MacBook Pro Disk Space Question and Time Machine

Hi all,
I know this is probably a "noob" question, but I have been backing up my laptop (2009 Mac OS X 10.6.8) onto an external hard drive set up for Time Machine, and now my MacBook Pro only has 1.15 GB available of free space after the many years of usage and saving things onto it (such as images, movies, etc.). I had a question: Are these files backed up onto Time Machine and so can I delete them from my laptop without losing them? I am concerned about losing them and am not sure how Time Machine really works; if I delete these files from my laptop in order to free up space, then backup my computer onto Time Machine, will they be deleted from the Time Machine drive also?? I need to free up a lot of space on my laptop but also don't want to lose any pictures and videos from over the years.
Thanks in advance.

570ad
My question is, how do I effectively "copy over" files onto my new external hard drive? Is it as easy as connecting the hard drive via usb
Easy as drag and drop, yes indeed. Could almost do it with your eyes closed.
Entire user account, ....no, just get all your files, you created, saved, made, work on ALL VITAL DATA you "dont dare lose" etc. drag it over, make files in the HD showing where things are, etc.
There are of course a 1000 ways to organize folders and data on external HD, ..pick what suits you.
Keep it simple.

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Emptying trash isn't freeing up any space on MacBook Pro or external drive. Time Machine is OFF.

Yesterday, while using Final Cut Pro X, I noticed the program/my computer was starting to run slow--and then I was totally caught off guard by a warning that my startup disk was full. I checked Storage and Finder and both my MacBook Pro and external drive had less than 1gb of space each! I usually use Secure Empty Trash and have no problems...but for my drives to be full, it clearly hasn't been working for a few days, possibly weeks.
I'm using a MacBook Pro (early 2011) and a LaCie Thunderbolt external drive. I'm running Mavericks (10.9.2)
I am not using Time Machine. When I look at Storage under About This Mac, my Backups on my MBP and LaCie drive are both at zero KB.
I read through the forums and tried going into Terminal and entering sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash ...but all that did was free up about 10gb on my external drive (I'd emptied upwards of 90gb from my trash).
Right now I'm basically stuck with a slow laptop and very little storage space, which has slowed my work to a halt. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Some space suggestions.
Disk Space - Free Up
Disk Space – Free Up (2)
Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper
Disk Space Filling Up - WhatSize

"Notify after old backups are deleted. Be notified if your backup disk is full and Time Machine deletes old backups to create space for new ones." I would prefer to be notified BEFORE things are deleted. Can the deleted items be recovered?

Time Machine option #2:
"Notify after old backups are deleted" Wouldn't it be better to get this notification BEFORE things are deleted? I suppose the real question is, is it possible to recover files deleted from time machine?
The bold phrase above has a checkbox. But if I leave it blank it appears that I will receive no notification at all.
I am using MacBook Pro, OS X version 10.9.5

TIme Machine is not an archival tool. And no, you won't be able to recover the files that are deleted.

MacBook Pro Disk Space Issues & Recommendations

I am looking for recommendations on how to free up disk space. I have a 250GB MacBook Pro-2013. I have a 2TB Time Machine back-up hard drive. Photos take up 50GB, videos 60GB, music 30GB. My Time Machine backs up my computer each time it is plugged into an adapter and on my home network. Is this too often? Should I move all my photos and videos of family to the cloud? Do I need another external hard drive to store photos, videos and music on? I have emptied trash, deleted unused apps, deleted old documents and deleted old iMessages. Thank you for your help!

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
6. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Macbook pro won't restart after time machine install on new hard drive

I installed a new 500 GB HD on my 13-inch mid 2010 Macbook Pro (since the original crashed). I successfully connected to the Disk Utility via the internet connection and started recovery from a recent Time Machine backup....but, the computer will not restart. It's been stuck in the grey screen with the Apple logo and rotating status bar all night. I shut it down and restarted, but it won't go past the grey screen state. I can't find any answers on the Support Page. Help. Any one else have this issue? Should I have first installed the Lion OS X first and then restored from the Time Machine backup?
Also, wondering if all my programs (2011 ILife & IWork and Microsoft Office) will be reinstalled with the back up? (I can't find my installation disks for ILife and IWork :-()

Time machine is easy to set up and theoreticaly recover from. There have been reports of problems when a different disk or computer is used.
https://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?peopleEnabled=true&userID=&containerTy pe=&container=&spotlight=true&q=time+machine
For future reference you may wish to learn about and use cloning of the HDD. I use both CCC and SD to do this and consider it to be the most reliable way to back up and recover.
Carbon Copy Cloner - Home
www.bombich.com/
SuperDuper!
www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
added a good reference
http://Pondini.org/TM/Home.html

MacBook Pro won't book after Time Machine restore

I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro that had 4 bad blocks on the hard drive. I reformatted and zeroed out the drive and then restored from a Time Machine backup which was Mac OS 10.6.6. Now the MBP won't boot. I get the Apple logo and the spinning gear, and that's it. I gave it as long as 20 minutes but no boot. Starting from the DVD shows I have that system on the drive in Startup Disk. I've run myriad utilities including Disk Utility and Disk Warrior and everything is fine.
Before I reinstall 10.6, I thought I'd poke my head in here and tap the collective wisdom.

Your situation sounds a bit similar to mine except you had the gray screen before you did anything, which to me means you had a problem that already surfaced, where I did not. I don't know if the Windoze partition has anything to do with it, but if you are running SN 10.6 you can try the same solution I did. Boot from the SN DVD and install a new version of SN over you old. Don't worry, all your files will be there. The installer is intelligent enough to realize you already have SN and will do the install over your old system files only. This is the 'new' Archive and Install scenario that existed on previous versions of Mac OS X install DVDs.
You will then have to run updates to get the system back to whatever version you were running previously.
This is what I did and it worked fine, altho it was more time consuming than I wanted.
J D Thomas
ThomaStudios

How can I recover MacBook Pro disk space

My MacBook Pro is over ten years old... works fine, but I can't access much of the disk space on the original hard drive. I should have 100 Gig of space but only about 5 gigs is available despite the fact that Appications show 13 Gigs used and oly 7 Gigs of folders/files are listed in the info panel. Do I need to erase everything and start over t access the remaiing 70+ gigs on the disk?

Where did my Disk Space go?
Slimming your hard drive
OmniDiskSweeper is a free utility that checks HD space.
FreeSpace cost $1 or is a free utility that checks HD space.
SpaceControl is a free utility that checks HD space.
Rule of thumb: You should never let your hard drive get to where you have only 10-15% of space left.

Synology Disk Station DS210j and time machine

Hi
I want to buy a network attached storage raid hard drive and the Synology Disk Station DS210j looks really good. The Synology website says it is time machine compatible but the specs say that the only file systems are FAT32, NTFS and EXT3. From what I have read in this forum the only file system compatible with Time Machine is Mac OS Extended Journaled.
Has anyone tried one of these drives? Does time machine work with any of these file systems?
Any guidance would much appreciated.
Thanks
Richard.

Greetings rat279
The internal file system of the DiskStation will be ext3, which is a Linux-based file system. The file systems you have referenced are for externally mounted hard drives to the DiskStation via USB or eSATA (if your DiskStation features an eSATA port)
With regards to conducting Time Machine backups, the backups will operate over a network protocol, which will handle the communication between your Apple Computer and the DiskStation. Time Machine will see the DiskStation as a "Target Destination" and all that is needed is that Time Machine just be set to use the DiskStation as a backup target.
Please refer to our Wiki Article on Time Machine for further information
Backup Mac data using Time Machine
Please contact our pre-sales product support team if you have any further questions
Ask a product question
Hope this helps, and have a good day.

Is time capsule the only wireless backup for a macbook pro that will work with Time Machine?

