Advice on Time Machine HDD

Hi,
Does anyone have any experience with this Toshiba external HDD?
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/2145/1412/-/3594937/Toshiba-PX1394U-3G50-500GB-USB- 2-0-3-5-External-Hard-Drive/Product.html?searchtype=genre
Can I pretty much just use any USB HDD for time machine?
And what is the significance of external HDD's that carry the "ready for mac" slogan?
Thanks in advance!

Can I pretty much just use any USB HDD for time machine?
Yes. Just check reviews to see what they are like. Google the drive name with the word review after it and see what happens.
I got a Western Digital My Book studio that was ready for mac. I haven't notice any difference with other drives. I think it means the drive is reformatted to HFS+
If you find a good drive, don't ignore it because it is not ready for mac. Any usb or firewire drive should work.
Regards

Similar Messages

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB independent Hard drive

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac two weeks ago, I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB External Hard drive. I understand that a number of people have lost data since installing Mavericks on their Western Digital external drives. Has anyone any futher info. Or is there a better way of backing up my computer. Thanks. Lee

Check the More Like This section at the right particularly i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

How to put backup folder back to Backups.backupdb folder in Time Machine HDD?

Hello all, i use for work an iMac 27" OSX 10.8.5 and accidentally all backups from the folder backups.backupdb in Time Machine HDD gone to the trash.
The problem is that i need at least one backup folder to put it back in the folder backups.backupdb so i can restore my iMac and i cannot do it in any way.
Can someone help me ??
Thanks in advance!

See Pondini's TM FAQs.
27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

Deleting files on Time Machine HDD

I have a folder containing 2GB or more of music that I don't need backed up any longer. How can I free up the space on my Time Machine HDD and delete this folder?
Does Time Machine just reference this folder once or does it continuously make back ups of your system? I can go back in to the Time Machine drive and find this folder listed for every back up ever made by Time Machine.
What about all the huge bit torrent files I've downloaded? How can I cherry pick and delete them off Time Machine's HDD? I'd like to have more than 12GB left on my 500GB back up drive!

Don't do it manually. I wouldn't even know how, since Time Machine is using multi-linking to make one copy of a file appear to be in multiple date/time archive folders. So if a file never changed during the whole time you have been using Time Machine, it should only be stored once. But if you look in your archive using Finder, it appears to be in every one of your date/time archive folders.
The way to do what you want is through the Time Machine +flying through space+ interface.
Open a Finder window, then go into Time Machine. In the cool interface, navigate to the folder or file you want to eliminate from your backup. Right (Control) click on it and select +Delete All Backups of "<name of the item>"+.

How do I upgrade to snow leopard and then restore my files from my time machine HDD backup...without losing any data or reinstalling leopard (10.5)?

How do I upgrade to snow leopard (from leopard 10.5) and then restore my files from my time machine HDD backup...without losing any data or reinstalling leopard (10.5)?

Hello, it's great you have a backup, but 10.6 should just Install 10.6 system files over the top of 10.5 system files, & leave all your data intact on the drive.

I can't access to time machine hdd in windows

hi, guys...how u all. Recently i used my external 2tb hdd as a time machine backup....For backup first i format it then backup my mac. Now, when i connect it to my pc (windows), the hdd doesn't show up. Hope i will get a solution from u guys.
Cheers

Per HT1427: Setting up Time Machine backups using an external drive
Note: Every available drive that can be used to store backups is listed. If you’ve partitioned a drive, the available partitions are listed. Time Machine can’t backup to an external drive that's connected to an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, or a drive formatted for Microsoft Windows (NTFS or FAT format). If you select an NTFS or FAT-formatted drive, Time Machine prompts you to reformat the drive. Choose a different drive or reformat the drive in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Because reformatting erases any files on the drive, only do this if you no longer need the files or if you have copies of them on a different drive.
The most common format for a Time Machine backup drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, but Time Machine also supports Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive, Journaled) and XSan formats.

Migration assistent and built out time machine hdd

Hi all,
my MacBook Pro got stolen and miraculously my time machine died at the same time. I got out the hard drive and put it in a casing with firewire.
My problem is: I try to run Migration Assistant on my new MacBook Pro, but when I select "From a Time Machine backup or other disk" it doesn't recognize my external disk and just shows a spinning wheel. The disk does show up in Finder.
I would appreciate if somebody could give me a hint on how I can best solve this, because I really need the backed up data.
Thanks in advance,
Roy

Time Machine uses a different method to manage its backups on a locally-mounted disk as on a network disk.I 'd first try mounting the "sparsebundle" volume on that disk. If that doesn't let Time Machine access the saved data, then see item #18 of the Time Machine FAQ, particularly the third point under "How to".

Mac Pro drive configuration/expansion advice for Time Machine

I have the following:
Mac Pro 1Tb internal drive (2 x 500Gb in software RAID, so 2 drive bays used, 2 free)
500Gb external drive (Formac XTR platinum - 2 x 250Gb in RAID)
I use SuperDuper to backup the internal to the external - I'm using about 440Gb on the internal and this fits on the external with about 10-20Gb spare. However, my usage of the internal drive is growing, and as Time Machine backups grow in size, my 500Gb external will very quickly lose the ability to go back in time and shortly afterwards run out of space for even a simple backup.
My options are:
1. Buy 2 500Gb IDE drives and upgrade the external to 1Tb - Cost about £140. If I put the redundant 250Gb drives in enclosures and sell them, net cost would come down to about £100
2. Buy single 750Gb SATA drive and install internally for TM backups - cost £110. Sell external drive and cost comes down to about £40
3. Buy 2 500Gb SATA drives and install inside Mac Pro for Time Machine - Cost about £130. Sell external and cost about £60
4. Buy single 1Tb SATA drive and install internally for TM backups - cost £200. Sell external and cost about £130
Pros & Cons
Option 1 - Con: Left with untidy external enclosure. Pro - 2 internal bays free for expansion.
Option 2 - Con: Less internal expansion, Pro: No untidy external box, can add another 750Gb drive when required
Option 3 - Con: No internal expansion. Pro: Ermmm, not sure.
Option 3 - Con: Most expensive. Pro: Longer time required before need to add another drive.
I know external drives are useful for off-site backups but I do have a 160Gb and a 320Gb external drives for that purpose (and for TM'ing my MacBook).
I think I've answered my own question - get a 750Gb SATA drive and stick it inside.
Regards,
Steve

I am in a similar situation. I have a 160gb for my boot/system drive and two 500gb for data, backed up to two other 500gb drives. Both 500gb drives are about 80% full and I bring in 50 or gig a week, paring it down quite a bit, then importing new photos and culling them out again. I may replace my 160 backup drive for my boot partition with a 750gig, but I don't see Time Machine being capable of backing up a 500 or 750gig drive that had several hundred gigs of current data and moves gig after gig onto and then out of the hard drive. I think Time Machine will be really great for many many people, and if it allows me to "roll back" my system to an earlier known-good point in time even better than my current method of using superduper when I feel my system is stable, then Time Machine will be great for me too, but I don't see how it's going to be usable for data backup for heavy professional photographic work or for video backup where large amounts of data are entered, deleted, entered again, deleted, etc etc. There isn't enough anectodal information on Time Machine to know what size is going to be really required, but I think most folks will be surprised at how much room is going to be needed - especially those that use their machines heavily. Mom and Dad who do nothing but a few emails and surfing the web will have no problem, Mac Pro users involved with grahics and video...not so easy I'm afraid. Time will tell.

Time Machine HDD Failure

My external hard drive with all my Time Machine backups has failed, but is running in a safe mode for now.
How do I transfer all my backups to another hard drive? A simple copy and paste of all the backup files/folders won't work, is there a way round this?

Pondini wrote:
However, if they're corrupted, they're corrupted. Copying them will just copy the corruption.
Amen. Which is why I tried to steer Scruffy Doo away from making a copy by not getting into using the Restore function of Disk Utility. Sorry for omitting that Scruffy Doo but I'm concerned about your back up integrity. You can easily replace the back up now while your main disk in healthy. Should your main disk go down you'll be in big trouble if you find that you don't have a reliable back up.
So try to do a +Repair Disk+ (not permissions) via Disk Utility. You may have to run it more than once.
Disk Utility won't work in this case. When the disk is marked as read-only, it means that the OS already tried to repair the disk with fsck. The Repair Disk in Disk Utility is just a graphical interface for fsck.
If it still doesn't fix it, and you already have a copy of DiskWarrior 4.1.1, it might be able to fix it, but it's not likely, so not worth spending the $100 just for this.
DiskWarrior can easily repair a disk in this state and recognizes and repairs the directory hard links. I just didn't mention it by name because it's not worth spending money to repair a back up unless it's the only remaining copy of your data.
You might be able to reformat the disk and continue using it, but the disk is probably failing.
Actually, you'll probably be able to reformat the disk and use it. Just because Disk Utility/fsck can't repair a disk doesn't mean that it's failing. It just means that the disk directory can't be repaired but isn't in such bad shape that the disk won't mount. Although, admittedly, the early symptom of a failing drive can be directory damage.

Time Machine HDD keeps ejecting

Hi,
I've recently purchased a new iMac and have encrypted all of my hard drives - the only problem is that Time Machine has not yet been able to backup, it keeps getting part way through the process before ejecting the drive.
Any idea why this is?
Here are the log messages:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Backup content size: 138.3 GB excluded items size: 20.1 GB for volume Macintosh HD
141.92 GB required (including padding), 1.82 TB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Stopping backup.
Backup failed because the destination disk was ejected or disconnected unexpectedly!
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Error: (-43) SrcErr:NO Copying /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Extras/lib/python/twis ted/internet/_posixstdio.pyc to /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Matthew’s iMac/2011-11-02-112027.inProgress/417FD4B7-94EC-4BF3-835F-901E5299DB86/Macintos h HD/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/Extras/lib/python/tw isted/internet
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Copied 728502 files (32.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Copy stage failed with error:11
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: Input/output error
Backup failed with error: 27

I would recommend starting by reading both:
Time Machine FAQs & Time Machine Troubleshooting. If you continue to have issues please repost in the Lion forum. TM is considered to be part of OS X and because your machine is running Lion 10.7.2 then that would be an appropriate forum.

HDD fails again after restoring data from Time Machine?

Hello,
I will try to explain my case and end with a question that maybe someone will be able to answer (I hope..):
1. My imac started to run very slow and every 2 minutes or less appeared the coloured wheel for some secs. While the wheel was visible, the Os and all the apps running freezed.
2. Firstly I thought it was a software problem, but after some "testing" I started thinking on a hard drive failure or similar.
3. I did a disk verification whith the Disk Utility and it failed.
4. Panic!
5. I booted from the instalation DVD and tried to repair the hard drive with the Disk Utility.
6. Nothing..
7. I erased my HDD partition and created a new one.
8. I used the DVD to install again all the Os X.
9. After the installation all seemed ok. The HDD passed the verification and the spining coloured wheel appeared only when it should.
10. I restored my data, apps, etc from my Time Machine HDD using the Migration Assistent utility.
11. After the restore, the problems with the HDD reappeared.
Do you think Time Machine can store damaged files and after a restore make a healthy disk (only with the Os X installed) crash?
Has anyone experienced the same?
Thank you!

Sounds like the hard drive might be starting to fail.

What size HDD do you need for Time Machine is it the size of iMac HDD?

Ok, looking to buy iMac, to use Time machie do you need the same size HDD that is in your iMac? ie Im looking at getting the 250Gb iMac, so do I need a 250Gb external HDD to use time machine?
I plan to also get a NAS drive so can time machine be used with this or do you need n external HDD attached direct to the iMac all the time to use time machine?
cheers

the loc-man wrote:
so you can pick and choose what backup? eg Music, Pics, Docs, emails etc?
Yes you can choose everything or just parts.
does it compress stuff though to utilize the space better?
No, look here for more detail. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html
its not like a ghost image?
Not that I know of.
so if the iMac had to be re-installed could you then reconnect the Time machine HDD and restore everything?
You could insert the Leopard disk and instead of doing a new install you could restore directly from the Time Machine Back Up. This depends on if you do a full back up or just parts of your system. Either way it is easy to recover your system using Time Machine.
Also if the external HDD is used for time machine is that all it can be used for? or can you also use it on other computers both Mac and PC?
It is best if you use Time Machine on a partition by itself. Then the other partition can be used for normal stuff.

