Initial Time Machine backup is larger than the HD it's backing up?

Howdy,
I started the initial backup of my MacBook Pro to my TimeCapsule, and it now says that it has backed up 4.1 GB of 159.5 GB. But the internal HD of the MacBook Pro is only 80 GB, and 31.4 GB are free!
Does anyone know what's up with this?
My primary user account is encrypted with FileVault.
Mikael

Mikael Behrens wrote:
Howdy,
I started the initial backup of my MacBook Pro to my TimeCapsule, and it now says that it has backed up 4.1 GB of 159.5 GB. But the internal HD of the MacBook Pro is only 80 GB, and 31.4 GB are free!
Does anyone know what's up with this?
My primary user account is encrypted with FileVault.
I don't use FileVault, but I suspect that is the culprit. Since FV can only be backed up after you log out, it might be causing the problem. I know from reading the posts that FW and TM do not play very well together. It might be calculating your home directory twice. Just a thought.

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Can I Update Time Machine Backup Without Booting From The Source Drive

Greetings,
Can I update a time machine backup without booting from the original source drive?
My main Macbook Pro internal drive seemed to have died. I had not backed up in months so my Time Machine backup was old.
I replaced the drive with a new one and settled for restoring from the old TM backup because my latest info was on the dead drive and not backed up.
I just plugged the "broken" drive into a dock and it mounted.
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Hi
Time Machine will only be able to backup whilst booted into OSX, so unless you can mount the drive, and boot up the OS that is installed on the disk, then no, you will not be able to run a Time Machine backup of that drive.
You could image the drive onto another using Disk Utility
Cheers

After upgrading my iPhone, I lost all my contacts..... and they were replaced with my wife's contacts even though she upgraded after I did. I did a time machine backup before I started the upgrade process, how do I get that saved data back to my phone?

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Hi bluegrandpanash,
Thanks for visiting Apple Support Communities.
If you backed up your iPhone to iCloud before updating the software, first try the steps under "Restore from an iCloud backup" in this article to recover your data:
iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766
Best Regards,
Jeremy

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?

I just backed up my mac to an external hard drive using Time Machine. What would happen if I turn Time Machine off and then plug the external hard drive back into my computer?
What I am ultimately wanting to do is make more room on my computer by backing up all of my files onto the external hard drive and then deleting them off of my computer. However, neededing to be able to retrieve them from the external hard drive later down the road.
From what I have read and am trying to understand, is that I probably shouldn't have used time machine. I need to use the external hard drive like a basic flash drive where I can put things on and get things off without having it automatically update through time machine everytime I connect it to my computer.
Not tech savvy at all and barely understand basics. I need very simple and easy to understand explanations.

sydababy wrote:
and then deleting them off of my computer.
BIG BIG MISTAKE ..... youre making a linchpin deathtrap for your data trying to shove everything on a single fragile HD.
Dont suffer the tragedy other people make, buy another or 2 more HD, theyre cheap as dust.
The number of people who have experienced terror by having a single external HD backup is enormous. One failure that WILL HAPPEN, and kaput,......all gone!
Dont do it, its all about redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.
follow here:
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection
Deleting them off your computer is fine....having only ONE copy is extremely BAD.
The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
Always presume correctly that your data is priceless and takes a very long time to create and often is irreplaceable. Always presume accurately that hard drives are extremely cheap, and you have no excuse not to have multiple redundant copies of your data copied on hard drives and squirreled away several places, lockboxes, safes, fireboxes, offsite and otherwise.
Hard drives aren't prone to failure…hard drives are guaranteed to fail (the very same is true of SSD). Hard drives dont die when aged, hard drives die at any age, and peak in death when young and slowly increase in risk as they age.
Never practice at any time for any reason the false premise and unreal sense of security in thinking your data is safe on any single external hard drive. This is never the case and has proven to be the single most common horrible tragedy of data loss that exists.
Many 100s of millions of hours of lost work and data are lost each year due to this single common false security. This is an unnatural disaster that can avoid by making all data redundant and then redundant again. If you let a $60 additional redundant hard drive and 3 hours of copying stand between you and years of work, then you've made a fundamental mistake countless 1000s of people each year have come to regret.

Initial time machine backup larger than actual computer harddrive

I've got an iMac with a 1TB harddrive and am trying to use a time machine set up to back up my harddrive. The external harddrive I'm using for my back up is also 1TB. I currently have about 135GB of free space on my iMac's harddrive and my external drive is completely empty. When I try to back up using time machine it tells me that the back up is 1.2TB and cannot fit on my 1TB external harddrive. What would cause the initial back up to be larger than the actual computers harddrive? Is there anything I can do to rectify this issue without me needing to purchase a larger external harddrive for back up?

Ikue wrote:
The external harddrive I'm using for my back up is also 1TB. I currently have about 135GB of free space on my iMac's harddrive and my external drive is completely empty.
That means you're trying to back up about 865 GB to a 1 TB drive; and that's not large enough for Time Machine.
Time Machine not only keeps copies of everything currently on your Mac, but also previous copies of things you've changed or deleted, so it needs a lot more space than the data it's backing-up.
What's causing your immediate problem is, TM adds about 20% to the estimated size of the backup, for workspace on the TM drive and in case the estimate is too small. So 865 GB + 173 GB = over 1 TB.
Long-term, you need a much larger drive for Time Machine, at least 1.5 TB, probably 2 TB.
Short-term, you can squeeze your backups onto the 1 TB drive by excluding some big stuff per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #10 and running a backup.
Then remove the exclusion, and run another backup. Since the second backup will be much smaller, the additional 20% won't be so large as to exceed the size of the TM drive.
But TM won't be able to keep backups very long, and if it needs to do a large backup, there may not be room.

Initial Time Machine backup 60 GB smaller than HD content?

Hello,
I've just performed an initial backup with TIme Machine on an external HD. The result is that TM's backup's size is 360 GB, but my internal HD that has 420 GB of data...
I had no problems during the backup, no warning messages. I don't understand, so I'm not very confortable pursuing with this backup.
The only explanation could be that I've a lot of duplicates on my iMac (2x big iTunes library with same files...) at the moment: does TM save only one copy of same files that are in different directories of the source HD?
Thanks :)

You can verify your Time Machine backup.
Launch the Terminal 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, press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy – do not type – the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo tmutil compare
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Can Time Machine backups for more than one Mac be sent to the same external hard drive?

It's pretty straightforward, really. We have two Macs, both running Mountain Lion. Can we use the same external hard drive for Time Machine backups of both?

It would be best to partition the HDD - one volume for each Mac (you cannot partition a Time Capsule).
Note that by doing so, you will lose both backups should the drive fail.

Time Machine backup too large for backup disk

My Mac hard drive is 750GB (25GB free).
My LaCie external dedicated backup hard drive is 1TB (342GB free).
I am now getting the error "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup" "This backup is too large for the backup disk"
I thought once my initial backup of 750GB happened, it would be incremental backups from then on (with old changes betting deleted as space was needed for new changes).
Is this not the case? Do I need a much larger backup drive or something?
Thanks much for any help.

It's true but Time Machine has also to make complete backups again in case you want to restore your Mac with a more recent Time Machine backup.
Clearly the external drive you have doesn't have enough storage to back up your Mac. As you have about 725 GB of used space, I recommend you to get at least a 3 or 4 TB external drive to make backups, and even with this, don't think you will have more than four backups. Another thing you can do is to remove folders from the backup in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options

Time Machine Backups disk image displays the wrong capacity

I have a USB hard drive partitioned and connected as an airdisk on a time capsule. The drive "TIME" is partitioned for 300 GB and serves both my MacBook (MB) and MacBook Pro (MBP).
If I connect to TIME from Finder, it shows 155.68 GB free of 300 GB total.
When MB runs Time Machine, the Time Machine Backups volume mounts and shows 155.68 GB free of 300 GB total.
Here is what is weird - When MBP runs Time Machine, the Time Machine Backups volume mounts and shows 155.68 GB free of 429.5 GB total.
Why does the MBP show a different and inaccurate total?
I tried reconfiguring Time Machine to point to a different backup drive and then back to TIME hoping it would just 'reset' but that did not work.
Something I just thought of - I did move that sparse from a different volume that was larger. I bet the total size is saved in the information in the sparse.
Can anyone confirm this?
Will this cause me any problems in the long run?

redemily wrote:
Something I just thought of - I did move that sparse from a different volume that was larger. I bet the total size is saved in the information in the sparse.
That's possible, depending on how you moved the sparse bundle. If it had a smaller maximum size than the volume it's on, Time Machine would automatically resize it to the size of the volume it's on, making it larger (effective with 10.6.3).
I don't know if it will make a larger one smaller, though.
Will this cause me any problems in the long run?
No. Time Machine will figure out how much space there really is anyway. But if you want to change the size, see #A8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Initial Time Machine Backup Stuck on "Indexing Backup"

I have Mac Mini running 10.7.2. I just got an external hard drive and am trying to run an initial back up using Time Machine. I am running my computer in Safe Mode as it won't start in regular mode. I formatted the HD and began to run Time Machine back up. HD is connected via USB 2.0 wire.
It has now been 12 hours and is still on Indexing Backup... Is this normal for initial back up? I know it takes a long time for initial but this doesn't seem right.What do I do to correct if it isn't correct? Should I stop and try again?

Thank you very much. With your info I gave up on the back up and ran Disk and Permission Repair for the 3rd or 4th time and crossed my fingers and restarted my machine and it WORKED! I ran time Machine back up and when I woke up this morning it was all done! Yeahhhh!
I wasn't sure what was causing it not to start in regular mode and as I'm not too much of a techie I was scared that I was teetetering on the brink of losing everything. The machine would run so I didn't think it was a hard drive issue, but not knowing for sure I was concerned and after losing everythign once before years ago, I was worried. I have it backed up on line but wanted a 2nd (local) version that wouldn't entail tying up bandwidth for days. In the end it worked out!
But the short answer is, Time Machine Backup does NOT work in Safe Mode...

Initial Time Machine Backup. Event Store UUIDs Don't Match.

This is an initial backup and 25% (about 100 GBs) of the backup completed in 1 Hour. The remaining 75% (about 300 GBs) is stuck at the same place for 9 hours now.
I'm working on a MBP Mid-2009 15", 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X 10.5.8.
All software is up-to-date.
Backup Drive is a Seagate 2GB (USB), Formatted for Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
No 3rd Party Backup Software or 3rd Party Security installed.
Spotlight has already been re-indexed.
Name of Computer is: MBP 2013
Time Machine Buddy indicates only that the Event Store UUIDs Don't Match. No error messages. Other discussion posts say wait. Any other suggestions? Is there a way to reset the Event Store UUIDs?

Well, I dislike TM myself, never use it due to all it's quirks, & even IF it appears to work, when it comes time to use it/relly on it, you may find more quirks or nearly impossible to use.
If you wish o continue trying TM, I'll certainbly try to help, or even ask for help from others, but...
Get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Or the most expensive one & my favorite, Tri-Backup...
http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html
Does everything TM & the others can do & much more.

Time Machine Backup only one-fifth the size of my disk. Where's the rest?

I have a startup disk with about 250 gigs in my G5 dual. I have a 500 GB disk for Time Machine. It runs when it's supposed to and I've used it to recover a few lost files successfully. I felt safe until I noticed that the Time Machine disk has only about 50 GB on it! How is this possible? What do I need to do?
When I click on options in the TIme Machine preference pane, I see the Time Machine Backups disk excluded (as I would expect) and I have excluded an additional disk, and it says in the lower right "Total included: 250.0 GB" What is going on? I feel as if I definitely cannot rely on Time Machine if I had to do a complete restore. I'd be missing 80% of my files!

If Time Machine runs into a problem with a corrupted file, it may skip the balance of the entire folder holding that file (or more), and then if there are no changes in the folder it is skipping, it doesn't pick up on it in later backups. Obviously this is not ideal behavior, but that's the way it works right now.
Here's what you can do:
Reboot from your Leopard install DVD (hold the "c" key while booting until you see the spinning gear on the gray Apple screen, and, if the DVD is not already inserted, insert it just after you press and release the power button).
When asked, select your language.
At the next screen, where you would normally begin an Install, INSTEAD Quit out of the Leopard Installer using the menu bar. Select your main hard drive as the drive to boot from.
When it boots up, log in as normal. Then open Applications / Utilities / Console and select "All Messages" in the column on the left. If this is the first time you've done this, it will take a while to get itself organized and the initial list of messages may be empty.
Then open System Preferences / Time Machine so you can watch what is happening.
Then right-click (or CTRL-click) on the Time Machine icon in the Dock and select Back Up Now from the pop up menu.
Booting from the Leopard install DVD like this will cause Time Machine to ignore the file system event logs of what's changed (because the drive may have been altered without those logs reflecting it), and instead do a Deep Traversal of your main hard drive's file system looking at everything for changes since the last backup. You will see a message to this effect in the Console. Time Machine's "preparing" stage will be unusually long -- for your size of file system it could be an hour or so -- but eventually it will finish the Deep Traversal and it will backup whatever needs to be backed up.
NOW, look at the Console for any error messages during this. The infamous -1088 error is the one most people have found. That indicates a file Time Machine has decided is corrupted -- causing it to give up on a folder. Get rid of those files/folders or put them in the Do Not Back Up list, and do another backup until you have no more such errors.
You should now have a complete backup on your Time Machine disk.
--Bob

Initial Time Machine backup is larger than the HD it's backing up?

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