My Time Machine backups are significantly larger, and slower, over WiFi than Ethernet

My regular hourly backups from my Time Capsule began acting up a month ago. They were abnormally large (25-100 MBs) and took a long time--once, six hours.
I connected my Time Capsule to my MacBook Air through ethernet to repair the disk through Disk Utility, (I turned Airport off on the Air, but not the Time Capsule), and then to rebuild the Spotlight index for the Time Capsule.
Backups over ethernet work just fine now. The backup will happen in two parts, of around 200 KB each, and take two or two and a half minutes. But when I turn Airport on the Air back on, reconnect to the WiFi network, unplug the ethernet cable, and immediately start a new backup over WiFi, the two parts balloon to around 20 MB each, and the backup takes hours.
This is a backup over ethernet, which took 2 minutes, 21 seconds:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Martin%[email protected]/External%20HD
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Martin%[email protected]/External%20HD
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/External HD/Martin Fox’s MacBook Air.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.70 GB requested (including padding), 733.41 GB available
Copied 1082 files (104 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.70 GB requested (including padding), 733.41 GB available
Copied 429 files (153 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Martin Fox’s MacBook Air/2012-05-11-225349: 733.41 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Martin Fox’s MacBook Air/2012-05-11-200538: 733.41 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 2 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.
This is the second backup after that one, done over WiFi. (The first was incompletely recorded by Time Machine Buddy, but took around half an hour.) It took 1 hour, 54 minutes, 50 seconds:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Martin%[email protected]/External%20HD
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Martin%[email protected]/External%20HD
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/External HD/Martin Fox’s MacBook Air.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 100.0 MB requested (including padding), 733.41 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 26 KB of 20.6 MB, 98 of 98 items
Copied 1485 files (22.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.72 GB requested (including padding), 733.41 GB available
Error: (-8084) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/foxmarti/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/ehjqi949.default/places.sqlite-wal to (null)
Copied 1941 files (27.5 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Eject

slyfox1908 wrote:
I live in an apartment building so there are a number of WiFi networks around.
Not to mention cordless phones, microwaves, etc., any of which can interfere.
On iStumbler, my network shows up twice--once on channel 149, with signal strength of 50-65% and noise of 15%--and again on channel 10, with signal strength of that wildly varies from 20% to 90% and noise of 20%. Other networks in the building are on channels 1, 2, 6, and 11. The graph of channel 149 is very smooth, while the graph of channel 10 is choppy.
It's probably using 149, as those numbers are pretty good. Press Alt/Option before clicking the Airport icon in your menubar to see which band it's using.
Watch the band it's using while running a backup. Try other channels in the area of 149. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a "hit and miss" thing.
Why are there two networks? Is that part of the problem? My Time Capsule is located about three feet right and a foot below my desk, so I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be 100% for both channels.
It's a dual-band router. As I understand it, OSX will pick the best signal.
I really want to know I have a clean, safe, accessible back-up before I replace it though. Right now I don't trust the Time Capsule.
Do at least your last backup via Ethernet.

Similar Messages

Time Machine: Backup is too large and I have space on my Time Capsule !

Hi Everybody,
I am using Time Machine with my 1T Time Capsule. Everything was running nice till I get message telling that backup could not complete because there was an error copying backup files. I searched for solutions, erased TM disk, reset TM, and reset TC too. Now I have 937g available on TC, I tried to backup 63g but a message came out telling that backup is too large !
Any ideas please !?

Hi
The backup failed too !
These are the messages from the console:
Apr 2 11:53:12 hussain-almarshoods-macbook kernel[0]:
Apr 2 11:53:42: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 2 11:54:10 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Stopping backup.
Apr 2 11:54:10 hussain-almarshoods-macbook kernel[0]:
Apr 2 11:54:27: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 2 11:54:27 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2010/2010-03-272/IMG0687.JPG to (null)
Apr 2 11:54:31 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Copied 168977 files (58.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Apr 2 11:54:31 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Apr 2 11:54:37 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Backup failed with error: 11
Apr 2 11:54:40 hussain-almarshoods-macbook [0x0-0x11011].com.tomtom.HOMERunnerApp[135]: Notifying device changed
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook [0x0-0x11011].com.tomtom.HOMERunnerApp[135]: Notifying device changed
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
These are from TM buddy:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Hussain%[email protected]/Hussainz
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Hussain%[email protected]/Hussainz
Disk image /Volumes/Hussainz-1/Hussain Almarshood’s MacBook.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Backup content size: 67.9 GB excluded items size: 3.8 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 76.92 GB requested (including padding), 874.08 GB available
Copied 3.6 GB of 64.1 GB, 152 of 620764 items
Copied 7.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 31990 of 620764 items
Copied 9.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 143329 of 620764 items
Copied 13.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 151861 of 620764 items
Copied 17.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 153066 of 620764 items
Copied 20.9 GB of 64.1 GB, 154141 of 620764 items
Copied 25.0 GB of 64.1 GB, 154854 of 620764 items
Copied 29.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 155711 of 620764 items
Copied 33.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 156613 of 620764 items
Copied 38.0 GB of 64.1 GB, 157522 of 620764 items
Copied 42.2 GB of 64.1 GB, 159199 of 620764 items
Copied 46.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 160927 of 620764 items
Copied 50.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 161025 of 620764 items
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Data/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0128.jpg to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0112.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0115.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0123.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0125.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0136.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0137.JPG to (null)
Copied 54.6 GB of 64.1 GB, 168977 of 620764 items
This is the TM message:
http://img.skitch.com/20100402-mmjqp1ecca6f1mukn1aggp4uw6.jpg
I this the problem is that there are still some corrupted(damaged) photos in the iPhoto library? Is that right?
Do I have to verify the internal HD ? or find a way to delete the iPhotos files "which I do not want them thou"?
OR you have other method?
Thanks

I have a mid2009 MacBook Pro for which I have been using a USB WD HD for Time Machine. I'd like to get a wireless HD and start a new Time Machine backup for this Mac and retire the 5 year old WD drive. Can I start over?

I have a mid2009 MacBook Pro running Mavericks for which I have been using a USB WD HD for Time Machine. I'd like to get a wireless HD and start a new Time Machine backup for this Mac and retire the 5 year old WD drive. Can I start over?