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. I did not download the software that came with the external HD. If I only want to backup my photos and movies from my Macbook how do I do that in Tme Machine with my external HD?

Format the HDD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the open System Preferences>Time Machine and set up the external disk as the Time Machine HDD. Then look at the Options, and exclude what you do not want backed up.
Ciao.

Errors with Time Machine (not completing backup, and needing to erase the ".inProgress" package)

I have in a previous discussion been talking about errors with my Time Machine backup. The errors were with a problem with Indexing a file, it fails and stops the whole backup. Each time it attemps another backup, it fills my ".inProgress" package with a (nearly) whole backup, filling my Time Machine hard drive, and thus errasing my previous good backups. The error occurs after about 95% completion.
In my last post of a similar disscussion, the problem was indexing the Preference Pane files and this caused the whole backup to fail. This was my last post there: (below in some additional info of my situation)
I did exclude the MobileMe.prefPane. And I got:
12/16/11 9:24:50.468 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
12/16/11 9:24:50.556 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb
12/16/11 9:25:14.418 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:36:15.650 PM com.apple.backupd: 758.92 GB required (including padding), 830.32 GB available
12/16/11 10:25:14.873 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 22.8 GB of 630.5 GB, 782749 of 2357620 items
12/16/11 11:25:15.335 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 86.6 GB of 630.5 GB, 1167675 of 2357620 items
12/17/11 12:25:16.227 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 152.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1393795 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 01:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 305.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1413946 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 02:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 457.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1419190 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:19:07 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 1736865 files (568.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 17 03:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 572.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1848939 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane, /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb/Tom iMac/2011-12-14-171406.inProgress/7DB524DD-EFB9-42A6-8A21-0A2A312EDA6D/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Stopping backup.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 2164998 files (581.1 GB) from volume Mac OS Lion GM.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Dec 17 03:40:50 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Backup failed with error: 11
This time it was the Mouse.prefPane that caused the error. I'd like to exclude the entire PreferencePanes directory.
This was my error message this time:
I just realized this was on my small Developers partition. Perhaps there is an error with the build, OR an error with the initial restore. I'd like to perhaps exclude the entire /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM. I expect that Time Machine is working fine with my main partition and the error happens when it's almost done with the Mac OS Lion GM partition.
The problem now is that I only have 265 GB of 3 TB available on my Time Machine HDD. If attempt another backup, it'll surely erase about 410 GB of my past saved backups. I've already lost 6 months, and I only have two months left of backups. I need to erase the ".inProgress" package again. That'll take time, and it's impossible to do from this main partition, even at root access. This ".inProgress" has a total of two (nearly) full backups; it didn't cleanup the first full backup attempt while starting the second,perhaps it would have had it finished. But I fear even if I exclude the whole "Mac OS Lion GM" partition, It'll create a third full backup before cleanup and erase ~400 GB of previous good backups. Then, I'll have a total of 4 (nearly) full backups! 3 TB is just enough without any past backups.
Maybe I'll just copy my documentations of my 'errasing the ".inProgress" package' last time (from the Mac OS Lion GM partition) and do a full restore of just that partition. Thus erasing the errors all together. If it doesn't fix the errors then this could be a bug in the build that doesn't allow Time Machine to work. I've always included this partition in Time Machine before, even with other Lion builds, so I suspect that it was an error in the initial restore. (I may be answering my own questions, and that the inital restore (of the small partition) is the problem, and I just need to re-restore the small partition)
Again, I'm going to have to erase the ".inProgress" file to regain 1.53 TB of space before proceeding.
Also, I gave myself permission to read the ".Backup.345781513.887697.log", the log that was created last night when I first started Time Machine this last time. It was interesting, but didn't show the error I could see from the console.
Right now, mds and mdworker appear to be going crazy even after I just now turned off Time Machine. I think I'll let it go for the rest of the night. Then I'll work on erasing the ".inProgress" package from the other partition boot up.
That was my entire last post. To add some information, I have two OS X partitons, both Mac OS X Lion. One is my large main partition, the other is one I don't mind testing with. I recently replaced my internal hard drive in my iMac and restored from Time Machine both partitions. This appeared to go smoothly. But I have yet to create a single successful Time Machine backup since. At first it was doing a Full Backup, which I didn't like, but now it just aborts around 95% completion. Each, time, it tries it fills the Time Machine hard drive with duplicate (nearly) full backups errasing my older good backups. I would like to erase the ".inProgress" file to save space.
My main question in this new discussion is does anyone know of a good way of erasing the ".inProgress" file? This is so I can preseerve my previous backups. ACLs and other permissions seem to make it impossible to erase from this startup partition, the one I'm running Time Machine from. Even at root level, if I give myself permission to change permissions or delete a file, it'll say Operation not Permitted instead of Permission Denied. I have been able to delete this ".inProgress" package before when booting from the other partition, but with great difficulty. I have had much help from another Member in this Support Community when it comes to solving my Time Machine problems. I think I have found the problem (indexing files in my small OS X partition), as stated in my copy& pasted post above, but I really need to delete this inProgress package first to save space before continuing!

