My Maxtor One Touch 4 is nearly full.

[MindyMtta]

My Maxtor is nearly full. How do I determine what to delete to free up space? Can I delete the folders, oldest first?

 

[nbelote]

We don't know the content of your drive, either. It's best to buy a new one. IF this happens to be the one your Windows is on, start by deleting everything in your Documents folder that you don't use and uninstalling programs you haven't used in a while (or ever).

You have to be smart, though... you can't just go uninstalling stuff randomly. If it says "Mouse drivers" or "Graphics card" another computer part name, or the brand of your computer (which means that software came with it) then you need to leave it alone. Or anything Microsoft.

 

[ss202sl]

We don't know the content of your drive, either. It's best to buy a new one. IF this happens to be the one your Windows is on, start by deleting everything in your Documents folder that you don't use and uninstalling programs you haven't used in a while (or ever).

You have to be smart, though... you can't just go uninstalling stuff randomly. If it says "Mouse drivers" or "Graphics card" another computer part name, or the brand of your computer (which means that software came with it) then you need to leave it alone. Or anything Microsoft.

I think he's using the maxtor software to back up his system(This was how it was marketed). Then his question makes sense since he would want to delete the oldest backup.

I think that deleting the oldest backups would be fine as long as your backups are all full backups(not differentials or incremental). The only issue is that you would only be able to go back as far as you have backups for.

 

[MindyMtta]

I think he's using the maxtor software to back up his system(This was how it was marketed). Then his question makes sense since he would want to delete the oldest backup.

I think that deleting the oldest backups would be fine as long as your backups are all full backups(not differentials or incremental). The only issue is that you would only be able to go back as far as you have backups for.

You are correct, it is my backup drive. While all the files backed up in the Maxtor are at the present time still on my hard drive, would it be ok to delete, for example the entire "C" folder and then do a new backup? I also have a backup internal drive. My Dell came with "System Restore". I purchased the Maxtor 4 in order to have an external backup, because the system restore drive didn't help when I had a major crash.

 

[ss202sl]

Yes you can wipe it out and start all over with the backup drive. The only thing you won't be able to do is restore a file to what it was a month ago because you're deleting that backup set.

 

[MindyMtta]

Best answer selected by MindyMtta.