Where has my Time Machine backup disappeared to?

Question

Level 1

19 points

Where has my Time Machine backup disappeared to?

Hi guys,

I recently sent my iMac off for repair. Before it was collected I backed up with Time Machine and wiped my user profile and data, this was on November 20.

I got the machine back a week later and restored my user account from the last backup of November 20. Everything worked as it should.

The November 20 backup was available for several weeks after I had the machine back and I did some comparison checks to ensure everything had copied over from before I had wiped my profile.

Suddenly this November 20 backup is missing and has vanished. I have two external drives that I use for Time Machine and it is gone from both.

Any ideas where this has gone?

Thanks in advance.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), iOS 10.1.1

Posted on Jan 10, 2018 2:40 PM

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Answer 1

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Jan 11, 2018 2:58 AM in response to dellphillius

How big is the drive you're backing up and how big is the Time Machine drive? TM automatically deletes the oldest backups when the drive is getting full. http://oldtoad.net/pondini.org/TM/1.html and http://oldtoad.net/pondini.org/TM/12.html

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Answer 2

dellphillius Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 11, 2018 3:06 AM in response to SeaPapp

Hello again Mike,

I know my oldest backups are deleted when my drive is full. The issue is this back up is only a couple of months old and the oldest back ups I have are 2 years old. The missing back up was available last week as I did some comparison checks. Its now suddenly disappeared off both my back up drives which I've never encountered before.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers

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Answer 3

SeaPapp

Level 7

26,486 points

Jan 11, 2018 4:43 AM in response to dellphillius

Again.....how big is the source? How big is the destination? If your TM drive isn't at least 2-4 times larger than the data you backing up you may not have a long history of backups. Do you have backups older than the Nov 20 backup that you’re looking for?

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Answer 4

dellphillius Author

Level 1

19 points

Jan 11, 2018 4:53 AM in response to SeaPapp

Hi Mike,

Yes I have backups 2 years older than the missing still available. The destination drive is 2TB and there's plenty of available space. The backup was there last week and now its gone. I used this backup to restore my user profile back to how it was after I had my machine repaired. The November 20 backup was there last week as I was comparing folder sizes from then to now.

Thanks

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