Okay – so I have a relatively simple question but can't find a clear answer.
Say for instance I have a large video file in FolderA named something.avi. Time Machine then makes a pass and backs this up. Afterwards, I rename this file somethingelse.avi.
Does Time Machine physically copy all of this data a second time, or does it create a new link with the changed file name, which points to the data which has already been copied?
Best Answer
Anytime you make a change to a file Time Machine makes a new copy of the file:
John Siracusa's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica review/Time Machine:
The beauty of Time Machine is that it automatically deletes the older copies of files from the backup when it needs to recover the space.