I just got a macbook pro (mid 2012) and I was going to back it up, but the time capsule is very expensive so I was wondering if any other backups worked wirelessly with time me

Any external hard drive can be used for a Time Machine backup, but for network backup I doubt you will find much if anything at a lesser price than a Time Capsule. Plus, the Time Capsule is also a network router.

Mag Safe power cord sparks when connected or disconnected--whereupon the MacBook Pro 13'' dumps date and time, and all passwords, plus any/all unsaved information.

I purchased my MacBook Pro 13" from the Apple Store in Tucson, AZ, in mid-January. Since then, every time the Mag-Safe cord is jostled, not even disconnected, sparks fly from the power terminal on the computer, the computer shuts down, and dumps its passwords, as well as the date and time.
Any work in progress is also lost.
I work overseas, and Apple's advice was to give them my credit card number, await shipment of a new power supply and cord, and then, when I return the old power supply and cord, i'd receive a credit. That won't work, as packages from the US to my location take weeks if they arrive at all. There is no Apple Store within a reasonable distance. Or, Apple suggests, when I'm home on leave in mid-June, I should bring the computer to the Apple Store for repair--I have only days in which to do that, but I suppose I'll need to try. My concern is that I'll need to return overseas without my computer and won't be able to retrieve it for months, until my next leave.
This issue shows up elsewhere online. Is there a short in the power terminal in the computer, or on the Mag-Safe power cord, or within the computer itself? It's a known issue, thus I wonder why it hasn't been fixed.

Odd, but here's a copy of Page 1 of the links I got:
Apple Portables: Troubleshooting MagSafe adapters26 May 2011 ... If the spark comes from somewhere other than the blades of the plug, .... Apple Portables: Reducing cable strain on your MagSafe power ...
support.apple.com › Support - Cached
Apple - Support - Discussions - Magsafe sparked when plugging into ...
2 posts - 2 authors - Last post: 22 FebI plugged my magsafe adapter into my macbook pro (mid 2010 model i think ...
discussions.apple.com › ... › Power and Batteries on a MacBook Pro - Cached
Mag Safe power cord sparks when...: Apple Support Communities6 Jun 2011 ... Mag Safe power cord sparks when connected or disconnected ...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15350172
Show more results from apple.com
Apple power brick sparks lawsuit • The Register
- 4:52am6 May 2009 ... Apple power brick sparks lawsuit ... Apple, for its part, made the MagSafe one of the featured, um, features of the MacBook Pro when it ...
www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/06/apple_magsafe_lawsuit/ - Cached - Similar
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@apple MagSafe failure sparking all over the place, not recalled ...1 Jan 2011 ... ryanol: @apple MagSafe failure sparking all over the place, not recalled? Not repairable 79 bucks later #applefail another design fail for ...
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Amazon.com: Apple MagSafe 60W Power Adapter for MacBook MA538LL/A ...Genuine Apple 60W MagSafe Power Adapter for MacBook A1184 · 3.9 out of 5 stars (11) .... like it was burning.. the covering on the cord melted off.. sparked ...
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Insurance company claims Apple's 'dangerous' MagSafe started fire ...
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How to restrict disk space when using time machine for client backup on server?

We have 10 OS X SL Clients backing up on xserve SL with TM. Now 1 TB disk space is used and disk is full. The clients get the massage that the latest backup could not be finished due to target disk full. Clients run just OS X Standard Software plus Parallels with windows (max. 50 GB per client)
Why does TM not delete oldest backups like with external USB HD?
How can we restrict disk space on server to eg. 750 GB for total backup space for all clients?

johndave, did anyone ever respond to your post?

IMac, MacBook Pro, 750GB USB Hard Drive and Time Machine

I have my external hard drive partitioned and directly connected to my iMac. Time Machine mounts and backs up one partition. I have the other partition configured to share off of the iMac. The MacBook Pro sees the partition in time machine but the back up fails every time. I understand that the drive won't allow the two Macs to back up at the same time, so I've shut off Time Machine on the iMac....still no success. Could someone please point me in the right direction.

