Selectively delete old backups data

figosound · 06 Feb 2014

Hi folks, I got a question: about 3 months ago I bought a shiny 128 GB SSD in substitution of my old 500 GB system drive, so I reinstalled window 7 from scratch, having done all the automatic backups with the built in Windows Backup in G: and the manual ones in F: for doubled safety :)
Now I can declare my SSD safe, so I would love to free some space from G: (the backup drive): I want to delete the old and now useless system images, and to keep only the last backup period from a group of three for added safety.
Can I delete selectively those things, keeping only what I really need?

Barryherne · 06 Feb 2014

If you feel that you don't need them at all, you can delete them, but at the same time if your SDD crashes, some backups are necessary.

figosound · 06 Feb 2014

Thank you, but I need more specific informations. There is a folder named "WindowsImageBackup": can I delete it?
There is a special folder that cannot be opened in explorer but only via the backup&restore section, containing 3 backup periods: can I individually delete all but the last backup period?

figosound · 09 Feb 2014

Anybody with an advice yet?

mjf · 09 Feb 2014

We are talking about 2 types of backup:
1) file/folder backups which will show as backup sets/periods.
Here I personally would keep the most recent 2 periods. Of course if you have deleted something prior to this that you want then you should extract from the backup set before deleting the set.

2) System images. This is what your WindowsImageBackup is. If you only have one image then don't delete it until you make a new system image. I recommend keeping more than one image and make them manually one at a time and don't have Windows automatically make them when you do a regular backup. Rename the WindowsImageBackup if you want to make more than one image as explained in this tutorial:
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup