365 gig used, 1TB external HD-Time Machine bu fail -claims to need 1.3TB...

I have an iMac with a 500 gig internal hard drive. We have used close to 365gig of that.
I originally tried to set Time Machine up with a couple of older/smaller external HD's. Time Machine told me that it needed 800gig to back up.
I purchased a 1TB LaCie external hard drive.
Tonight when I tried to set up Time Machine it failed and said it now needed 1.3TB.
I have now read through various discussions on sizing the drive for backup and generally it is suggested that 2 to 3 times is fine.
It is also noted that there is no way to restrict this size other than by excluding items. I would prefer to not do this as the point is to back up our entire music, photo and video libraries.
Also, it appears that once set up Time Machine works with the size of back up drive you have and deletes older backups.
I am reluctant to now purchase an additional hard drive, to find that it now needs even more space as the space required seems to be growing exponentially.
I seem to be locked into a catch-22 situation of Time Machine requiring space at a faster rate than I can buy a hard drive.
Any advice?
My ideal solution is telling Time Machine to restrict the size of the back up somehow. I realize, based on previous discussions that this does not seem possible.
1.3TB of back up for a 365gig seems excessive.

How many disks are connected to the system?
Is it possible that Time Machine is trying to backup more than
one disk (if there is more than one)?
Dave

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How to use an external as Time Machine backup that was previously a Time Machine backup

My MacBook Pro drive died a few months ago. Thankfully it was fully backed up to an external with Time Machine. I seem to grab something from the backup every week from various libraries, but I now need to back up my new drive. I am cheap and do not want to buy yet another external especially as the older backup is a TB and nowhere near full. Does anyone know if I can use the old external with the old HD back-up as a back-up for the new drive without having to erase and reformat (i.e., keep the old HD back-up in tact)? Thanks in advance for a response.

You can use it, provided there's enough space, but to be safe you really need more than one backup.

I just bought an iMac now running OSX 10.8.4. I have a G5 running OXS 10.5.8 - External HD connected to the G5 been using Time Machine to back up. Need to get my files, photos etc. but not applications etc. onto the iMac. How do I do it?

I just bought an iMac now running OSX 10.8.4. I have a G5 running OXS 10.5.8 - External HD connected to the G5 been using Time Machine to back up. Need to get my files, photos etc. but not applications etc. onto the iMac. How do I do it?

David JHS21 wrote:
Can I just plug the external hard drive into the iMac and copy the "Documents" and "Pictures" from the hard drive to the iMac?
Not those whole folders, but their contents, maybe.
If the user account now on the Mac has read rights to the user account(s) on the backups, yes. If not, you may have to do some finagling.
Try the Browse Other Backup Disks option, per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #17. If you find an account that can open those folders, restore what you want to an alternate location (#16 in the FAQ).
If not try creating one or more accounts temporarily.

Can I safely save files to the external harddrive I am using as/for a Time Machine?

Can I safely save files to the external harddrive I am using as/for a Time Machine?

Because ALL Hard Drives fail. They have been since they were invented. It is just a fact of Spinning hard drives.
No nothing special about how TM writes to the drive.
Any hard drive can fail at any time. The day you take it out of the box and plug it in to 10+ years later or anytime in between. Kind of like Life. At some point it ends for everyone. Some sooner some much later.
I've had some work for years, like 7++ running 24/7. Others have died in months to a few years. I've had externals died faster then internal drive and the funny part is an external drive is nothing but the same type drive used Inside a computer, an Internal drive, put into an External case. But most of the time when an external dies it is not the drive itself but the Enclosures Electronic that fail. Removing the physical drive from the enclosure and using a SATA, or IDE, to USB Adapter the drives are usually still good. I've even taken dead externals and removed the drive and put that drive inside a computer case and they work for X number of years. But that doesn't mean that All Drives are like that.

I want to use two separate Lion Time Machine backups and use them to create two separate profiles on one new computer

This is something I need to do temporarily but I must do it.
I have an iMac 27 (end of year 2009) I5. It has 1 TB internal and I want to replace it with a 2 TB internal.
I have time machine backups on an external hard drive that has been connected via Firewire.
I have another iMac (my son's)Imac 24 Intel Core 2 Duo that has it's own separate Time machine backup to it's own separate firewire connected external drive. Both machines are completely up to date with the latest version of Lion and all other necessary software updates.
When the internal hardrive is replaced - I want to use my latest time machine backup to create one profile on the imac and then use my son's latest time machine back up for a second profile. The end goal being to have everything from my current set up ie: apps, documents, itunes, etc existing in one profile and everything in my son's current set up existing in the other profile. We can both be administrators for the time being as well. I should note even though we both have some of the same apps, we both also have other apps that the other does not.
My profile will be using about 900 gigs of total space.
My son's profile will be using about 250 gigs of total space.
This is temporary until the new iMac is released. Then I will want to transfer my profile to that leaving my son's intact on the iMac 27 I5.
I realize that during the temporary period that Time Machine will be making backups of this entire two profile setup, which I am now understanding as I write this will create a new issue for me when I want to transfer only my profile to the new computer as well. But one bridge to cross at a time, I guess.
I need to do this because we must bring his current computer to my father - as his iMac G5 is inoperable. We have been doing this round robin hand me down in our family since IMac DV special edition :-)
Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. And any other suggestions as well.
Thanks very much.

Hey Shootist000, Thanks for the replies. First off, I am actually okay if we both have each other applications so I am not concerned about that. It is still unclear from what you have said as to whether I can in fact, use these two separte time machine backup to create two separate profiles on the new hard drive. If that in fact can be done, then - will it create two copies of the apps we both have in the ROOT of the drive as well as placing all the ones we each have separately?
And reading your second reply, makes me think that maybe the partition is the way to go to begin with and then down the road - after I am in the new iMac, I could reformat the iMac 27 with only one partion and restore my son's latest back prior to the reformat thus giving him full access to the 2 TB of the drive.
If this is still making sense, does this mean :
replace the 1TB with a 2TB - but have it partitione - 1.5 TB & 500 GB.
Install(Restore using Time Machine) my latest back up prior to the 1.5 partition
Install (Restore using Time Machine) my son's latest back up prior to the 500 gig partition
Lastly, in order for us both to be using the partioned computer - I am assuming Switch user can no longer be used - so would we need to restart and select our respective partions in order to use the computer? And if so, how would we each be able to be using time machine to back up - two separte external hard drives - with each one dedicated to only one partition? Or ?
Thanks so much.
Ironically, I am only trying to do this so that I don't need to manually install all his apps, setting, games, blah blah for this temporary period. :-)

Partition of external HD - Time Machine & Aperture

Good day all,
I bought an external HD (1TB) and I formatted it in FAT 32, so I can use it for both Window and Mac.
I also copied all my files in it.
When I tried to select it as Time Machine disk, I received the message that the HD needs to be re formatted as it is formatted for Window.
In order to use the same external HD for Time machine, can I make a partition in it and use it?
If I am going to create the partition, should I be worried about the data in the disk? I do not have a backup of them yet.
In order to use it also for Aperture 3, should I create a third partition?
Many thanks
Marco

In theory, Time Machine can back up to a Mac-formatted volume on a drive with the MBR partition scheme.
In practice, it often doesn't work well, if at all.
Your best bet may be to get another drive and use it only for Time Machine. Also note that Time Machine cannot back up the other drive, with the FAT32 format.

Using network drive with time machine. IS IT POSSIBLE?

There are lots of discussion on using network drives with time machine. I have not been able to make them work. Could somebody tell me if this is possible

Time Machine does not back up to network drives, except Time Capsules or USB drives connected to an Airport Extreme, or a drive on a Mac running Leopard.
Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
You may find some "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.
First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.
If you still think this is a good idea, do yourself a favor before you bet your backups on it: be sure it really works, at least for now:
1. Get a copy of CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! or the like, and make a full bootable clone of your internal HD, on an external disk. Test it by booting from it. Then reboot from your internal HD.
2. Let TM do it's first, full, initial backup.
3. Attempt a full system restore (like you'll need when, not if, your internal HD fails), via the instructions in item 14 of the of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
Again, even if it works today, tomorrow is another day . . .

