Question: How many have ever gotten a "backup full" message?

Question

Out of morbid curiosity, how many users of TM have ever gotten a warning that the backup drive was full? And I do not mean afterwards, but a popup is supposed to alert the user of an impending fullness before anything untoward occurs.
My backup drives are too large for that message, so I have never seen it.
Anyone?

Answer 1

Kappy wrote:
Here/s what I know:
On a weekly and monthly basis TM consolidates the backups and is supposed to remove files from the backup that have been deleted from the main drive. Obviously this may free up some space on the backup drive. As the drive fills up to the point where there is not enough space for the current backup then TM will delete the oldest versions of backed up files until it frees up enough space to complete the current backup. It is supposed to ask if it's OK to delete old backups. If it cannot remove enough old files to satisfy the required space for the current backup then it's supposed to pop up an alert that the disk is full.
True, but the box I have checked says to TM to warn me of any deletions, so at best it is misleading.
During weekly and monthly consolidations TM may delete files without informing you. It's my understanding that this is simply a normal TM process so the user is not alerted first. I have no specific information that confirms the notification when you check the option to warn before deleting will occur during the consolidation process. It isn't clear if that alert is supposed to occur during any consolidation if old files are deleted, or if it's only supposed to alert you when the drive has filled up to the point where the current backup's space requirements can not be satisfied without first deleting old files.
Again, the checked box does not have any "if's" I expect a warning.
These "inner" workings of TM seem not to have much documentation for what is going on, why, exactly what happens when a disk is full - the assumption is that TM consolidates weekly and monthly backups of older files so they can be deleted without screwing up the existing hierarchy.
From reports on the forums users have received disk full alerts without ever seeing any other alerts. But the information they usually post is so empty of decent reliable data that it's hard to know what's going on. Don't usually know what version of TM they were using, the reports are typically scarce on information about any prior alerts, so it's difficult to formulate what TM is really doing. Apple hides so much of TM from the user that we are essentially forced to deal with it like a black box, hence the difficulty in troubleshooting some of TM's more obscure errors.
All, I've learned about it since it's release with the first Leopard betas is that it's too unreliable for my tastes. It's extremely complex and Apple has hidden much of it behind a pretty user interface. Even most of the KB articles provide the barest information.
I even wonder if Apple fully understands it. Again, I point to the well-known, documented occasional backup failure bug that began with 10.5.3 and has not been fixed. I suspect nobody really knows why, or how to fix it, because if they knew, it would have been fixed since this occurred a very long time ago. It may never get fixed, FAIK, until a new OS is released.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe