Time Machine - 35 Min Backups On A Fresh Install (Pondini)?

Here's the scanario:
June 10th - system went haywire (ended up being a problem that dealt with Verify Disc - used the installer CD to fix). I fixed everything but then TM was suddenly taking 50 mins to back up (as oppsed to 5 -12 beforehand). 1st steps - repared pemissions - no help; next deleted TM Pref and rebooted Finder - no good; reset PRAM - no good; then started in Safe Mode (again - no resolution).
So I reinstalled 10.6 from the disc and did the 10.6.8 Combo update and came back to current. I wiped the T/M clean. Did a virgin backup. All was well. After that, backups were 5 - 7 minutes consistently.
Was well anyway until installing the last Security Update ( - 003) and/or Java Prefs update (seems to me they came up about the same time, so I'm not sure if one of them is the culprit). That was last week (instalation).
Anyway - since then, I'm back to backups taking 30 - 45 minutes (and Widget shows the jump to that from 5 -7 minutes to over 30 minutes happening all of a sudden).
Any idea what's going on?
I'm thinking about wiping T/M external clean and doing a virgin backup (but what is frustrating is that my oldest backup is only since June 10th when I did that before).
I see no use in again reinstalling 10.6 - lest I have to do it every dadgum single time I do a security update.
Any help - most appreciated!

I got a discussion thread here which suggests I can't
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3214393?start=0&tstart=0
Please help ...

Similar Messages

Can I restore from backup of time machine of Mountain Lion on a fresh install Older Snow Lepord

Currently I have OS X 10.8.5 on my macbook pro.
I have done much of the recovery tricks stated on variour threads. SO as apple support suggested I even tried the internet restore of the OS.
After a long wait the installable started and I selected the option to reinstall the OS. But it prompted back that that the version which I have installed on the the macbook pro was the latest and hence can't be replaced. So the option to restore from my time machine and I was able to work on the mac for sometime. I thought the issue was resolved, but it doesn;t seems so.
So will it be wise to completely wipe out the OS and reinstall from scratch. I have snow lepord OS DVD which originally came with the mac.
So if I install from scratch snow lepord, will I be able to restore files which were backed up on OS X Lion (current OS) ? Kindly advice.

I got a discussion thread here which suggests I can't
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3214393?start=0&tstart=0
Please help ...

How do I revert to abackup from time machine? The backups prior to Lyon install are not available - restore button is not active. I wish to return to Snow Leopard.

How Do I revert to Snow Leopard from Lyon?
The backups prior to Lyon install are not available... the restore button is not active.
thanks!

You need to do a full system restore from your last Snow Leopard backup.
See #14 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

Can I restore a time machine osx lion backup using snow leopard install DVD?

Hi.
I've been using osx lion but my hard drive died. Fortunately I have been making time machine backups. Since I downloaded lion from the app store I only have the snow leopard install disks.
I know there is an option to restore from a time machine backup using the snow leopard disk, but since the time machine backup is of a later operating system (lion) will that time machine restore work?
If it won't, can you recommend how to restore from my time machine backup?
Thanks.

Once the replacement hard drive is installed, boot from your original Snow Leopard Installation Disk. From there format the harddrive and install Snow Leopard and then download and install its Updates. Next, navigate to the Mac App Store and login using the Exact same Apple User ID that you did the first time you downloaded Lion. You will now be able to download and install the Lion OS for Free. Download and install the Lion Updates. Lastly, using Migration Assistant, migrate your Apps and Data from the Time Machine external hard drive to your internal Lion harddrive. This method should give you a very stable version of Lion on your internal harddrive complete with all your previous settings, Apps and Data.
Hope this helps

Time Machine - Restoring Files only to a fresh install of OSX

Hi folks,
had my 17' MBP for about a year now and love it, although in the last couple of month it's become frightening slow, jerk video playback and what not.
So I'd like to Format the Mac and re-install Snow Leopard to get full performance back, I have a Time Machine but don't want to do a system restore as I won't get any benefits of renewed performance etc, I'd just like it to restore my non-system files and possibly iTunes to avoid any iPhone/iPod/iPad syncing issues.
Is there any way of restoring just files only without having to manually pick them out of the Time Machine once I've formatted/re-installed Snow Leopard?
Thanks!

