Time machine always backs up same amount of data

When backing up with Time Machine it always backs up the same amount of data each time (140GB).  I am not modifying 140GB of data each day or even each week so why does Time Machine always default to this amount of data?
I would like TM to only backup modified data so that I am not waiting hours for TM to complete backup.  Looking for a reset or workaround for this issue. 
Mac Pro 10.8

See D4 in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine Slow & Backs Up Large Amounts of Data - The Fix

    This is about Time Machine becoming very slow and taking hours to backup and trying to backup large amouts of data each time.
    I spent a month on the phone with 2nd level Tech support and engineering - every other day.
    I have 4 computers (one was a clients), all with different backup systems: Time Capsule over CAT 6 Gigabit Ethernet through a Thunderbolt monitor, internal eSata to external 6 TB RAID 5, Wireless to Time Capsule, Firewire 800 to External 2 TB RAID 1 dive.
    With the install of 10.8.5 (the itermediate update to 10.9) I immedialety had Time Machine problems on all four computers. As I said, I spent a month talking with Apple. Also during this time I purchased 2 new MacBook Pro 13  Retinas. Installed Norton Internet Security 5 on them and they had the same problem. The new Retina's had 10.9 on them, so this is about 10.8.5 and 10.9.
    After doing Data Capture on 3 of the computers for engineering (a new MBPro13R and my MacPro, and a MBPro 13 Mid-2012), engineering finally figured out what was happening.
    Norton Internet Sucrity 5 for Mac is not longer compatible. As my 2nd level tech said: " Engineering told him, engineering needs to call Norton and figure out what they did to their program to cause this."
    The fix is to completely remove Norton and all it's components (using the uninstall app inside the Symantec folder). Once you do that, Erase your backup drive, Restart everything, Re-connect your computer to your drive - then it immediately works perfectly.
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    Don't forget the first backup will take hours since it is starting over clean and must do a complete backup the first time. After that it works fine.
    I'm not going to put Norton back in my computers until I find that Norton has acknowledged this problem, or they come out with Norton Internet Security 6.
    I reposted this here because on another post it was on the 20 page.
    Hope this helps

    Guitarfx wrote:
    Time Machine has worked properly for me for several months. However, in the last week or two I have noticed some very strange behavior. Basically, Time Machine wants to backup virtually my entire system every few days or so.
    How often do you let TM do backups? If it hasn't backed up for several days, it may indeed be doing a new, full, backup. Apple doesn't document this, but many folks believe it's about 10 days.
    Download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget from: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/timemachinebuddy.html. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window.
    It first shows the most recent backup. Navigate to one of the large backups, and examine the messages. If you see something there that seems suspicious, copy and post the messages here (be sure to get them all, as sometimes they overflow the small window).
    I presume that for whatever reason, Time Machine believes my files are changing and therefore proceeds backing them all up. I can't really think of anything special I have done with my system in the last month which would cause this, but have tried formating my Time Capsule and starting over with a fresh backup--to no avail.
    There are some applications that cause large backups, often because they use a single file, often a database, to store their data. Entourage is a common one: every time you send or receive a single message, the whole database is changed, and will be backed-up the next time. Apple mail, of course, stores messages individually to prevent this.
    FileVault is similar, in an even bigger way: it converts your entire Home Folder into a single, encrypted disk image. So any change to anything in your Home Folder is treated as a change to the encrypted image. TM minimizes the impact, though, by only backing it up when you log out.
    So consider this while examining the results from TimeTracker, as VA2020 recommended.

  • Time machine always backs up a minimum 2GB to Time Capsule

    For some reason Time Machine always likes to back up a minimum of 2GB, even with virtually no use of my laptop. I do not think it did this before I got the Time Capsule, but its quite obvious now since the Time Capsule is noticeably slower.
    Does anyone else have this occur and is there a way to prevent it?

