Time Machine

[Jack W]

I have a    perplexing problem:

When I did a TM backup last week, I had accidentall left a 16GB SD card in the reader on my iMac.

This card had SD! backups of my Files and Apps (non-Apple apps) partitions.

There were around 10GB of data on those two partitions. And I had failed to flag them for ignore by TM.

Bottom line is that these partitions got the full backup treatment by TM.

I subsequently set these two partitions for ignore by TM.
And removed the info from TM via the Control-erase within TM from TM backups for those two partitions.

However, the space was not reclaimed from the TM disk, as has happened several times in the past when I deleted some large files from TM by the prescribed procedure within TM.

Not a critical problem, just very perplexing.

2010 27" iMac
4 GB memory
OS X 10.6.8 up-to-date on all security updates and patches.

Got any ideas???

Thanks,

Jack

[Xairbusdriver]

I don't particularly trust the space 'used' by an indirect listing by an app. Disk Utility may give you a more accurate value, or even a Finder display.

I'm assuming you used TimeMachine to designate what files to delete and not simply deleting from Finder? I'm not sure what "control-erase" means. I've deleted stuff from TM backups many months ago, but ONLY from within TM. You are then offered the option of deleting all instances of the file/folder or just the one you have selected for any particular date. But I've never bothered to see what space might have been restored since my deletions were rather small. Note that a file is usually only stored in one place in TM (the first instance). All other references are similar to an alias. So you won't have actual duplicates of the 10GBs worth of files in the backup.

[Jack W]

QUOTE(Xairbusdriver @ Aug 6 2013, 12:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't particularly trust the space 'used' by an indirect listing by an app. Disk Utility may give you a more accurate value, or even a Finder display.

I'm assuming you used TimeMachine to designate what files to delete and not simply deleting from Finder? I'm not sure what "control-erase" means. I've deleted stuff from TM backups many months ago, but ONLY from within TM. You are then offered the option of deleting all instances of the file/folder or just the one you have selected for any particular date. But I've never bothered to see what space might have been restored since my deletions were rather small. Note that a file is usually only stored in one place in TM (the first instance). All other references are similar to an alias. So you won't have actual duplicates of the 10GBs worth of files in the backup.

Jim,

Within TM !!! as I stated.

[Xairbusdriver]

OK, Great! That's the safest way.

Wait! I just found a mention that TM is actually a Sparse Bundle file. As I understand them, these are similar to Disk Images but will expand to allow more data/files to be loaded. I'll let the experts explain where I'm mistaken but one thing pops into my mind is that a Sparse Bundle may not decrease in size automatically. In that case, and assuming TM is acting like (or actually is) a Sparse Bundle, it may not show any decrease space used. You might want to Google "sparse bundle facts" or something like that for more/better info.

EDIT: OTOH, I think sparsebundles are only created if you are using a network connected drive for TM. I did find this on the <best TM expert> I've seen:

QUOTE("James Pond")

Unlike a normal folder or disk image, when a file in a sparse bundle is changed or deleted, the space in the band folder(s) remains as part of the sparse bundle -- the size of the sparse bundle doesn't change.  That space is re-used for new files, though, so the sparse bundle won't grow until all the vacated space is used, and new "band" files are added.

So, how is that external drive connected? FireWire/USB/Airport/Ethernet/Smoke signal/?