no archive/ backup is perfect, HD clones can be set to make incremental additions, same as time machine however, though they are more time involved in doing so.
See the + and - of all data backup/ archives below and "spread it around".... or the "dont put your eggs all in one basket" philosophy.
Peace
Data Storage Platforms; their Drawbacks & Advantages
#1. Time Machine / Time Capsule
Drawbacks:
1. Time Machine is not bootable, if your internal drive fails, you cannot access files or boot from TM directly from the dead computer.
2. Time machine is controlled by complex software, and while you can delve into the TM backup database for specific file(s) extraction, this is not ideal or desirable.
3. Time machine can and does have the potential for many error codes in which data corruption can occur and your important backup files may not be saved correctly, at all, or even damaged. This extra link of failure in placing software between your data and its recovery is a point of risk and failure. A HD clone is not subject to these errors.
4. Time machine mirrors your internal HD, in which cases of data corruption, this corruption can immediately spread to the backup as the two are linked. TM is perpetually connected (or often) to your computer, and corruption spread to corruption, without isolation, which TM lacks (usually), migrating errors or corruption is either automatic or extremely easy to unwittingly do.
5. Time Machine does not keep endless copies of changed or deleted data, and you are often not notified when it deletes them; likewise you may accidently delete files off your computer and this accident is mirrored on TM.
6. Restoring from TM is quite time intensive.
7. TM is a backup and not a data archive, and therefore by definition a low-level security of vital/important data.
8. TM working premise is a “black box” backup of OS, APPS, settings, and vital data that nearly 100% of users never verify until an emergency hits or their computers internal SSD or HD that is corrupt or dead and this is an extremely bad working premise on vital data.
9. Given that data created and stored is growing exponentially, the fact that TM operates as a “store-it-all” backup nexus makes TM inherently incapable to easily backup massive amounts of data, nor is doing so a good idea.
10. TM working premise is a backup of a users system and active working data, and NOT massive amounts of static data, yet most users never take this into consideration, making TM a high-risk locus of data “bloat”.
11. In the case of Time Capsule, wifi data storage is a less than ideal premise given possible wireless data corruption.
12. TM like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
13. *Level-1 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. TM is very easy to use either in automatic mode or in 1-click backups.
2. TM is a perfect novice level simplex backup single-layer security save against internal HD failure or corruption.
3. TM can easily provide a seamless no-gap policy of active data that is often not easily capable in HD clones or HD archives (only if the user is lazy is making data saves).
#2. HD archives
Drawbacks:
1. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
2. Unless the user ritually copies working active data to HD external archives, then there is a time-gap of potential missing data; as such users must be proactive in archiving data that is being worked on or recently saved or created.
Advantages:
1. Fills the gap left in a week or 2-week-old HD clone, as an example.
2. Simplex no-software data storage that is isolated and autonomous from the computer (in most cases).
3. HD archives are the best idealized storage source for storing huge and multi-terabytes of data.
4. Best-idealized 1st platform redundancy for data protection.
5. *Perfect primary tier and level-2 security of your vital data.
#3. HD clones (see below for full advantages / drawbacks)
Drawbacks:
1. HD clones can be incrementally updated to hourly or daily, however this is time consuming and HD clones are, often, a week or more old, in which case data between today and the most fresh HD clone can and would be lost (however this gap is filled by use of HD archives listed above or by a TM backup).
2. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
Advantages:
1. HD clones are the best, quickest way to get back to 100% full operation in mere seconds.
2. Once a HD clone is created, the creation software (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) is no longer needed whatsoever, and unlike TM, which requires complex software for its operational transference of data, a HD clone is its own bootable entity.
3. HD clones are unconnected and isolated from recent corruption.
4. HD clones allow a “portable copy” of your computer that you can likewise connect to another same Mac and have all your APPS and data at hand, which is extremely useful.
5. Rather than, as many users do, thinking of a HD clone as a “complimentary backup” to the use of TM, a HD clone is superior to TM both in ease of returning to 100% quickly, and its autonomous nature; while each has its place, TM can and does fill the gap in, say, a 2 week old clone. As an analogy, the HD clone itself is the brick wall of protection, whereas TM can be thought of as the mortar, which will fill any cracks in data on a week, 2-week, or 1-month old HD clone.
6. Best-idealized 2nd platform redundancy for data protection, and 1st level for system restore of your computers internal HD. (Time machine being 2nd level for system restore of the computer’s internal HD).
7. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
HD cloning software options:
1. SuperDuper HD cloning software APP (free)
2. Carbon Copy Cloner APP (will copy the recovery partition as well)
3. Disk utility HD bootable clone.
#4. Online archives
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to server failure or due to non-payment of your hosting account, it can be suspended.
2. Subject, due to lack of security on your part, to being attacked and hacked/erased.
Advantages:
1. In case of house fire, etc. your data is safe.
2. In travels, and propagating files to friends and likewise, a mere link by email is all that is needed and no large media needs to be sent across the net.
3. Online archives are the perfect and best-idealized 3rd platform redundancy for data protection.
4. Supremely useful in data isolation from backups and local archives in being online and offsite for long-distance security in isolation.
5. *Level-1.5 security of your vital data.
#5. DVD professional archival media
Drawbacks:
1. DVD single-layer disks are limited to 4.7Gigabytes of data.
2. DVD media are, given rough handling, prone to scratches and light-degradation if not stored correctly.
Advantages:
1. Archival DVD professional blank media is rated for in excess of 100+ years.
2. DVD is not subject to mechanical breakdown.
3. DVD archival media is not subject to ferromagnetic degradation.
4. DVD archival media correctly sleeved and stored is currently a supreme storage method of archiving vital data.
5. DVD media is once written and therefore free of data corruption if the write is correct.
6. DVD media is the perfect ideal for “freezing” and isolating old copies of data for reference in case newer generations of data become corrupted and an older copy is needed to revert to.
7. Best-idealized 4th platform redundancy for data protection.
8. *Level-3 (highest) security of your vital data.
[*Level-4 data security under development as once-written metallic plates and synthetic sapphire and likewise ultra-long-term data storage]
#6. Cloud based storage
Drawbacks:
1. Cloud storage can only be quasi-possessed.
2. No genuine true security and privacy of data.
3. Should never be considered for vital data storage or especially long-term.
4. *Level-0 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. Quick, easy and cheap storage location for simplex files for transfer to keep on hand and yet off the computer.
2. Easy source for small-file data sharing.

