Resize Time Machine sparsebundle size in Disk Utility

I have two MacBooks backing up to a 500GB Time Capsule. Each has a sparsebundle on the Time Capsule that seem to have maximum sizes of the entire disk.
Can I resize each sparsebundle in Disk Utility to something smaller, say 100GB, by simply dragging the partition size down?
If I create a third sparsebundle and mount it can I then use it to store miscellaneous files, basically acting as a NAS drive.
I have seen many topics that discuss ways to limit the size of a Time Machine archive, but I don't think that this one hasn't been presented.
Thanks.

You've got other problems in addition to the Erase being grayed out.
The menu icons at the top are not right either. The Info, Burn and Eject menu items should be active also.
I'd suggest quitting Disk Utility, reboot your system and trying again.
Post back if that doesn't fix it.
regards

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My MacBook pro won't recognize hard drive I put in it. It boots only to a white screen unless I boot to my recovery USB. If I do that then I can select my USB and my external time machine drive in the disk utility, so no problems there. But what do you

My MacBook pro won't recognize hard drive I put in it. It boots only to a white screen unless I boot to my recovery USB. If I do that then I can select my USB and my external time machine drive in the disk utility, so no problems there. But what do you think it is? It won't recognize any hard drive I put in the machine, so might it be the sata cable?

Boot the Recvoery USB, use Disk Utility to select the internal drive makers namea and size on the left.
Now select erase and select the midde option and click erase, it will take a bit to complete but it's best for the drive.
Now select Partiton tab, click the big box and Options: GUID and then Format: OS X Extended journaled and click apply.
Quit and you should be able to install OS X now with your Apple ID and password.
see
http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/08/lion-recovery-disk-assistant-tool-makes-external- lion-boot-recovery-drives/

Time machine greyed out in disk utility

I want to erase a time machine backup to use the HD on a different system, yet it's greyed out in disk utility.
The HD still works fine and I can restore files from it and time machine itself still works backing up to it.
I cannot however erase it using disk utility.
Here's a screenshot.
What am I doing wrong?

You've got other problems in addition to the Erase being grayed out.
The menu icons at the top are not right either. The Info, Burn and Eject menu items should be active also.
I'd suggest quitting Disk Utility, reboot your system and trying again.
Post back if that doesn't fix it.
regards

Restore on new drive: Time Machine versus "Restore" via Disk Utility

I am about to install a new 240GB OWC Mercury Electra 6G (6Gb/s) SSD into the main drive bay of my MacBook Pro, moving the original Apple-installed 120GB 3G (3Gb/s) SSD into the optical bay using an OWC "Data Doubler."
I have my entire Mac OS X Yosemite install, all apps, and all data (that is, the entire contents of the original SSD) backed up to an external Time Machine backup drive.
I'll want to make the new SSD in the main bay my bootable drive, restoring my original SSD's system to the new SSD. The original SSD will then be erased.
Question is, what are the differences between these two restore strategies:
1. Restore from Time Machine to the new SSD
2. "Restore" via Disk Utility, using my original SSD (in the optical bay) as the "Source" and the new SSD (in the main bay) as the "Destination"
Are there any fundamental difference between these two approaches? Such as:
- Is one faster than the other?
- Does one involve more or less risk in some settings or such being "lost in translation" and needing to be reset?
- Would both methods of restore include a recovery partition on the new SSD?
MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011, Macbook8,3) | 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 | Yosemite 10.10.2

Thanks Kappy - to clarify / confirm: are you saying that the "Restore from Time Machine" approach would *not* include the Recovery HD (and, possibly inferring, that under that approach, getting the Recovery HD would be possible but would require an additional step)?

I can't clone (Duplicate) my Time Machine backup properly via Disk Utility

I have an ext. HDD Time Machine backup sitting beside my 10.8 MBP.
I want to create an identical ext. HDD Time Machine backup, because it's safe to have 2 identical HDDs backing up my system.
But when I follow this apple guideline, a problem occurs:
Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive
URL: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5096
The problem is I get a strange path even if I drop "Backups.backupdb" of 3TB1 (The source HDD) onto the root level of 3TB2, the destination HDD (I mean there's nothing in there so I just drag & drop onto the HDD). And the result is my new ext. HDD eating up about 60GB more space.
I have attached pictures of the paths for both Source HDD and Destination HDD, please look.
Why does it alter my file hiearchy like this?
Please help some high-level Mac guy thanks!

Why not just use TM to back up to 2 external drives. TM will alternate between the two when it backs up.
Alternately, you could have a 2 back up strategy like others have using SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. Both are excellent 3rd party apps to clone your internal drive(s) and both have schedulers.

HT3275 Time Machine Error: The backup disk image "Volumes/Data/My Macbook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use. (How do I correct this issue?)

Time Machine did not back up:
Time Machine Error; ("The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/My MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" is already in use.")
How do I correct this issue?
Thanks!

You need to be careful Bob.. people might take this literally.
Bob Timmons wrote:
How do I correct this issue?
Call the exterminator to get rid of the bugs in Lion and Mountain Lion.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5222487?tstart=0

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Dan's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Dan’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use.

Make sure that no other Macs are backing up at the time.
Pull the power cable from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cable back into the back of the Tme Capsule
Wait a few minutes, then try a backup again.

I am running 10.7.5 and getting Time Machine error The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Kathy P's MacBook.sparsebundle" is already in use. what do i do now?

i am running 10.7.5 on an older MacBook and getting Time Machine error The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Kathy P’s MacBook.sparsebundle” is already in use. what do i do now?

See Pondini's TM FAQs, for starters.

HT3275 TIME MACHINE ERROR: The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Sean McGuire's MacBook Pro.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 1).

I can select a disk (Time Capsule) and initiate the backup. It only "waits to back up" then "making backup disk available" and remains frozen there. I tried to update the software a while back and was unsuccessful, I think that may be the issue.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated. This is the error message I receive.
TIME MACHINE ERROR: The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Sean McGuire’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 1).
Thanks

See #C17 in Pondini's excellent support document Time Machine - Troubleshooting
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

What can I do when I get this message from my Time Machine? The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/Jeanne's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

What do I do when I get this message on my Time Machine? "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/Jeanne’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use."

See C12.
Time Machine Troubleshooting

I'm getting an error message on my time machine backup: "The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data/MacBook.sparsebundle" is already in use." Any suggestions?

I'm getting an error message on my time machine backup: "The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data/MacBook.sparsebundle” is already in use." Any suggestions?

Excellent apple networking on Lion or ML is usually the issue.
Reboot the TC.. if that don't fix it.. reboot the whole network.. modem.. router.. TC.. clients.. restart in that order.
There are tools.. download the real tool if you have lion..
For ML you are stuck with toyland.. AU 6.1 .. good luck with the plastic hammer.
Read C12 and C17
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Limiting Time Machine backup Size with WD MyBookLive and 10.8

I cannot take credit for the any part of this solution; merely for merging and clarifying how the solutions discovered by 2 Apple Support Communities contributors much smarter than I (namely “Pondini” – Florida and “himynameismarek”) - worked perfectly for my situation. All cudo’s to these two!
I have about average or better PC skills, but am an absolute newbie with Apple. This week I got a new iMac. Having a number of home PC’s all sharing files and back up space on a Western Digital MyBookLive (“WD MBL”) 3TB network drive (NAS), naturally I wanted to use it to backup the new Mac rather than rushing out to buy an Apple Time Capsule.
There are hundreds of threads on limiting size of a Time Machine (“TM”) backup, many of which required entries in “Terminal” or were devised on older versions of OSX. I’m running OSX Mountain Lion 10.8, so was concerned they may not work.
The issues I wanted to resolve were:
Time Machine will use up all of the space on my WD MBL if left to it’s own devices.
The WD MBL is compatible with Mac and PC’s… which is good… but unlike a back up in Windows 7 Pro which will allow you to make backups in a mapped “share” you create yourself, Apple TM Backups will not; they end up in a hidden folder on the NAS (much like PC backups done with WD Smartware)
At first I thought maybe I could limit the size of a share created in the MBL, but not possible, at least not that I've seen and I have searched for days.
The solutions:
First make sure you have the latest firmware for the WD MBL as of today it is MyBookLive 02.11.09-053. From what I’ve read Western Digital fixed the compatibility issues with 10.8 Mountain Lion just recently.
Next you need to start TM so that it starts to create a back up. You can stop the back up once you see files being copied. Do this before you walk thru the video tutorial by my Marek below. WD MBL will create the hidden folder you need to find for TM Backups. This folder is called “TimeMachine” but it is not visible even in the “MBL_NAME-backup” folder in Finder.
Open safari and type “ afp://xxx.xxx.x.xxx ” but use your own ip address of your MBL. Mine was 192.168.1.120, yours will be different.
It will ask how you want to connect. CHOOSE AS A GUEST even if your MBL is protected… I’m not sure why it works but it does. Then a window will come up asking which share you’d like to mount. You will see all of your own shares plus one called software and now one called “TimeMachine”. Choose that one.
Now in “Finder” you will see a mounted shared item called “YOUR_MBL_NAME-“ (the same as the one that is probably already there but with a dash(-) at the end). You’ll also see a new “device” in the device list called “Time Machine Backups” (If you already have watched the video tutorial by Marek, you’d know you are looking for a file called “YOUR_MACHINE_NAME.sparsebundle”. Well if you browse the folder “Backups.backupdb” in the Time Machine Backups device you won’t find it… again I don’t know why but you won’t. It resides in the hidden folder called “TimeMachine” that is now visible in the thing you just mounted in step 4)
NOW watch this video tutorial http://youtu.be/Nq7mSizqUSI and follow it step by step.
Voila... issues resolved. Thank you Pondini and Marek!

Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
should work to limit Time Machine backup size on any NAS or external disk (or not...)
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 500000
to return to ilimited
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
if you want to reclame deleted files space shrink it use
hdiutil resize -size 500g -shrinkonly /Volumes/TimeMachineYOURNAME/YOURNAME.sparsebundle/
Regards

Strange error trying to restore from time machine sparsebundle

I had my iMac hard drive go bad, so I replaced it, powered the unit back up and booted into the Snow Leopard install disk.
I got to the step where I'm trying to restore from my Time Machine .sparsebundle and I selected the date and time of the backup I wanted to restore. When I click Next to go the next screen (Select a Destination) the utility gets stuck "Searching for Disks," and below that a warning icon says
"This disk does not have enough space to restore your system."
This sounds scary, and as the Time Machine drive now has the sole copy of my data I'm reluctant to do anything to it.
Does anyone know what's going on?
Thanks in advance,
Dan.

Are you sure the new drive is formatted properly?
Check it via Disk Utility (you can get there from the same Utilities menu where you selected +Restore from backups).+
Select the top line of the drive (with size and make). Be sure the *Partition Map Scheme* at the bottom says +GUID Partition Table.+
Then select the next line, with the name you gave it, and be sure the Format shown towards the lower left is +Mac OS Extended (Journaled),+ unless you made it +Mac OS Extended (Case-Sensitive, journaled),+
Also see how much space it shows for Available to the right.

Moving time machine backups to another disk

I'm trying to move my time machine backups one external drive to another. I'm getting an error that says "The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled."
I was told I had to check off Ignore Permissions for this disk but I have no idea where to do that. it is not in GET INFO. I am using Snow Leopard.
Any ideas how I can copy the time machine files from one disk to another?
Thanks.

I recommend doing as I suggested. Cloning is the only correct way to backup a Time Machine backup drive. If you have data on the other drive you don't wish to lose then create a new partition on that drive. See the following:
To resize the drive do the following:
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.

Limiting Time Machine backup size onto external drive

I have a 6TB RAID LaCie external drive that I would like to use with Time Machine. My mac has a 1TB HD which is not full. I do not want Time Machine to fill up my external drive with multiple backups. Is there some way to limit how much space Time Machine will use on an external drive? My understanding is that Time Machine will fill up the drive completely, then start overwriting the oldest files.
I do not think that I could partition the drive. But I am not sure how to do that, if it works with mac, and if I can do it now without reformating the drives. I am looking to see if there is a solution on the Time Machine software side.

Try Use Terminal to limit Time Machine sparcebundle size on timecapsule,
should work to limit Time Machine backup size on any NAS or external disk (or not...)
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize500000
to return to ilimited
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
if you want to reclame deleted files space shrink it use
hdiutil resize -size 500g -shrinkonly /Volumes/TimeMachineYOURNAME/YOURNAME.sparsebundle/
Regards

Resize Time Machine sparsebundle size in Disk Utility

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