Can't see my 3TB lacie external drive (for Time Machine)
since upgrading to Yosemite my Time Machine backup won't operate, says the drive is Read Only.
Don't see where I can change this, I have verified and run repair and looks good but still no Time Machine backups will function, last successful one was with Mavericks before moving to Yosemite.
It is a Lacie 3TB external drive, worked flawlessly in Mavericks.
I can't see it in the Finder , but I know computer communicates with it because I could run Disk Utility and see the drive.
I restarted the computer and then Time Machine backup worked.
Similar Messages
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How can I make more room on external drive for Time Machine?
I now have Time Machine installed and in use on my external drive, which also still has my previous backup on it which used a different system (Dejavu). The external drive's capacity is 74 GB; 58.22GB are used, my iMac hard drive (backed up with TIme Machine) has 38.12 GB used, which by my calculation means about 20GB of the 58 on the external drive are the prior backup. Is there a way I can erase this prior backup, which now duplicates Time Machine, thereby making more room for Time Machine in the future? For instance, if need be, can I erase the whole thing and reinstall Time Machine on it? Thanks!
James, if you open your TM drive, I'm guessing you see the usual System, Library, Users, and Applications folder along with a folder labeled something like Backup.bkup. (I'm away from a TM backup and I can't exactly recall the name of the TM backup folder.)
The DejaVu backup is just a standard file backup using 'rsync' so you can delete whatever you want by simply dragging it to the trash and emptying the trash. If the drive is bootable, you may not want to lose that ability. But assuming there's nothing in your user folder on that backup that isn't also on your computer, you can delete just about everything in your User folder on that drive. You can delete selected applications too. And if you don't mind losing the ability to boot, you can drag everything but the TM backup folder. -
I recently updated my IMac software to the latest version, now i can't see by WD back up drive in time machine. its conected to the firewire port ok and i can see it if i check firewire connections. The drive works ok on an old windows laptop. Any ideas.
leedssparky wrote:
Is it possible that i did this whilst updating the OS software whilst leaving the WD drive connected.
It's a good idea to eject and disconnect external HDs, just in case, but that shouldn't cause a problem.
Why when setting up time capsule, does it only look for WIFI drives through airport.
I think you're confusing Time Machine (the backup software) with a Time Capsule (Apple hardware combining a wireless router and HD). Unless you have a Time Capsule you want to back up to, there's no point to clicking the Set Up Time Capsule button, if that's what you mean:
I've attached the Firewire bus from system profiler, dont understand why i can see it there but not in TM.
There seems to be some sort of problem with the drive, since Disk Utility thinks it's fixed, but immediately the problem returns (per the first sample you posted).
How old is the drive?
If it's within the warranty period, you might want to contact WD or the place you bought it. -
I've been using a 320GB external drive for time machine for the last several years. The backups always worked fine and when necessary I was able to look at & restore older data from the time capsule. Recently, I keep getting the message that a backup cannot be completed and an older backup will be deleted. Usually this wasn't an issue because I still had several months of information on disk. Now a one-time backup takes up 315GB and therefore I only have a backup of the previous day. I don't understand this because I thought that the backup only saves information that has changed and doesn't copy everything everytime. What do I need to do to get my backups to a reasonable size so that I can keep at least 1 month data stored on it.? Please don't tell me I need a larger drive ... that would be too easy.
Get a larger drive for your TM backups.
The recommended size is 3 times what you are backup. So if 315 GB is a backup then you need a 1 TB drive.
Allan -
HT3275 New macbook, old external drive for time machine
I got a new macbook pro a few weeks ago and set it up using my last backup from time machine. I want to use the same external drive for backups but there is no room. Can I delete all of the old files from the old computer or do I need to keep them?
kat.hayes wrote:
I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
As long as they're formatted HFS+, yes. Be sure there's enough room, though -- Time Machine needs considerably more room than the data it's backing-up. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. -
Adding a Dedicated External Drive for Time Machine
Hello,
I want to use a dedicated external drive for Time Machine backup and another drive for a SuperDuper backup. Before even adding another drive, I'm already pulling and replacing usb connections from the back of my computer.
Can anyone tell me if a splitter is a workable solution? Something like this:
7-Port USB High-speed Hub with Splitter Cable -- http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=view_item&id=8997&r=183 -- or perhaps other recommendations ..
Thanks....I recall reading that USB 2 was faster ... but I think they said faster than FW 400, but the drive I have is FW 800.
USB2 is 480mbps and Firewire400 is 400mbps. On paper, this would appear that USB2 is faster than Firewire400. But USB2 cannot handle large data transfers very effectively. I can't explain the technicals, but suffice to say that the figures I gave of 40min-versus-2-hours-for-25GB is typical of Firewire400 versus USB2.
Firewire800 is 800mbps, so would potentially be even faster. However the physical hard drive that's installed in the Firewire enclosure would be the bottleneck as a normal "platter" hard drive is much slower than Firewire400 or 800. If it were an SSD drive, then you'd likely see a very significant difference.
But regardless, USB2 cannot keep up with a large data stream like Firewire can. Potentially USB3, which is up to 5Gbps, would be faster than either Firewire 400 or 800, although I suspect would be on par with Firewire3200 in the real world. However since there are no adapters for either USB3 or Firewire3200 for the Mac, it's a moot point for now. (Your drive is not USB3, there are only a few USB3 drives available, and you'd need a Mac Pro to add the adapter in anyway, if they existed.)
So are you saying that FW 800 is faster than USB 2.0 -- and that I should be using the FW connection to get better throughput? And that I can resume daisy-chaining multiple external drives through the one port?
Definitely Firewire would be faster than USB. And I have 5 external hard drives daisy-chained through a single Firewire800 port on my Mac. So daisy-chained Firewire is the way to go.
Like I said, for the small, incremental, hourly Time Machine backups, the speed difference is insignificant. But when the day comes that you have to restore your hard drive, (i.e.: hard drive dead so you buy new blank hard drive. Or you just want to replace with a larger drive,) if say your Time Machine backup is 80GB, that restore would probably take several hours over USB2. On my Firewire400 drive, my 100GB Time Machine restore of my Macbook Pro took about an hour and a half. (The data transfer was about an hour, but OSX took awhile after that to finish up the restore.) YMMV, of course, but IMHO, use Firewire over USB2 as much as possible. If you're lucky enough to have a Mac Pro or iMac and can use multiple internal hard drives or eSATA, then that would be even faster than Firewire800. Only owners of a Macbook Air or non-Firewire Macbook should resign themselves to USB2. -
I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?
If the external drive can be seen at all in Disk Utility, follow the instructions for repair here.
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External drive for Time Machine
I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
2. What is a good external hard drive to handles these types of files?
Thanks.kat.hayes wrote:
I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
As long as they're formatted HFS+, yes. Be sure there's enough room, though -- Time Machine needs considerably more room than the data it's backing-up. See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. -
brand new iMac 23.GHz Intel Core i5. Mounts external drive for time machine, then dismounts after backup is complete.
The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.
If you bought the product in the U.S. directly from Apple (not from a reseller), you have 14 days from the date of delivery in which to exchange or return it for a refund. In other countries, the return policy may be different. If you bought from a reseller, its return policy applies. -
Recommendation for Large (4Tb) External Drive for Time Machine
I have a large library that I'd like to backup from my Mac Pro - 2T drives are not large enough - any recommendations on 4T drives for Time Machine?
Thanks
GJMPeople have said to wait for version 8.2 of Retrospect which appears to be here.
http://www.retrospect.com/
Maybe time to move to RAID6 controller. I've seen folks on MacGurus talk about large, massive storage arrays and backups.
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/BurlyRAID.php
People have said that they backup RAID A to B. Or mirror two arrays.
Did you not like SynchronizePro? From March '09:
After months of trying and testing we have settled on Areca cards.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9218286#9218286
I have not heard of problems (very many) with SuperDuper and their support is always helpful.
A linux NAS server running linux backup or even Windows Home Server. People even use Windows to run Retrospect (runs better). Anything you find will likely take some time to setup and configure in the beginning, this isn't your proconsumer type of need. -
HT201250 Backup using lacie external drive with time machine
Hi, I recently backed up my macbook with a lacie external hard drive using time machine. However, when i try to open my photos, which says there is 11.67GB there, nothing happens. It only opens an empty file. After my backup i deleted the photos from my laptop, after all i was trying to clear disc space on my macbook. Can i resolve this or can i open the file in a different way? Help
One should always confirm copied stuff is where they think it is before deleting the original stuff. See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.
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Can I use an external drive for Time Machine and storing other data?
At the moment I have one external drive, a 500gb LaCie. My internal drive is 160gb. I don't think I'll be using all 500 of those gigabytes for a while, so I want to put them to good use. Can I make a partition on this drive and use that for Time Machine, leaving the rest of the drive for my documents and other files? If so, how would I partition the drive? I'm not fluent in Disk Utility and even though I'm pretty sure I know how to do it, I don't want to screw up. Also, how big a partition would you recommend?
While we're here, I have a second question, somewhat relevant to the first. Could I move my Time Machine backups to a second drive if I wanted to? Also, if I used a big drive (say 1tb) could I use Time Machine to backup my current LaCie to a partition on that drive? Thanks in advance.videoCWK wrote:
Does that also mean that I could back them both up on a very big drive?
Yes. Time Machine will, by default, back up all of your external drives unless you specifically exclude them.
Also, will Time Machine backups eat all my space after a lot of usage?
It depends on what you do on your Mac. If you work often with very large files (video editing, heavy photo editing, big disk images, Microsoft Entourage data file, Parallels disk image file, etc) then your backup drive could fill up very quickly.
I use my Mac mostly for e-mail, web browsing, iTunes, iPhoto, and the occasional iMovie project. I have 92 GB on my main hard drive (60 GB of which are my iTunes and iPhoto libraries, and one iMovie project.) My Time Machine backups consume 155GB on my backup drive, and that's after using Time Machine for a full year. -
Using a Second External Drive For Time Machine Backup
I have been using Time Machine for almost a year and the external drive I'm using is almost full. Can I switch to a second external drive? If I decide to keep using the same drive is there a way to keep my original backup? Is there information that I need from that first backup that I did?
Thank you!!!bvasel900 wrote:
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
I have been using Time Machine for almost a year and the external drive I'm using is almost full. Can I switch to a second external drive?
Yes, if that's what you want to do (see below). If you start "fresh" on a new drive, your first backup will be a full one; everything on your system. Or, you can copy your current backups to it via the procedure in item #18 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum. TM will then continue making it's usual "incremental" backups, and you can erase the old disk and use it for other things.
If I decide to keep using the same drive is there a way to keep my original backup? Is there information that I need from that first backup that I did?
Probably not. As Mr. Peck noted, TM will automatically delete your oldest backups when it needs room for new ones (unless you have the +*Warn when old backups are deleted+* box checked in TM Preferences > Options).
But unless you've been deleting things from your internal HD, counting on TM to keep it's backup copies indefinitely, you won't lose anything you need.
That's because of the "magic" of Time Machine. Each backup is an "incremental" backup, copying only the items that have been added or changed since the last backup. But by using "multi-links" to the backups of items that did not change, each backup is, in effect, a full, complete copy of your entire system!
So when TM deletes your oldest backup, all it will be deleting are it's copies of things you changed or deleted long ago. -
Using an External Drive for Time Machine and Other Things
I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
Is it okay to use the external drive for other things that I don't care if they aren't backed up (like digital copies of DVDs)? i.e. Will Time Machine cause any issues if a drive is used for more than just Time Machine backups?rgraves wrote:
I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
Maybe. See #1 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).
Is it okay to use the external drive for other things that I don't care if they aren't backed up (like digital copies of DVDs)? i.e. Will Time Machine cause any issues if a drive is used for more than just Time Machine backups?
It's best to put such things in their own partition. See #3 in the FAQ.
You may also want to make separate partitions for each Mac's backups, if you're backing-up either one directly (ie, not over your network). See #4 in the FAQ. -
External drive for Time Machine and Firewire Hub
Just got a new iMac. My old iMac G5 was running 10.4.11 so no Time Machine. On the new iMac I am running 10.5.6 I find I have questions about how to go about making best use of this new facility available to me. Since my new iMac has only one firewire port (FW 800) I also need an additional port here.
My thoughts are to use an external drive connected with FW 800 as a Time Machine backup and use the (usually) extra FW 800 port to extend the FW 800 and I find I can get a dual interface drive with both FW 800 and FW 400, so I could use the FW 400 for FW 400 devices like other FW 400 drives and my video camera.
Currently I use SuperDuper to make clone backups of my HD on a weekly basis (I use 2 drives for this on a rotating basis). I plan to continue that in addition to the facility offered by Time Machine (on a separate drive).
My questions are...
Is it a good idea to use the extra FW 800 or 400 port on an external to connect other drives to use for clone BUs?
If that is a good idea...
What brand and size of drive to use for the Time Machine BU (FW 400/800 sharing)
A. Maxtor?
(I have several OneTouch II and OneTouch III that I use for clones, I have been using them for a few years without problem. I seem to remember reading about some problems with Maxtor, have I just been lucky?)
B. Newertech MiniStack v3 from OWC MacSales?
C. OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™?
If the OWC Mercury Eltite is a good choice...
Is a 750 GB large enough?
Is it worth it to get the 1TB Enterprise 7200RPM?
Any other suggestions?
Andyi needed 3 drives in total so went with my 2nd choice of buying external enclosures and then hard drives,
at the end it cost me much much less so i endded up buy another as a spare,
so currently using 4 NexStart combo enclosure each one fitted with a 500gb hard drive,
i got one connected to my G5 and 3 connected by FW400 to my imac through a daisy chain,
for time machines it doesnt matter about speed so you dont need to use up the FW800 Port,
FW400 will be fine,
before this i had a USB2 WD Book and was using that with time machine and never had a problem through USB,
i always connect to a port i hardly use as i wont ever need to keep taking it off if i had to connect my camera to it for example....
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