdd since i wont have all the space im used to so, ok my drive is full but i have at least 10 previous backups saved on it i dont know if i only need to keep the most recent backup and  delete all the older backups or are they all together, i cant imagine ive got enough **bleep** to fill up a 250g hd and another 500g external heres the files that come up when im in the folder with the wd info if it helps and sorry if its just a whole page of useless info, thanks for any help

Derek

Mofostone.com

2

Ok :smileyvery-happy:, are you using time machine or Smartware or another program to make the backup? Another question why not delete the duplicate files yourself?

1 Like
3

thanks for the help, i believe im using both and the second question is what i was asking, is it ok to delete those old backups? i didnt know if i could delete them, it seems obvious but i didnt know if each one of the old backups were equally important and have the same data, youre saying i can delete all but the most recent backup right?

thanks again and kudos to you

Derek

4

Don’t waste space on the hard drive using two backup programs, because you will be backing up the same information twice. Don’t know a lot about Time Machine, but smartware will create only one backup folder and wont repeat the same information. Just explore that hard drive and delete anything that you don’t need.

1 Like
5

So i guess smartware thinks its only backing up once time machine is stacking them up multiple times & smartware just saves what it thinks is necessary
Makes sense
Thanks alot
Derek
Mofostone.com