My time machine backup of address book and iphoto etc wont open

So I'm about to do a bunch of stuff on my computer and want to make sure that my time machine backups are going to be able to be restored and that I can unpartition my bootcamp drive safely. I will be downloading SnowLeopard, Parrallels, and some other software. I really want to make sure that certain apps, such as address book, iphoto, and itunes have been backed up correctly and that they will be able to be restored. When I opened my time machine backup folder and clicked on those three apps, it gave me an error code. I don't want to start doing all of the things listed above without being confident that I will be able to recover any stuff that may get lost. How do I accomplish this?
Also, how do I unpartition my drive to get rid of Bootcamp?
Thanks

So I'm about to do a bunch of stuff on my computer and want to make sure that my time machine backups are going to be able to be restored and that I can unpartition my bootcamp drive safely. I will be downloading SnowLeopard, Parrallels, and some other software. I really want to make sure that certain apps, such as address book, iphoto, and itunes have been backed up correctly and that they will be able to be restored. When I opened my time machine backup folder and clicked on those three apps, it gave me an error code. I don't want to start doing all of the things listed above without being confident that I will be able to recover any stuff that may get lost. How do I accomplish this?
Also, how do I unpartition my drive to get rid of Bootcamp?
Thanks

Since upgrading to Lion, my time machine backups are failing - error message: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska's MacBook.sparsebundle" could not be accessed (error -1). Any ideas?

Since upgrading my Macbook to Lion, the time machine backups are failing - error message: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Jackie Scanlon's Time Caps/Jacqueline Drabczynska’s MacBook.sparsebundle” could not be accessed (error -1)." I have rebooted the TIme Capsule and it worked OK, but don't want to do that every time. Any suggestions? Thanks

Any new info on this?
I had the exact same problem and went crazy and spent a hecka lot of time trying to deal with my brand new 2TB Time Capsule and almost brand new MacBook Pro. Then I thought I fixed it...and I tried SO MANY things, I don't really know what did it...except taking out any apostrophe's in names of stuff that Apple puts in there...BUT...now it's back.
Grrr...

Why is my Time Machine backup so much larger than the files being backed up?

Mac Mini Server 10.7.1 on a 2011 Mac Mini Server
Here are the drives on my system:
Here are the items excluded from backup:
Note that Server HD and Archive are the only non-excluded disks and the estimated backup size is 563.2 GB (this corresponds with the actual usage on those drives.
However, when I run time machine, it keeps going until by 2TB backup drive is nearly full! And that's with only a single backup instance and nothing else on the drive:
What's going on here??? If I don't backup the other external drive, the backup size doesn't blow up like this.

Just to clarify, the reason why Time Machine backups are generally small is that TM makes extensive use of hard links. symbolic links are small files that point to a different file system entry, while hard links point directly to the original file data on disk (hard links are unintuitive - they are like having multiple doors into a room, except that you can place the doors anywhere you like and still get to the room). So even though there may be dozens of backups of a disk, most of the backed-up items will only have one data source on disk, with only items that have changed needing new representations.
I suspect that when you try to backup a time machine backup, it is converting the hard links into separate on-disk representations - basically taking every pointer to a given piece of on-disk data and creating a new file from it. I'm not sure if that would be a linear or geometric size increase (it sounds like the latter), but either way it's going to get ugly fairly fast.

Time Machine backup restores OS X and Apps

Time Machine backup restores OS X and Apps or only Data?

Hi lseit,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you would like information what what information is restored while restoring from Time Machine. For information on this process, please review the information in the attached article.
Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support
Restoring data from Time Machine backups
With Time Machine, you can go "back in time" to restore files, versions of files, or your entire system. If Time Machine alerts you that your Time Machine backup disk can't be found, make sure your backup drive is connected and mounted.
Best regards,
Joe

TIme Machine backup grows too large during backup process

I have been using Time Machine without a problem for several months, backing up my imac - 500GB drive with 350g used. Recently TM failed because the backups had finally filled the external drive - 500GB USB. Since I did not need the older backups, I reformatted the external drive to start from scratch. Now TM tries to do an initial full backup but the size keeps growing as it is backing up, eventually becoming too large for the external drive and TM fails. It will report, say, 200G to back up, then it reaches that point and the "Backing up XXXGB of XXXGB" just keeps getting larger. I have tried excluding more than 100GB of files to get the backup set very small, but it still grows during the backup process. I have deleted plist and cache files as some discussions have suggested, but the same issue occurs each time. What is going on???

Michael Birtel wrote:
Here is the log for the last failure. As you see it indicates there is enough room 345g needed, 464G available, but then it fails. I can watch the backup progress, it reaches 345G and then keeps growing till it give out of disk space error. I don't know what "Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD" implies, maybe this is a clue?
No. It's sort of a warning, indicating that TM isn't sure what's changed on your internal HD since the previous backup, usually as a result of an abnormal shutdown. But since you just erased your TM disk, it's perfectly normal.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
2009-07-08 19:37:53.659 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Querying receipt database for system packages
2009-07-08 19:37:55.582 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Using system path cache.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 309.5 GB excluded items size: 22.3 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 345.01 GB requested (including padding), 464.53 GB available
This is a completely normal start to a backup. Just after that last message is when the actual copying begins. Apparently whatever's happening, no messages are being sent to the log, so this may not be an easy one to figure out.
First, let's use Disk Utility to confirm that the disk really is set up properly.
First, select the second line for your internal HD (usually named "Macintosh HD"). Towards the bottom, the Format should be +Mac OS Extended (Journaled),+ although it might be +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+
Next, select the line for your TM partition (indented, with the name). Towards the bottom, the Format must be the same as your internal HD (above). If it isn't, you must erase the partition (not necessarily the whole drive) and reformat it with Disk Utility.
Sometimes when TM formats a drive for you automatically, it sets it to +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+ Do not use this unless your internal HD is also case-sensitive. All drives being backed-up, and your TM volume, should be the same. TM may do backups this way, but you could be in for major problems trying to restore to a mis-matched drive.
Last, select the top line of the TM drive (with the make and size). Towards the bottom, the *Partition Map Scheme* should be GUID (preferred) or +Apple Partition Map+ for an Intel Mac. It must be +Apple Partition Map+ for a PPC Mac.
If any of this is incorrect, that's likely the source of the problem. See item #5 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum for instructions, then try again.
If it's all correct, perhaps there's something else in your logs.
Use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
When it starts, click +Show Log List+ in the toolbar, then navigate in the sidebar that opens up to your system.log and select it. Navigate to the +Starting standard backup+ message that you noted above, then see what follows that might indicate some sort of error, failure, termination, exit, etc. (many of the messages there are info for developers, etc.). If in doubt post (a reasonable amount of) the log here.

How can I tell if my Time Machine backups are encrypted?

Hi - I would really appreciate it if someone could help me find out if my Time Machine backps are actually encrypted.
I know that there is an 'encryption' option when choosing a disc for Time Machine to backup to, but the problem is I cannot remember whether or not I actually ticked it (as it was a couple of years ago).
Other info that might be helpful:
- The disk I use Time Machine to backup to is actually a Apple Time Capsule
- I do have FileVault2 enabled on my mac
- I have never encrypted the Time Capsule disc itself (via Disk Utility or anything similar)
- One possible clue might be: When I go into Time Machine preferences, and click on 'Select Disk...' (as if to choose another disk to back up to), and select the disc that Time Machine currently backs up to (i.e. the Time Capsule disc), it does show an 'Encrypt backups' checkbox at the bottom of the window... however this checkbox is unchecked and also greyed out.
Thanks in advance
a_quinn

a_quinn wrote:
- Because I originally created this Time Machine Backup (to the Time Capsule) back in my 'OS X Lion' days,
I wondered; you posted in the Mountain Lion forum, but your profile still says Lion.
that means that my backups now (and moving forward) will continue to be un-encrypted
Correct (as of now, anyway). You cannot encrypt existing network backups. I doubt that will be available in the future, and would take forever.
- The only way to encyrpt my backups now, moving forward, is to remove this Time Capsule disc (from Time Machine Preferences), and start all over again ensuring that I check the checkbox next to 'Encrypt Backup' when selecting the Time Capsule's disc to backup to.
Well, in theory it's possible, but would take forever, squared.
You could archive the TC's contents to a USB drive connected to it, per #Q6 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule).
Then delete the original, start a backup with encryption, and as soon as the encrypted sparse bundle is created, cancel the backup.
Mount the sparse bundle, open the disk image, and delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside it.
Connect the USB drive to your Mac, mount that sparse bundle, open its disk image, and copy the Backups.backupdb folder to the one on the TC.
Depending on how large the sparse bundle is, that could easily take a couple of days, at least, even connected via Ethernet.
Just for testing one day, I encrypted a very small set of existing test backups on a F/W 800 drive - 6 dated backups using a whole 12 GB. Took an hour.
An alternative would be, just do the "archive" and keep the USB drive "on the shelf" for a while. You can always connect it to your Mac and access those backups via the Browse Other Backup Disks option.
Trying to keep a couple of years worth of backups usually isn't a good idea. It's a very complex structure, so the odds of damage increase, it takes much longer to populate the TM browser, and it works slower and slower, and if you didn't need something for 6 months, are you really going to need it in 2 years?

Time Machine backups are bigger than expected

Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone would know why, all of a sudden after a day or two ago, my Time Machine is suddenly insisting on backing up well over 4GB at a time? Before then my backups would almost always be below the 100MB mark. Has some update happened that would have caused this?
I have looked in Console but unfortunately am none the wiser. Is there some way of finding out a list of the files Time Machine is actually backing up? If so then I'd be able to track down this problem since I am fast running out of space on my Time Machine backup drive!
Many thanks for listening...
:-Joe

Jowie,
Consider the following info that I have gleaned, some of it may explain some it.
*Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!*
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412)
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer may be describing what you are experiencing: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder it you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.

File Sharing drops regularly, Time Machine Backups are delayed on OSX 10.7.3. Solution?

Hi there folks,
I'm having an issue with the new 10.7 server. We're running 10.7.3 Server on an Late 2006 XServe with 10GB RAM , connected to a Drobo Pro for Time Machine Backups of our 50+ users via our internal network.
Recently, Time Machine backups have been getting delayed, stating that they can't connect up to the backup drive (which is out Drobo Pro handling 16TB of space). The Drobo Pro hass not unmounted, and all the IP Addresses coming from and going to the Server handling the backups will still ping.
We've also be having trouble with Server resident drives and shared folders that people can mount using the ⌘+K shortcut or "Connect to Server" option in finder. People will choose the IP address, and finder will think for a few minutes then give an error stating that it cannot connect the the specified IP. The only way I can reestablish connection to the file sharing through a remote computer is to remote or physically login to the server, then go into System Preferences and turn "File Sharing" off, then on again. After that, the ⌘+K on a remote machine can find the drives again.
It's driving me crazy why this is ocurring. I don't know why, and people in the office are beginning to complain that they can't access certain files on the servers or are worried because their backups are not completeing.
It should also be known that a majority of the machines we have in the ofice are still running 10.6.8, with only a handful on 10.7, as we haven't had the time to make the major switchover yet.
I'm not the best when it comes to server software or Unix CLI managment (the office outsourced our Network Admin to the east coast), so I'm a bit stumped.
Does anyone have any suggestions to try? Is there a link between the number of Time Machine Users and the connection failures? Should I just tel the NetAdmin to create a script that will restart the File Sharing protocol on the server every couple of hours?
Hopefully someone will be able to help.
Thanks,
JYHASH

I started having connectivity issues to my 10.6.8 server from my 10.7 client immediately after updating the client to 10.7.3. FWIW. Takes forever to connect, when it does. After just milliconds before.

After Server 4.1 update, Time Machine backups are huge

Hi,
After updating to Server 4.1, every one of my Time Machine backups for the machine (Late 2012 iMac) running OS X Server (which is backed up to a USB connected drive) is between 3GB and 7GB. When a backup finishes, I can immediately force a manual backup and it's >= 3GB.
Using the timedog utility, I narrowed the problem down to the OS X Server install, the largest file being:
/Library/Server/Wiki/Logs/postgres-xpg.log
Every 10 seconds, an entry similar to the following is added to this file:
2015-04-16 23:04:31 XPG.5941: matched path for pg_receivexlog file: /Library/Server/Wiki/Database.xpg/backup/000000010000006300000035.partial
This particular log file is around 3GB in size. It appears to have every log entry since I installed OS X Server December 2013. I find it odd this is happening in the Wiki directory as the Wiki service is disabled. I am using the following services:
Caching
Calendar
Contacts
File Sharing
Time Machine (for my Macbook backups)
I went into Time Machine (on the iMac) and deleted all the backups for /Library/Server/Wiki and that freed up 160GB. I could just exclude that from backups, but I don't want to do that. I would like to know why these entries keep getting put into that log and also why, if those entries are appropriate, the log is not rotated.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks, Patrick