Pondini wrote:
Gator TPK wrote:
Now I'll have to fix the small partition? How's the best way to do this? There could be thousands of files that won't index fine.
See if there's anything you haven't done, that applies, in the pink box of #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
Otherwise, since most (or all?) of the indexing errors are in OSX, you might want to just reinstall it. Something may have gone wrong sometime, that damaged those files.
I reviewed #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting and I have already done most of those things. I have just learned something new though:
When I included my Main OS X partition again, I got an indexing error for the first time for that partition. I might be interesting to note that the _spotlight process was running, and it's running again (the magnifying glass has a dot and it generically says "Indexing Tom's iMac"). mdworker, mds and backupd processes really are working hard, one moment they used over 500% of my CPU. It's nice to know for once quad core is good for something other than video encoding. (Now if they could just get the Finder to do more than 100.1%, only 1 thread is doing 100%, I'd like to see file size calculations 8 times quicker!)
I never got an indexing error once in the past 2 weeks for that large Mac OS X v10.7.2 main volume, and it had appeared to finish that partition backup before running into problems with my smaller test partition. Also, I had just updated the smaller test partition with a later build of Mac OS X. But It appears that the beta builds are clearly not the problem. I thought I could just restore again (from the December 4th backup) the small partition and both would be fine.
I'll finish reviewing all the suggestions on Time Machine - Troubleshooting and go from there. Hopefully, the _spotlight indexing simutaniously was the only problem. It's strange that the indexing hasn't happened since the original restore last week untill I finally got a good clean complete partial Time Machine backup. Why would the first Time Machine backup trigger indexing again?
For now, I'm going to exclude the Main Partition again, and let another good backup run. And try your suggestions. (And wait till mds, mdworker, etc. to finish!)
I have the logs of the first two sucsessful backups and the last two failed backups from the last 3 hours, if that would help.?

HT201250 Time Machine can no longer back up files

I was using Time Machine to back up files to a WD Elements hard drive. Lately I started to get error messages the back-up failed. Previously Finder would list back-up files for that drive, but now it only shows empty folders. Get Info still shows 60 GB of used space on the external drive. Can I retrieve those files, or is all lost and I must reformat the hard drive?

I would connect the Time Machine HDD to your Mac and open Disk Utility and select First Aid, Verify the disk and run a Repair if necessary. If that does not solve the problem, I suspect that the HDD is failing. Then I suggest transferring the backup data to another HDD, or perhaps just start from square one with a new HDD and back up the entire internal HDD.
Ciao.

Advice on Time Machine HDD

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