It is known that for a non-linear dynamical system, periodic and quasi-periodic attractors can be reconstructed in a discrete sense using time-delay embedding. Following this argument, it has been shown that even chaotic non-linear systems can be represented as a linear system with intermittent forcing. Although it is known that linear models such as those generated by the Hankel Dynamic Mode Decomposition can -in principle -reconstruct any ergodic dynamical system, quantitative details such as the required sampling rate and the number of delays remain unknown. This work addresses fundamental issues related to the structure and conditioning of linear time delayed models of non-linear dynamics on an attractor. First, we prove that, for scalar systems, the minimal number of time delays required for perfect signal recovery is solely determined by the sparsity in the Fourier spectrum. For the vector case, we devise a rank test and provide a geometric interpretation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an accurate linear time delayed model. Further, we prove that the output controllability index of a certain associated linear system serves as a tight upper bound on the minimal number of time delays required. An explicit expression for the exact representation of the linear model in the spectral domain is also provided. From a computational implementation perspective, the effect of the sampling rate on the numerical conditioning of the time delayed model is examined. As a natural extension of Bazán's work, an upper bound on the 2-norm condition number is derived, with the implication that conditioning can be improved with additional time delays and/or decreasing sampling rates. Finally, it is explicitly shown that the underlying dynamics can be accurately recovered using only a partial period of trajectory data.