So I have made some head way regarding this odd problem. Turns out my memory card reader is fine I think. My memory card reader will eject on the right port using a 4GB Lexar 133X professional CF card but NOT on the left USB port. However ALL 3 of my sandisk CF cards work fine in the reader on both USB ports. These 3 cards range from all different speeds from 15MB/sex to 30MB/sec. My lexar is 20MB/sec rated. Go figure!?
As for the Western Digital My passport USB 3.0 drive I have come to the conclusion its the drive and not the port. Reading through various forums on Anandtech, Apple Support and the Western Digital website forum many people have had issues with these drives on USB 3 ports on both Windows and on the Mac.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2302617
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/My-Passport-2TB-USB-3-0-keeps- randomly-disconnecting-HELP/td-p/477224

Boot Camp and Time Machine

I have a Boot Camp partition on my MacBook Pro. I just turned Time Machine (TM) on. I had been using CCC for backups.
My 1st question is: If I need to do a restore on the entire Boot Camp partition, will it still be bootable after I restore?
2nd Question: I cannot see TM backup, is that normal or is something amiss?
TIA,
Bill

Correction on my post, I now understand that TM is not backing up the Boot Camp partition. Is there a way it will back up Boot Camp partition?
Bill

I ran out of space on my time machine because I bought a new I MAC to replace the old one. So I copied the old one on the new one and in addition to that I own a macbook. So what should I do erase the old IMAC on my Time capsule ? Shall I reset it?

I ran out of space on my time machine because I bought a new I MAC to replace the old one. So I copied the old one on the new one and in addition to that I own a macbook. So what should I do erase the old IMAC on my Time capsule ? Shall I reset it?

Go to the airport utility and erase the TC disk.. a quick erase is fine and takes less than 1min usually.
A one pass erase takes several hours depending on how big the hard disk is.. but is somewhat safer in that it tests the drive condition. I normally don't bother for a TM backup.
When you start over you should be able to fit both backups on the TC.. assuming the disk is 2x larger at least than the space used on both the MB and the iMac.
If not you can also add a USB drive to the TC, and use that for one of the computers.
The slowest one is best.. as USB is slow.. but fast enough for wireless you won't notice much.

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard. Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

I have a mid 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard and foolishly upgraded to Yosemite. Now have numerous problems. Is it possible to go back in time with Time Machine and reinstall Snow Leopard? Then upgrade to Lion or Mavericks? Any other ideas on how I can exit Yosemite?

Once you get yourself back to Snow Leopard, if you still want to upgrade somewhat, I would suggest the following:
1. Get an external hard drive that you can use for experiments with new OS versions. You could partition it into 2 or 3 partitions. You could then clone your existing Snow Leopard system to one partition using Carbon Copy Cloner (well worth $40) or SuperDuper ($25).
2. Buy OS X Mountain Lion for $20, through the Apple online store (I don't think it's available through the App Store). Apple has decided to make it very difficult for anyone to get Mavericks unless they have already downloaded it.
You will receive two e-mails from Apple, one containing a PDF with a redemption code, and one with the password you will need to unlock the PDF. Using the code, you will download Mountain Lion from the App Store, where it will appear among your Purchased items.
After ML finishes downloading, its installer app will launch itself. When you see this launch screen, QUIT the install app immediately! Go to your applications folder, find the Install OS X Mountain Lion app, and copy it to a safe location outside of your Applications folder. Keeping one or more copies will allow you to reinstall without unnecessary aggravation if you later need or want to do that. At this point, you can re-launch the Installer in the Applications folder and let it run. You can install it on a clean partition on your external HD, or you can allow it to upgrade the Snow Leopard clone you created on your external drive, or you can do both. This should allow you to test how everything works for as long as you like.
3. If you left yourself a free partition on your test drive, try a clean install of Yosemite and set everything up from scratch (do not migrate anything). This will allow you to see whether your problems with it were related to something in your Snow Leopard system.

MacBook Pro Disk Space Question and Time Machine

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