First Time Machine Backup to big need to make smaller

I am having some issues I could do with an opinion on. I ran time machine last night for the first time and it backed up my main HD(450GB used) and a secondary HD(450GB used) I am now very tight on space on my Time Machine Back Up HD (900GB used on a 1TB internal drive)
I shouldn't have had the secondary HD backed up I didn't set the preferences pane correct.
I want to do a new backup of Main HD tonight, what's the best procedure?
Reformat the Time Machine Back Up HD? and start again? or is there away to tell time machine to delete the secondary HD backup content? Or do I do what looks obvious and go into the Time Machined Back Up HD and just delete the secondary HD folder?
I have done some stupid things over the weekend with my install and this one I want get right!
Message was edited by: SpaceDesign911

Reformat the Time Machine Back Up HD? and start again? or is there away to tell time machine to delete the secondary HD backup content? Or do I do what looks obvious and go into the Time Machined Back Up HD and just delete the secondary HD folder?
Reformatting will let you start from scratch, but trashing may well achieve same objective (up to you I guess which you prefer). What you might want to look into in the future with Time Machine is to exclude elements (via options in TM prefs) from backups (e.g. other disk vols or applications) this will greatly reduce the size of TM backups created.

Similar Messages

I am running my first time machine backup onto a Western Digital MyBook Live. It is taking forever. Is there antivirus software running in the background or any other settings I need to change to speed it up? Also I am on a wireless network.

I am running my first time machine backup onto a Western Digital MyBook Live. It is taking forever. Is there antivirus software running in the background or any other settings I need to change to speed it up? Also I am on a wireless network.

The initial Time Machine backup can certainly take a long time over wireless. Days, possibly. It's impossible for anyone here to be able to predict how long it will take, and wireless environmental conditions can change at any time.
Is there antivirus software running in the background
Only you can determine that. If you're using third party AV software, anything is possible.
NAS devices may not be compatible with Time Machine, regardless of what their manufacturers may claim. Even after the Time Machine backup completes, your backup may be unreliable. You may not discover that until you need to rely upon the backup for some reason, and corruption can occur months or years from now.
Time Machine supports the following backup configurations:
A locally mounted volume
Time Capsule
A volume resident on a USB hard disk connected directly to a Time Capsule or current production AirPort Extreme Base Station.
That's it. Any configuration other than the above list places you in an experimental category. If your backup fails, you're on your own.

First time machine backup from MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011) on time capsule is extremely slow - unusable!

I recently bought a Time Capsule 2TB.
First I set it up to create a new wifi network parallel to my existing wifi network. The first Time Machine backup on my MBP 13 connected via ethernet cable finished overnight (under 10 hrs for about 150 GB), as expected.
Then I found that my MBP was logging into my old network more often than to the time capsule network so that backups were not being made regularly. So I re-configured the Time Capsule to extend the exisitng network - all fine. Except that now Time Machine said it couldn't find the existing backup. After trying logging out and in, etc. I eventually deleted that sparsebundle to force Time Machine to start again new.
Now I get an estimated time of 2 - 3 days for the first backup - even via ethernet cable. Sometimes it hangs up and says something like 4000 days... I can't afford to hook my MBP up to the time capsule or even stay at home for this time to let it finish, and I know it should be faster than that!
I've tried a few of the tips I found so far in the forums, such as excluding my home folder from Spotlight, or even turning Spotlight off, but nothing has helped so far. Perhaps I missed some important step on the way.
Can anyone give me a reliable step by tep method to solve this problem. I don't want a geeky workaround, I want to plug in (o better, be in my wifi network) and make the backup work like Time Machine is supposed to do it. And I would like to keep on using Spotlight, too.
Thanks in advance!
Robin

Unless you have a desktop Mac you can back up to over your network, your choices are:
Spend a bunch on a Time Capsule, kind of a waste if you already have a wireless router.
Spend $100 or so on an external HD and have some inconvenience until Iomega updates.
Risk losing all your data.
It's your call, but a no-brainer to me.
Better: get a portable external. Once you get the Iomega working, start making regular "clones" to the portable and take it off-site so you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, etc.

First Time Machine backup not the same size as my computers HD

I just completed my first Time Machine backup of my computer's hard drive. I have a 160 GB hard drive (actual capacity = 148.73 GB) with 145.43 GB used. I expected my backup to be the exact same size or darn near close. When I did a "Get Info" on the backup, its size was 62.11 GB. I looked through some of the files of the backup and it LOOKS like its all there but can't be certain of it. I would like to know the answer to this and PLEASE PLEASE DON'T give me the run around! IE: go see this page, go see that page, click this link, etc.! Just give me the answer straight up. I've already been looking all over this forum and at other Time Machine websites and have NOT found a good answer. I would REALLY appreciate just a straight up answer! Thanks!

Would you like me to give you a complete list of every website I have looked at? Would that help? Well, here they are:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/D2.html
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20071101005330768
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/D5.html
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2655/leopardtime_machine_delete_files_folders_frombackup/
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial &channel=s&hl=en&source=hp&q=DeletingTime+Machine+backup+files+in+MacOS+X&btnG=GoogleSearch
http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26704/timemachineeditor
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342&start=75
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/A4.html
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1342&start=0
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/D7.html
Those are all the websites I have visited in regards to Time Machine. Other then that, I have for the most part already stated what I have done. Hope that helps.

"Permission denied" on sparsebundle after first Time Machine backup

I've been using an encrypted sparsebundle for several months. Yesterday I bought a new Apple Airport Time Capsule, and created my first Time Machine backup. Today when I double-click the sparsebundle, instead of being prompted to enter my password, I receive a Warning dialog box saying "The following disk images couldn't be opened" with the sparsebundle listed next to "Permission denied." According to Get Info, my account does have Read & Write access to the sparsebundle.
How can I get access to my 4.5 GB of encrypted data?

Thanks for the response. In my case, when I booted into my cloned backup and ran from that, I was able to open the sparsebundle normally. Then when I returned to my original system, it too worked normally. Although I'm relieved I didn't lose my data, it's all very mystifying. It particularly concerns me that no online source seems to be able to explain the nature of the error message I received!
I did repair permissions before posting here, to no avail.
So that terminal command will turn your encrypted sparsebundle into an unencrypted sparsebundle, without prompting for the password? That's alarming.

Doing a first time machine backup with OS X 10.8.3. Taking For Ever. Have a 24g flash drive and only 21 g to back up. What to do?

This is a brand new MacBook Pro. This would be the first time machine backup being done on it. Is that why it is too slow?

Note that a 24 GB flash drive is completely inadequate to use effectively with Time Machine. It will probably run out of space very quickly. You want at least 2-3 times more space on your backup drive than what you are backing up. Or you want to choose some other backup app that does not do incremental backups.
Get yourself a good hard drive. 200 GB would be cheap and would give you more than enough space to store many months (maybe years) of backups, unless what is being backed up grows significantly.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

Time machine backup too big for empty disk??

So I restart my MacBook Pro a few minutes after completing a full Time Machine backup. When it restarts it goes through the grey startup screen, then gets stuck on the blue screen just before the desktop normally appears. This happens whenever I startup. I am still able to hit the power button and get the Restart/Shut Down dialog, so I restart using my Snow Leopard boot disk, run Disk Utility, repair permissions, and repair disk, but the problem still remains. I decide to Restore from Time Machine Backup, so I erase my disk (80 GB, had only 200 MB free), go to the Restore screen and connect my backup disk. Now the weird part -- it says my latest backup is too big for the disk, even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free. All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless. Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 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), for details.

My first TIME MACHINE backup (on a week old iMac)

Hi...I am a "NEW" Mac user/owner, and "LOOOOOVE IT". I purchased a SEAGATE GoFlex external hard drive (with FIREWIRE), to use for my TIME MACHINE backups, which was "VERY" easy to use (atleast I think). My question(s) is....
1.) Can anyone tell me, about how long the backup should have taken on a virtually "NEW" machine???
2.) It only showed my machines backup, as around 30GB....could this be possible, with all of the applications presently on my machine (FINAL CUT, APERTURE, MS OFFICE, iLIFE 2011, ADOBE CS5 MASTERS)???
3.) Does Time Machine ALSO backup your applications SERIAL NUMBERS (for restoring purposes)???
Again....this is a pretty new machine, and I purposely did'nt do much on the machine until I go the external drive, so that I could have a backup as close as possible to my machines OUT OF THE BOX state.
THANKS in advance, for any help, that anyone, can offer

FRESHADDICT235 wrote:
Oh no.....I have all my Apple software, and as for the Adobe (and any violation)....Seller clearly stated, this was not a resell of the software, but rather that it was being given FREE OF CHARGE, with the machine
I'm not questioning your integrity, but technically, it doesn't matter. Apple sells hardware but (like everybody else) licenses software (mostly as an anti-piracy measure). The people you bought the Mac from don't have the right to give software away without the original discs that come with a new Mac (and if it's really new and unused, and all on the up-and-up, why wouldn't they include them?) From the license for OSX:
"*1. General.*
The software (including Boot ROM code), documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc . . ."
"*3. Transfer.*
You may not rent, lease, lend, redistribute or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided by Apple) to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, *+original media+*, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License." (emphasis added.)
See the full text at [http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/MacOSX.htm].
The licenses for most paid apps have similar provisions.
The system was never used (other than, the installation of apps, and to assure the machine had no defects), and all components (of the machine....Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor/HD) were still sealed in its factory packaging
Also irrelevant without the original discs that come with every Mac (and many paid apps).
|
But, the "Software Police" are not about to come seize (or erase) your Mac.
What's done is done; the main point is, you need the discs to be able to do some things, including those mentioned in my previous post.
Fortunately, the OSX discs aren't particularly expensive; if your Mac came with Snow Leopard, AppleCare will send a replacement set for a nominal fee. If it didn't, just buy a retail Snow Leopard disc from an Apple Store or the online Apple Store, for $29.
If you're not sure what it shipped with, AppleCare can tell you, or plug your serial number in to this site: [http://www.appleserialnumberinfo.com/Desktop/index.php]. It will give you all sorts of specs, including when it was built and the *Original OS* it shipped with.
You'll have to decide what you want to do about your other paid apps.

Time Machine Backup of iPhoto Library 5 gigabytes smaller!?!?

Thankfully I've not yet had to rely on my time machine backup. I just delved into the "latest" folder within my backup and find that my iphoto library is 5 gigabytes less in there than on my HD.
Shouldn't the latest folder be the...ya know....latest? How is it shaving 5gig off the library size?
I've pulled that library out of the backup to my HD and opened it. Nothing appears to be missing but it is reporting 5gig less. I'm freaked out and about to not use Time Machine as my backup.
Anyone know what's going on here?
Cheers,
John

I think that helps...let me be a bit more specific.
I'm using a USB 2.0 HD attached directly to my Mac. I've backed up my iMac to this drive using time machine.
I was planning on wiping the machine and thought I'd just check that my 5 years of photos are backedup properly. Rather than opening TM I navigated via the finder to my backup drive and opened the "latest" folder and the dug down through the file structure to my iphoto library. It was here that I noticed the filesize to be 5 gig less.
I thought perhaps it was misreading it and dragged the iphoto library from the USB HD copying it to my desktop. It consistently reads 5gig less, than my regular iPhoto Library.
Opening the two libraries in iTunes they appear the same....of course I haven't paged through all 16,000 some odd photos....
Is this what you understood me to be saying, Barry?
Cheers!
John

First time machine backup after partial restore

I have found it necessary to revert back to Snow Leopard after upgrading to Lion. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to clean up my machine so rather than do a full restore I installed SL from disc and then selectively restored data and third party applications. I am now about to do my first backup after the restore and want to be sure that I understand what will happen.
My research suggests that when I do the backup it will be a full one and that if I want to go back to earlier backups then I will have to right click on Time Machine in the Dock, select "Browse other Time Machine Discs" and then select the earlier backup from the list. What I don't understand is how the earlier backup will appear in the list as all the backups will be of the one machine. Can anyone confirm my understanding and give me an example of what might be shown in the list?
Many Thanks

In my opinion you should have at least 2 backups on 2 different drive because hard drives do fail. It also avoids the "risky position of not having a backup". If you are using 10.6, one backup can be Time Machine and the other a clone.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Commonly Used Backup Methods

HT201250 Is my first time machine backup taking too long?

I'm running my first ever back up to Time Machine which was set up for me in the apple store yesterday. It's been going for around 20 hours and has only done 11.3 GB of the 112GB it needs to do. Is it normal for it to take this long?
Any help much appreciated.

Have now stopped and restarted and it's complete.

After first time machine backup half available GB on computer are gone

I did my first backup up to an external HD using Time Machine. Pre backup my computer showed 713 GB available. After backup my computer showed 334 GB available (less than half pre-backup!) and the external HD showed 713 GB available. What happened? Is this normal?

I called Apple Tech support. For anyone interested, here's the explanation I got:
In time machine, when you look at finder windows back in time the "GB available" shows the available space on the external HD, not the Mac HD (even though Mac HD is selected under devices). The "now" window shows the GB available on the Mac.
In my case: Mac HD info shows a 595 GB capacity; I use 228 GB so I have 367 GB available. My external HD is 1 TB or about 1,000 GB. Backing up 228 GB on the external HD should leave about 772 GB available on the external HD.
In Time Machine all past finder windows show a number close to 772 GB available (currently available on the external HD) while "now" window shows 367 GB available (currently available on the Mac HD).
I was worried the backing up somehow changed the available GB on the Mac drastically from 772 to 367 but the Mac never had that much space available in the first place. Backing up has no effect on GB available on the Mac HD no matter how it may appear in Time Machine.
If anyone disagrees with this, please let us know. Thanks to everyone for their input.

First Time Machine Backup- Stops Backing up at 51.9 MB

Hello-
I've tried setting up Time Machine so many times...with no success. During the first initial backup, it gets to 51.9 MB then stops, well actually, it doesn't do anything different, it says it's still loading, but it's not.
Please help...

Have you checked your hard disk is formatted as GUID ?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306932
Michael

First Time Machine Backup Taking Forever

I'm backing up my Mac for the first time using a WD My Passport Ultra. When I initially tried to back it up, it had finished like 1GB in like 2 hours, so I restarted my computer to try it again. Once I started the backup again, it started off much faster, about 2.5GB in 15 minutes, and it gave me an estimate of 11 hours to complete, so I left it overnight to finish, but after 12 hours, I woke up again to find that only 12GB in total had been backed up. Why am I having this problem?
I have also tried backing up using the WD Anywhere Backup software, that runs really well to about 60% or so, before it freezes on one file. Is my backup deffective? I had a similar problem backing up my Mac with another WD backup and this is actually my free replacement, so I'm not sure if like WD is maybe not working with my Mac?

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Can't restore latest Time Machine backup after drive replacement- only the very first.

My 13" Macbook Pro running 10.8.5 had a bad hard drive which had to be replaced. After the new drive was put in I tried to restore everything to the new drive with Time Machine but could only restore the first backup I ever did after getting the computer, which was over a year ago. I can drag and drop files but I would rather have all my preferences and bookmarks etc. How do I restore the latest backup which was only about a week ago? Thank you.

Not yet; I'm not sure if Migration Assistant is quite right. Since I posted the question I ran across this youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYUem-QfYBs
which suggests that I need to start up from a bootable external disc in order to restore a Time Machine backup to the same computer that the backup came from when the drive is replaced. The video actually seems to describe my issue exactly. The only confusing thing is I don't know why I would have been able to restore the very first Time Machine backup if I need to boot from an external disc. More investigation needed.

First Time Machine Backup to big need to make smaller

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for