mlamb64150 wrote:
can you use that technique for iTunes as well?
no. you would restore iTunes using the finder.
you should restore the entire iTunes folder (not just the iTunes music folder).
JGG

How do I use a Mac Mini + Airport Express + Time Machine disk to backup another iMac

How do I use a Mac Mini + Airport Express + Time Machine disk to backup another iMac?
The question pretty much says it all.
I have a Mac Mini with an attached 3TB Hard Drive used for Time Machine Backups.
I have an Airport Extreme base station which services that machine plus several others.
I would like to backup my new iMac and a MacBook Pro to the Mac Mini.
What do I need to do on the mini to export that hard drive so that it can be used as a Time Machine target from the other systems?
All systems are running 10.6.8.

Well you would have to do backups over a network which is much slower and has highest chance of becoming corrupt. I think your best option would be to get an apple time capsule to act as a network and back if thats how you wanna do that

Time Machine does not backup home/user directory (on separate drive)

I recently installed a SSD into my Mini. Due to size restrictions, my home/user directory has to be kept on another drive. I retained the stock 1TB drive that came with the Mini for this.
Ok, installed the SSD, restored a Time Machine backups (sans user data). Used a different admin user and configured my user to use the 1TB drive for it's home directory (/Volumes/1TB/home/<user>). Restart, log in as my user, all is good. All data, settings, etc is there. Everything looks normal.
Time Machine REFUSES to backup this directory. It will backup the 1TB drive and anyting else I create in it, but not the home directory. I tried every permission trick I could think of or found online. I even tested it further by formatting the 1TB drive fresh, adding a new user, configuring the user to use the 1TB for their home directory and it still won't back it up (this was a test of permissions the OS set, to make sure I didn't change my data perms somewhere along the way). Time Machine would not backup the new user's home directory on the 1TB drive.
Any thoughts? I can't be the first person to have their home directory on a non-OS drive.
If I were to create a folder/file in /Volumes/1TB/<test file> ... Time Machine gets it perfect. It just will NOT touch /Volumes/1TB/home/<anything here>
Thanks!

Open the Time Machine preference pane and unlock the settings, if necessary. Click the Options button. If there is one particular folder with items that are not being backed up reliably, add it to the list of excluded items. If there are many such folders, add your home folder to the list, or add a whole volume (i.e., what Apple calls a "disk.") Save the changes.
Start a backup, or wait for one to happen automatically. When it's done, open the preference pane again and remove the exclusion(s) you made earlier. Back up again and see whether there's a change.

Time Machine Error: The backup was not performed because an error occurred

G'day (from Queensland, Australia)
Not for the first time Time Machine has broken down - originally in September 08 (I just can't recall how I fixed it!!).
Now it has failed after 14 months of faultless performance.
There seems to be little help available, but searching for solutions finds plenty of problems.
I get the message "The backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying to the backup disk.
The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair you backup disk."
(I have a Time Capsule as my backup disk)
Disk Utility runs and finds-
Verifying volume “Backup of xxxxxx’s iMac”
2010-01-25 12:16:09 +1000: Starting verification tool:
2010-01-25 12:49:21 +1000: The volume Backup of xxxxxx’s iMac appears to be OK.
2010-01-25 12:49:21 +1000: Repair tool completed:
So I search and find "Fix for broken Time Machine backups under Snow Leopard"
(http://www.andrewgrant.org/2009/09/22/fix-for-broken-time-machine-backups-under- snow-leopard.html) - downgrading to 7.4.1 of the Airport Extreme / Time Capsule firmware.
But still have the same Time Machine error!
On to http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=103919&highlight=TimeMachineError
and try-
"... suggesting would be something like renaming the existing TimeMachine file on your backup disk - e.g. add a date to the end of it.
And then go onto Time Machine preferences and set it up as if it were the first time you used it. (Renaming the file on the backup disk should make Time Machine think that you are starting fresh.)"
So, using Finder, I opened my Time Capsule and renamed "xxxxxx’s iMac_00224135e6fb.sparsebundle" as "091222xxxxxx’s iMac_00224135e6fb.sparsebundle091222"
And finally, this worked - I have my backups to 22 December and a complete backup as at today and hopefully for at least another 14 months!