    Welcome to the discussions!
    Are you running Aperture, Entourage, VM Fusion or other programs with a monolithic file structure? One small change in one email results in the entire Entourage data base being backed up since the program views any change as a total change. Same for the other programs. This can fill up a drive really fast.
    Download Time Tracker to get a look at what is being backed up on each pass that Time Machine makes.
    It takes some time for the program to load, so allow 4-5 minutes before you start to click on the backups to see what is taking up all of the space.

  • How to use Time machine to back up to a later date?

    Recently got a new drive from apple cuz old drive died.
    I could only use Time machine for a complete back-up on 8/22/12 but I can't copy or access the files from 11/21/12 in time machine..
    Tried copying the specific file I needed and the computer as a whole but the files that show up are only the ones that are already there on 8/22/12.
    Could this be because my newer file system is 10.8.2 and the old restore point is still 10.7.5? Please help.

    I'm totally confused... sorry. What do you mean by "try to back up to 11/21/12"? Did you mean "restore from 11/21", or are you actually trying to backup new data on your Time Machine drive?
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    Alternatively, if you have your installation DVDs (if your computer came with one, or alternatively you can boot to the recovery partition) you can restore your entire system to your latest Time Machine backup. When you select the option to do so from the Utilities menu, you're given a choice of dates, which correspond to valid restore points in your backup drive. So, in this case, you would choose the one from 11/21. Hope this answers your question!    

  • Time Machine drive showing much smaller amount of data than on internal HDD.

    I am helping a friend that has an iMac running 10.7.5 with a TM backup drive. External HDD is formatted as Extended Journaled Case Sensitive.( Default via TM grabbing the disk initially and setting it up.)
    Both internal HDD and TM HDD have been verified in Disk Utility. TM drive shows the size of the backups.backups folder as 11GB and the internal drive has 320GB of data on it. No items were excluded from the TM backup as an option. Running a backup to TM is successful with no error messages.
    Disk Permissions were repaired on the internal HDD but it is not an option for the TM HDD ( grayed out in DU) .
    I tried the tips from this thread:
    https://discussions.apple.com/message/19018287#19018287
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    Pondini has had GREAT advice on all things TM!!!!! What a fantastic resource for us all! This is the only backup of the data at this point. The friend is also having issues with a large iPhoto Library and before I option & boot iPhoto to repair library permissions etc, I want to know the TM HDD is truly functioning correctly.
    Any thoughts?

    It has failed. It says it requires 318 GB of space, which is ludicrous.
    Feb 1 17:02:25 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Backup requested by user
    Feb 1 17:02:25 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Starting standard backup
    Feb 1 17:02:25 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Backing up to: /Volumes/kuhi/Backups.backupdb
    Feb 1 17:02:25 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
    Feb 1 17:02:25 koishi KernelEventAgent[37]: tid 00000000 received unknown event (256)
    Feb 1 17:02:26 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: koishi
    Feb 1 17:05:20 koishi login[7705]: DEAD_PROCESS: 7705 ttys001
    Feb 1 17:07:49 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Backup content size: 292.1 GB excluded items size: 26.4 GB for volume koishi
    Feb 1 17:07:49 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Starting pre-backup thinning: 318.79 GB requested (including padding), 297.64 GB available
    Feb 1 17:07:49 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
    Feb 1 17:07:49 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
    Feb 1 17:07:49 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Backup Failed: unable to free 318.79 GB needed space
    Feb 1 17:07:54 koishi /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[7799]: Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
    I will now force a Spotlight re-indexing of my source drive.
    d.

  • Time Machine not backing up all data

    Hello All,
    I just bought a Time Capsule 2TB and have Macbook pro early 2011 (running Lion OSX). I wanted to do to a time machine backup. Everything went well. I got it connected good and the backup started very weel. My HDD is about 400 GB and when the time machine started back up it started with data and the progress bar showed the total data to be back up (400GB), but then it backed up only 30 GB out of 400 GB.
    I have most of my files in iphoto and ivideo. Is this normal? Why didnt TIme machine did not back up all 400GB?
    Any idea?