Am I able to use both Carbonite and Time Machine as back-ups for my iMac?

HI,
I have a iMac, and I have recently recently completed the initial back up for Carbonite. I also have a 2TB Seagate external hard drive that I would like to use with Time Machine. I am wondering if I am able to use both Carbonite and Time Machine simultaneously.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
As bdmarsha says, yes, you can run both simultaneously.
But one caution; there are some reports here that some of the online backup apps keep some fairly large, frequently-changing files on your system. Time Machine will back them up along with everything else, which can take some extra time and space on your TM drive.
After your initial TM backup, see how large the incremental backups are (by watching the progress bar and info on the +Time Machine Preferences+ window). If those seem too large for the changes you've made since the previous backup, see #A2 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for a couple of apps that will show exactly what was backed-up.
If you find such things, you can exclude them from TM backups, per #10 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Use disk image as time machine backup volume

I have a large RAID array attached directly to my Mac via firewire (so it is not a NAS). Can I create a disk image file within that larger array, then mount that image as a disk, then use that as my Time Machine target? I see lots of discussion of doing this for NAS, but I cannot get TM to recognize a mounted disk image file as a TM backup volume. FYI, the reason for this is that I want to create a sparse image that limits the amount of space that TM will take, without eating up my entire RAID array, which is huge. Also, by tricking it into thinking it is another volume, TM will still let me back up other stuff on the RAID array to TM.

Thank you,
It's interesting to me that it will work if mounted as an SMB volume (at least according to many other posts). While I agree with you that it won't work, as I have verified that, I wonder if it could work if enabled (similar to the ability to enable unsupported network volumes).
A follow-on question: I would really like to have TM back up FROM a mounted network share to my TM database. I have a network SMB share with a lot of my data on it. I currently have to rsync it to an external drive in order to get TM to back it up. TM is set to ignore network volumes volumes. Interestingly, the SMB shares appear to get mounted on /Volumes instead of /Network, but that is aside, as both directories are set to be ignored by default. Anyhow, is there a way to turn that feature off and allow certain network shares to be backed up (and similarly blocked from back-up in the same manner that I do everything else)? Again, lots of posts out there about backing up TO a network share, but none tell me how to back up from a mounted network share to TM.

Can the time capsule be used as both a time machine backup and NAS storage

Can the time capsule be used as both a time machine backup and NAS storage? I want to use the drive as external, wireless storage for all of my files so all my PCs, MACs and iOS devices can access the files. Plus, I want to use the drive for backing up my iMac via time machine. Can the time capsule device be used for both these purposes simultaneously? If not, are the other suggestions on how I can do this?

Can the time capsule device be used for both these purposes simultaneously?
It can, but is really not recommended. Sooner or later there will be a fight for space on the drive between Time Machine and the other files.
If you have plenty of free space on the drive, you can do this......but.....have you thought about how you will back up the "other" files that are stored on the Time Capsule?

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Time machine backup fails in my seagate 3tb external drive

Without any specifics it's impossible to assist you, however the best tool for debugging TM failures is using Pondini's Time Machine Troubleshooting guide.
Good luck.

HT3275 Lacie external drive/Time Machine errors

I am using Lacie external drive with Time Machine and now have an "invalid node structure." Wants me to back up and restore...again. I have had problems in the past and have restored twice so far. Other problems include "Incorrect number of thread records" and "Invalid directory item count." Why does this keep happening? Is it normal to keep restoring your external hard drive? Where else should I back up my hard drive?

Terriodo wrote:
I wonder if this is a problem with Time Machine or my external hard drive.
Hard to tell, unfortunately. As posted earlier, that can be caused by lots of things.
Our Lacie hard drive is backing up everything that is on our computer. Meaning there isn't anything getting backed up that has been deleted. But it is annoying to erase the darn thing every couple of weeks and load it all on again.
My advice would be to get another drive. Since you have a desktop Mac, get a desktop drive, with it's own power supply. Plug it (and your Mac) into a same good-quality surge suppressor; or, better, U.P.S. (battery backup) system.
It's always prudent to keep secondary backups. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for an explanation and some suggestions.
That recommends using a different app, but in your situation, you might want to use both drives with Time Machine temporarily; you'll have to switch back and forth manually via the TM Preferences panel (Mountain Lion allows multiple destinations, but Snow Leopard doesn't). If the new drive works fine, but the old one doesn't, that will implicate the LaCie, or it's connections, etc.
If you determine it's ok, then use one (probably the desktop) with Time Machine, and the Rugged with another app. Consider taking it off-site, as mentioned in #27.
If it's not ok, replace it.
I am running 10.6.8 and have Lacie 1T Rugged external hard drive connected by firewire on my Mac desktop.
I have a smaller version of that drive, as do several folks here. It gets good reviews, but like any drive, won't last forever. If it's over about 3 years old, it could be starting to develop a problem.

Still possible to use airport extreme for time machine?

I know apple doesn't officially support it but I remember with one of the airport utility updates, it allowed you to use an external HDD with an airport extreme for time machine backups. I tried hooking my external western digital to my airport extreme and it showed up as an airport disk, however I couldn't get time machine to access it. Is there a way I can get this to work?

I followed the instructions found on the link above and had a couple of issues:
1) Instructions state "Make sure 'Share disks over Ethernet WAN port' is checked." Could not find that check box anyplace.
2) Using first disk and then airport passwords as security, the disk does not show up in the Time Machine preferences. Am I to mount the disk first? Does not state that in the instructions.
3) If I mount the disk in the finder (security is a disk password), I am then able to see the drive in Time Machine and the back-up commences. The disk icon appears on my desktop and contains machine.sparcebundle. Another "disk" also appears on my desktop with the name "Time Machine Backups" and which contains the folder Backups.backupdb. I am also able to remotely attach to the machine doing the TM backup from another mac on the network and login.
4) Back-up started and appeared to go well (240G backed up with several partials after that) until I rebooted.
5) After reboot, it was frozen in "Making backup disk available" Opened preferences and it locked up. Had to force a reboot.
6) After restart, manually mounted the extreme external, opened Time Machine prefs, and when selecting back up location saw one with a red "∅" which I could not select and the other the extreme drive with 240G used. Attempted the back-up to the drive and I got "Making backup disk available" on the menu bar and the same message on TM system prefs with a spinning beach ball. Have been able to force quit system prefs and sent to error log to apple, but a forced reboot is still required because the TM icon on the menu continues to spin. Even a "sudu shutdown -r now" in terminal will not reboot the machine. Get to a blue screen with the spinning tick marks and it just sits there.
I wonder if the fact that I could not find "Make sure 'Share disks over Ethernet WAN port' is checked." is the issue. It does not appear to be available in the current version of the extreme base 7.4.2. Could those of you who were able to configure it with a previous version get grandfathered in? I wonder if I need to manually mount the extreme hard disk each time I reboot the machines. I am not sure how to do that but will try and see if it works.
I will be losing internet and e-mail access for a few weeks so will look at this thread again when I return.

Can multiple users use one drive for time machine

I have an older G4 which I have put a 500mb drive into. I want to put it on the newtork and use it as a time machine. Do I need to partion the drive, such that each user has there own partition? Or just one large partition and allow users access?
Thanks

see if this user tip can help: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/26.html
JGG

I have created a new partition on the Mac HD for Lion as I would like to dual boot. Do I need to install Snow Leopard on that partition before installing Lion? If so, can I use one of my Time Machine backups to do this?

I have created a new partition on the Mac HD for Lion as I would like to dual boot. Do I need to install Snow Leopard on that partition before installing Lion? If so, can I use one of my Time Machine backups to do this?

zoominnana wrote:
Can I set up 2 different time capsule backups? one for the lion partition and one for the snow leopard partition?
No, you can't partition a Time Capsule's internal HD. Both partitions will back up to the same sparse bundle. keeping the backups for each partition separate.
Time Machine will not take the two OSX partitions as two different computers, but for best results, exclude the Snow Leopard drive from backups on the Lion partition, and exclude the Lion partition from backups on the Snow Leopard partition.
There may be some files on the Lion partition that Time Machine on Snow Leopard won't like, among other things. See #10 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.

365 gig used, 1TB external HD-Time Machine bu fail -claims to need 1.3TB...

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