pjh42 wrote:
G'day (from Queensland, Australia)
Not for the first time Time Machine has broken down - originally in September 08 (I just can't recall how I fixed it!!).
Now it has failed after 14 months of faultless performance.
There seems to be little help available, but searching for solutions finds plenty of problems.
On the contrary. At the top of this forum are four *User Contributed Tips,* including one on Troubleshooting that would have saved you a great deal of time.

Time Machine: "Partially Deleted Backup"

Last night, after Time Machine performed a backup and began its post-backup thinning, it got stalled on "Finishing backup... ." The system log showed that it was attempting to delete a previously partially deleted backup:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
The backup it was trying to delete was the last one on its list (i.e., the oldest one on that TM volume). And when I opened it up, it indeed appeared to be a partially deleted folder. So I let TM run. However, it never finished "Finishing backup... ," so after letting it run all night and all day, I simply told TM to stop. It did, and the system then added two more messages to the log, acknowledging my cancelation as well as TM's current success:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
Backup deletion was canceled by user
Backup completed successfully.
However, the next time TM ran, it began all over again:
Starting standard backup
Starting post-backup thinning
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2009-09-30-110803
It's still sitting there in its "Finishing backup..." mode.
I was thinking about entering Time Machine, selecting that backup, and telling Time Machine to delete that backup—and only that backup. But I'm (a) not sure that will address the actual problem, and (b) wondering if deleting that particular backup (i.e., the oldest one on the list) is advisable.
Suggestions?

Pondini wrote:
Maxwell’s Demon wrote:
I'm aware of the multilink nature of TM's backups. What I don't understand is how you immediately concluded that the backups were corrupted.
TM finding partially deleted backups, trying repeatedly to deleted them, and failing to.
(And yes, I though you meant that you'd tried to delete the backup yourself.)
It took forever. I ran TechTool Pro, and it "choked" (i.e., ran out of memory) trying to rebuild the directory. When I asked Disk Warrior to graph the directory, it revealed that it was more than 40% fragmented!
I'm not sure fragmentation is a problem, or even applies, given the structure of TM backups.
So I ran Disk Warrior. It ran without incident. When I then looked inside the TM drive, I discovered that along with rebuilding the directory—which is what I understood its job to be—DW apparently removed/deleted the offending (partially deleted) backup. The next time Time Machine ran, everything went smoothly. It's been running fine ever since.
Great! And yes, there are times it can repair/rebuild TM backups that nothing else can (I guess that's why it costs $100!).
I'm obviously quite pleased with the results: Not only did DW perform an incredible directory rebuild (fragmentation went from more than 40% to less than 1% !!) but it cleared out the partially deleted backup that was causing TM to stumble. But I remain awfully curious: Had I simply gone into Time Machine and deleted the partially deleted backup myself, wouldn't that have fixed the problem? (Granted, DW not only got TM back on track, but it also rebuilt its directory, which is a definite plus in my mind...I'm just trying to understand.)
It's possible you couldn't have deleted it completely, any more than TM was able to. Remember, a single backup folder has hard links to hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of other items. Just one of those being screwy can have a ripple effect through the whole structure.
And if you could have, it might well have left some of the actual backup files "abandoned" -- some or all of the hard links to them deleted, but still somewhere in the disk directory, so still taking up space.
I got the idea from
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090515063602219
which provided a link to the "solution" when partial backups remain that result in TM "error: 11" failures:
http://www.bytebot.net/blog/archives/2008/08/13/fixing-time-machine-backup-faile d-with-error-11
Admittedly, mine wasn't an "error: 11" problem, but it sure seemed similar. My hesitation/concern was due to the fact that the partially deleted backup was the last one (i.e., the "oldest") in my TM volume: I wasn't sure if deleting it would screw up all of the links used by the remaining backups. However, since DW removed it without causing any problems, it seems like I may have been able to accomplish the same result by removing it "manually" from within TM. If that is the case, then it suggests that there may not have been any actual "corruption."
Again, I am very happy with the result, and likely will resort to DW again the next time I have similar problems. The only reason I'm harping on it is simply to try to gain a deeper understanding of how to determine when such problems are indeed due to corruption as opposed to simply an errant file that causes TM to stumble. (Had TM indicated that it stumbled and was unable to successfully perform the backup, then I would have little doubt that there was actual corruption.)

