Copying folders from old Time Machine disk

Question

Level 1

8 points

Copying folders from old Time Machine disk

Hi All,

I have an old firewire drive that I am going to retire. It was used for Time Machine about 10 years ago, and holds backups from 2 machines (iMac and a G5). I want to preserve the files. I don't need this new drive to function as Time Machine. I just need to be able to get onto it and retrieve old files from time to time.

I've hooked up this both this old firewire drive and a new SSD to my MacBook and I have started copying over directories. My understanding is that Time Machine creates one complete backup and that subsequent backups are only files that have changed, and that the files are not compressed.

Here's the thing. The old HD is only 500 gb. The G5 data was about 150GB of that 500 GB. It copied over fine. I then started copying over the iMac files and noticed something strange.

Step 1: Create folder called January 2018 on the new drive.

Step 2: Go onto old drive and surf to the January 2018 Time Machine backup.

Step 3: Grab the Macintosh HD folder from Jan 2018 and drop it into the January 2018 folder on the new machine.

Step 4: Wait a long-*** time for copying to happen.

Copy went fine. It was about 300GB for the January iMac image.

I then started the same process for February. When I started the copy, my machine says February 2018 is 270GB.

So you can see the problem: G5 (150GB) + iMac January (300GB) + iMac February (270 GB) is greater than the capacity of the source drive (500GB). So this isn't possible.

Anyone know what is going on here? Is it that the LATEST backup directories hold "pointers" to the old files that were unchanged, so that if you copy the latest backup folder, it automagically pulls out all the files from previous backups and therefore get a complete "latest" directory structure?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro (M1, 2020)

Posted on May 4, 2024 8:27 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

207,769 points

May 4, 2024 12:00 PM in response to pbert

You should restore the folders of files from within the Time Machine app.

The reason it appears that there are more files on a TM drive that possible is that even though a later folder may contain all hard links it will show the size of the folder as if the full sized files are in it.

On my TM drive each backup is shown as 1.83 TB.

However, there are 73 of them on a 4 TB drive. That don't compute in any language. Why, because of the hard links to original and unmodified files.

The only recommended way to recovery files is from within the TM app.

Reply

Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,920 points

May 4, 2024 4:49 PM in response to pbert

My understanding is that Time Machine creates one complete backup and that subsequent backups are only files that have changed, and that the files are not compressed.

That’s technically correct: however, the changed files are written to disk along with hard links to everything that has not been changed. A hard link is the same as the original file as far as any file utility is concerned. It is a pointer to the original storage and cannot be distinguished from the original file.

If you copy the final folder to another drive, it will copy everything backed up. A backup that old would also contain the OS which you don’t need.

Reply

Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,490 points

May 4, 2024 3:57 PM in response to pbert

With the backup disk connected, hold an Option key while clicking the Time Machine icon in your Mac's menu bar, and select Browse Other Backup Disks...

The way you're going about things is not correct. To learn how to restore items backed up by Time Machine please read Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support.

Reply