Hi Patrick,
That particular log-file has had an issue for some time now.
Even when the wiki is not loaded the wiki proces generates errors which keeps on filling this log.
Exclude it from the backup simply solves your backup issue.
However there are some suggestions for "fixing" this enormous log around in the Apple Support Community.
I don't worry too much about it anymore, but you can generate a new file and throw out the old for instance.
As long as you have enough storage you're fine.
Some usefull steps for a fix are mentioned here:
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/113837/library-server-wiki-database-xpg -consuming-huge-amount-313gb-of-disk-space
Goodluck
Jeffrey

How do I migrate from a Time Machine backup of a larger hard driver to a smaller hard drive?

My old MacBook Pro has a 1 TB drive. My new one has a 256 GB drive (SSD, as you might guess). I want to use Migration Assistant to move my files from my Time Machine backup to my new MBP. But obviously not all the files are going to fit. If I leave out my music and movies and a couple other things then it will work.
So I selectively migrated just the things that would fit, thinking that I could then fire up Time Machine and restore those other files to an external drive. That doesn't work, though, because my new computer is not recognizing the old computer's Time Machine, and instead is trying to create a new Time Machine area.
What's the best way to solve this problem? The end result I want is for my users and applications to be restored to the new computer, and my movies and music to be restored to external storage.

Aha, I think I found my own answer. I had to Browse Other Backup Disks by Alt-clicking the Time Machine icon. Then I could find the directory I wanted (iTunes Music, for example) and right-click on that to restore to a different location.
Thanks to http://pondini.org/TM/17.html!

Time machine backup is extremely large!

After I upgraded my MacBook Pro (Mid-2012) to Mavericks, I decided to do a backup on my Seagate 500GB GoFlex drive using Time Machine. It started to clear all my old backups and still did not have enough space. So I reformatted the drive and started to back up an initial backup of 383GB. It took over 11 hours, with (unfortunately) a couple of disruptions because the drive was accidentally disconnected. However Time Machine says that I have successfully backed up.
Today, I backed up a second time (it's an automatic hourly backup) and was faced with an extremely long waiting time for "preparing..." (over an hour). An error message then appeared saying that the backup was 211 GB and that I do not have enough space in my drive. (see insert image)
What I would like to know is, why is my second backup so huge? Am I doing something wrong? And what should I do to salvage this? (I know hourly backups should typically not take more than a few GB of space, from experience.)
Thank you all for your help, I appreciate it.

I also have been seeing unexpectedly large Time Machine backups after the initial large backup after upgrading to 10.9, like 1-2 GB. I'm not doing anything other than surfing the web and checking email.

Easiest way to transfer time machine backup to a larger drive?

My drive was too small and now it is full, I bought a new larger drive. How can I copy the old one to the new one and have time machine just continue on? Thanks for any help guys I'm confused.

Mac OS X v10.6: How to transfer your backups from your current hard drive to a new hard drive
If you upgrade to a new hard drive with a larger capacity, you may want to transfer your existing Time Machine backups to it before using it for regular backups. To keep your existing backups on your new, larger backup hard drive, follow these steps:
Connect your new hard drive.
In Disk Utility, make sure it has a GUID partition and is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If needed, reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended with a GUID partition. If you do not know how, see the steps in this article. Note: Back up any data on the hard drive before you format it.
Select the new drive's icon on the desktop and choose Get Info from the File menu.
Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" is not enabled.
Open Time Machine preferences in System Preferences.
Slide the Time Machine switch to Off.
In Finder, double-click the current backup hard drive to open its Finder window.
Drag the folder "Backups.backupd" to the new hard drive.
Enter an administrator user name and password, then click OK to start the copying process. This may take some time to complete because all your backups will be copied.
In Time Machine System Preferences click "Select Disk…"
Select your new hard drive, then click "Use for Backup."
Now, on your new hard drive, you will have all of your existing backups from the previous backup hard drive plus have more room for more new backups.
Mac 101: Time Machine

My Time Machine backups are significantly larger, and slower, over WiFi than Ethernet

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