Time Machine - mysteriously large Backup?!

I use Time Machine for hourly backups to a TimeCapsule. The most recent BU seemed to be taking a long time (most of mine are far less than 1GB), and after checking the progress, found it was trying to do a 28GB BU. I have no explanation for this, and checked the available space on my Mac's drive, but was about where I expected it to be (No additional mysterious 28 GB added to it).
Any ideas on what this could mean, or ways to investigate what the TimeMachine is attempting to BU?
Thanks!

Howdy -
I don't know what those are, and I can't imagine anything I have that would produce that much data. I did, however, do a shutdown and restart (afer stopping the backup attempt), and things seem to be normal again.
Thanks for the response - I'll be back here if things get wacky again...

Carbon Clone and Time Machine: developing a backup plan

Howdy all!
This is a second post that sort of flows on from another I have written today
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4649740
I initally put them all together, but they were too rambling and disconnected, so it seemed better to seperate them. The question I have here is how best to organise my backup plan? I have a few ideas, but, basically, want to make sure I get the whole setup right the first time and would appreciate any advice from others that have been down the path before. As I am still waiting for some parts to arrive in the mail, I have a little time to think about how to go about setting up my Mac.
Basically the setup is:
Mac Mini 2012, boot drive is a Samsung 256GB 830 series SSD, seconday drive for data is a 1TB mechanical disk. I plan on having all my data on the seconday mechanical disk (photos, movies, music etc) and only the OS and Applications on the SSD. To this end, I understand I only have to move /Users to the mechanical disk to achieve this. I then also have 2x 2TB Western Digital MyBook Essential USB 3 disks for Time Machine backups. I plan on rotating them on a weekly basis (storing the disk not in use in a safe or offsite), and then, depending on costs a cloud backup service for some data (music, photos etc) which I might want to access when im not at home.
So I have been thinking for a few days now on the benefit of having a Carbon Clone bootable recovery drive. The thinking goes along these lines. As my data is on a seperate drive, and is backed up to Time Machine, in the event of an OS disk failure, I can replace the disk and then point /Users to the new drive, and I can be up and running once I have reinstalled the apps i need. Now, I understand the idea of the Carbon Clone backup is such that it speeds up the time to rebuild the OS disk, but I have to question, how useful is this in reality?
Consider, I can sit down now and write down all the apps I have needed in the past, install Mac OS, set it up (possibly with a generic admin password), install the apps I need from the App store and DVDs etc and then take a Carbon Clone at this point before any setup of Apps are done. If the apps configuration is backed up in the Time Machine backup (i.e.: the config files exist under /Users) then this is almost workable - in a recovery situation, the CC clone is used to rebuild the OS drive, the config files are pulled from the TM backups, and we're back up and running. Where this fails, is if I have installed (or removed) apps since the CC clone was made. At this point then, is it best to (a) make a new clone when a new app is added/removed or (b) make a note of apps added/removed, which will then have to be reinstalled if a recovery is required. I tend to think the (b) method is best here, as it preserves the integrity of the clone. If the machine has been compromised (malware etc) then remaking the clone, causes the clone to be compromised and hence the reinstalled machine as well. Though this method could be a pain if the machine state has changed somewhat over time. Also, it means that the reinstalled system will be missing updates etc which could be time consuming to apply anyway, so the usefulness of a clone is slightly reduced anyway.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Some days I think having a clone will be useful esp. as most of my software was delivered on CD (Adobe Creative Suite, Office) or are large install bases (XCode), but other days I think, "its not a mission critical machine", i can survive a day without it while I rebuild the install, and so I dont achieve much by having a clone which is likely out-of-date by the time I go to use it.
Also, in this backup plan, is it best to rely on TM for things like email backup or a dedicated mail backup utility? can a Carbon Clone exist on the same disk as Time Machine uses, or do I need to invest in a new disk or two for the CC clones?
As I say, I want to make sure I have this machine setup right from the start, and would really appreciate any pointers, tips or advice.

There is one big advantage of a clone. You can immediately reboot
to it and continue working and deal with the regular boot drive faiure,
what ever it may be, later. Especially since all your data and such
is on another drive. If you use your computer for work and time
critical projects, this is a major plus!
In the case of a hard drive failure/replacement, copying the clone
to the drive is the fastest way to get the system and all your settings
back.
Time Machine and incremental backups have a place as well. It is best
suited for "incremental" problems. Examples are installing an upgrade to
software that doesn't work or just don't plain like. With Time Machine it
is easy to just restore back to the point before the install.
Something else I do is backup current project files to USB memory sticks.
If you are using your computer for business, you can never have too many
backups. Coralllary 456 of Murphy's Law is the "number of backups that
you need will be one more than what you have!"

Leopard applications all hang while Time Machine prepares for backup

I'm sure others have posted about this but I can't find a usable solution. I have the most recent version of Leopard, a 1TB external FireWire drive dedicated to Time Machine storage and about 400GB of backups on it. Every day at some point, Time Machine starts a backup, pauses while preparing, and the entire Mac grinds to a halt. New processes won't launch, open applications hang, Finder becomes unresponsive, menus and dock freeze in whatever position they were in at the point of launch, and I can't cancel the backup process.
The only solution is to turn off the backup drive while its running and wait for the Mac to wake up again (which it does in under a minute). I have no virus protection running. I have erased the drive and started fresh at least once to no avail.
Since I am effectively breaking a live connection every time I turn the drive off without unmounting it first (an obvious no-no), the data has great potential to be getting more and more screwed up. What can I do?

Message logs:
October 12, 2009, 1:43:25 AM
Volume at path /Volumes/Racer BU does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Backup failed with error: 18
October 12, 2009, 11:32:32 AM
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Racer X
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 984.2 MB requested (including padding), 443.72 GB available
Copied 21948 files (368.1 MB) from volume Racer X.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 548.2 MB requested (including padding), 443.35 GB available
Copied 961 files (965 KB) from volume Racer X.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-215828: 443.35 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-205855: 443.36 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-195856: 443.40 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-185908: 443.46 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-175907: 443.51 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
October 12, 2009, 12:18:32 PM
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 954.4 MB requested (including padding), 443.51 GB available
Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
Copied 16717 files (339.6 MB) from volume Racer X.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 569.5 MB requested (including padding), 443.17 GB available
Copied 634 files (18.7 MB) from volume Racer X.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-225832: 443.24 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-165828: 443.25 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-155855: 443.30 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-145857: 443.36 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Racer BU/Backups.backupdb/Eric’s Mac Pro/2009-10-10-135852: 443.38 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 5 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
October 12, 2009, 4:46:51 PM
Starting standard backup
Volume at path /Volumes/Racer BU does not appear to be the correct backup volume for this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Backup failed with error: 18
etc...
The long periods between backups are when it is "preparing for backup" and nothing is happening. Sometimes this is while I'm not using it and the machine is asleep.

Time machine will not backup after maverick

This is a major problem, not addressed in the installation instrucitons. The disk runs eternally "preparing backup", I mean all night.
This happened to two machines on entirely separate backup disks. And if we are sacraficing the old data in reformating the drive, I would like to know about that before choosing to upgrade.

Update: Finally...
At least for the Promise Pegasus R4... but I noticed on other threads that WD drives are also acting up too so this might work with them too.
I turned off Time Machine, and deleted that pesky .plist file, again. I unplugged the R4, power and thunderbolt, then played whack the gopher with the drives swapping them around randomly. I reintalled Mavericks from a fresh download, yet again, then set Time Machine to backup on a fast USB 3TB drive (which it did in 6 hours or so). Then I turned off Time Machine, deleleted that .plist file again, rebooted the iMac, plugged in the R4, reformatted it again with Disk Utility, then hooked it to Time Machine, said a few slightly heretic prayers to whatever demons came with Maverick, and 2 minutes later Time Machine started to backup and report 1 hour to complete... the hour isn't up yet, but I'm crossing everything I have 2 of...
I've noticed a few other 'didn't copy over or mesh well' things with Maverick, but that's a different thread and 2 updates from now once we all suffer through this extended beta-test by Apple.
John Galt posted this on another thread... to find and delete that pesky .plist file:
or "error ... while creating the backup folder."
and follow that to:
http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html

Time Machine Folder-Specific Backup

Hello all,
I have a new external hard drive that I want to use as a Time Machine backup drive. I want Time Machine to only backup 4 folders. Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures. I just want the data in those folders to be backed up. No system backups, preferences, applications, etc... I just want those 4 folders and their contents, but I'm seemingly unable to figure out how. Thank you!
Nick

Nicolas Online wrote:
Yeah I kinda figured.
If I backup everything, when I do a restore, it will restore everything including all the system files etc.
that would only be if you do full system restore. you can easily restore any individual files you want without restoring the whole system. nothing is stopping you there. full system backups gives you flexibility to go with either option and there is never a worry that you forgot to back up something. for example, you mentioned only
Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures. what about your Mail data? your address book data? your passwords, your bookmarks? you don't want any of these?
The advantages of installing a fresh copy and just re-installing the applications one needs is advantageous. Furthermore, when one does a full system restore its usually because things weren't going well, so to decide at which backup point it is better is subjective. I think time machine is great for retrieving files deleted by accident and/or having it automatically backup new pictures, movies, music, etc...
Are you familiar would you recommend "Backup 3.1" it's available to MobileMe users.
I don't use Mobile me so I'm not familiar with Backup.

Time machine won't backup, yet plenty of space & not much used on Mac HD

Well, this is yet another "Time machine won't backup becuase there is not enough space" thread. I have searched Google and threads here but it's still a mystery why this error is occurring and it seems there is no clear solution. I also looked at the Apple Time Machine errors FAQ as well.
Here are my specs and what I have tried so far.
2010 Mac Pro Quad Core with 1 TB hard drive with 12 GB RAM. (137 GB used so far on internal Mac hard drive disk, so about 863 GB free space).
- New external 1 TB hard drive initialized as Time Machine backup disk when inserted for the first time.
The exact error I am getting is this: "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 1.80 TB but only 999.20 GB are available."
I have tried deleting the Time Machine system preference, reinitializing the external disk, clearing the system caches with Cocktail, restarting and letting Time machine ask me all over again if I wanted to use the external drive for Time Machine. Still the same error.
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?

danomatic12 wrote:
My question is how on earth can 1.80 TB be required for the backup when I only have 137 GB of used space?
Two possibilities:
There's another disk (or disks) connected to your Mac. If they're formatted HFS+, Time Machine is trying to back it/them up as well. You can exclude them per #10 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). The 1.8 TB includes 20% for temporary workspace on the TM drive, so TM is estimating the backup at about 1.5 TB.
Something on your internal HD is corrupted, causing an incorrect calculation. Verify your internal HD, per #6 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum).

Time Machine - 35 Min Backups On A Fresh Install (Pondini)?

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