    Then there are two possibilities:
    The backup failed, but you didn't see the message.  See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.   It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it.    If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages.
    Or, some things didn't get backed-up.  A partial explanation could be iPhoto -- if the iPhoto app is open when a backup runs, Time Machine may not be able to back up your iPhoto library.  It will attempt to "catch up" the next time, but in the meantime you may not have any backups of it.
    That's unlikely to be the whole difference, though.   Does the figure of 400 GB seem reasonable to you -- can you account for most of it?   

  • Can't get Time Machine to back up server or attached drives

    Tried to use the search on these new discussion forums and was told I'm not authorized to search the server forums so sorry if this has already been asked and answered.
    I'm having a serious issue trying to back up my Mac Mini Server running 10.6.7.  The setup is I've got the main server hard drive running the OS and storing user folders, the second drive is storing all server data (mail, ical, etc).  I have an attached Drobo that is where all our company's job files are stored.  I want to back up mainly the job files to an external USB drive via time machine.  I wouldn't mind having the server and data backed up as well but it's not as essential as the customer files.  I have not been able to get a successful Time Machine Backup of anything.  Time Machine will start backing up and hang after what seems like a random amount of data has been backed up.  This can range anywhere from a few hundred Gigabytes or a few Megabytes.  The last attempt has stalled out at 17MB of 518GB.
    The troubleshooting I've done so far is to try to back up only certain things, so:
    Format the USB Drive then try to back up only the main server hard drive, excluding all else.
    Format the USB Drive then try to back up only the server data hard drive, excluding all else.
    Format the USB Drive then try to back up only our jobs folder on the Drobo, excluding all else.
    The result has been the same every time.  Seemingly random amount of data get's copied and then the backup hangs.  I do not get an error message the Time Machine backup icon on the menu bar just keeps spinning and I have the Time Machine window up that says:
    Time Machine Backup
    Backing up 269,376 Items
    17.3 MB of 518.7 GB
    This current attempt was to backup just our jobs folder and was started yesterday morning so it has been over 24 hours.  Disk Checks on the external USB drive come up with no errors every time I've scanned it.
    Hoping someone has a solution.  One of the main reason's the company owner decided to get a mac server was how well time machine worked on his mac at home and the idea of being able to go back to pervious versions of customer jobs if necessary.

    I agree with Sven.  I use TM to backup my server and have had EXCELLENT success.  I work in a school with many teachers that love to delete files and empty the trash on their user accounts.
    >>facepalm<<
    They promptly come-a-runnin' crying about how they've lost that ever important document.  Time machine to the rescue!
    About the hanging problem...  I've see it as well.  I fixed it by finding the document that it was trying to back up.  I copied it to a USB stick and deleted said file from the server.
    I ran the time machine backup again, and it worked!  I kindly asked the teacher to just remake the file in question.  Luckily it wasn't anything important.  I just chalked that one up to a corrupt or unreadable file.
    Another thing to beware of.  DO NOT expect time machine to be able to do a complete system restore on OS X server.  It's great for getting those lost files while the system is up and running, but it will not work when trying to replace your Open Directory.  It might get stuck on MySQL, and Mail as well.  These databases are VERY finicky.  If you need to back up your OD database, open up server admin and select "Open Directory."
    Click the "Archive" button at the top.
    To the far right hand side of the "Archive in" field, click choose. 
    Select the location that you want to save your archive to (the time machine drive will work) and click choose.
    Click "Archive..."  Type the name for your OD backup and type a password if desired.  You don't need to have one. 
    Lastly... Smile on the inside knowing that your OD is nicely backed up and safe!

  • My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.

    My time machine always stops at some point... It always shows this message: "Time Machine Error. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume. I have tried everything and even did time machine in safe boot as told by an apple suppoprt advisor. still the same error after 16gb

    If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
    Launch the Console 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, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
    ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
    Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
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    Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to a failed backup. Now
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    If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
    If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
    When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
    Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
    Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

  • What's the trigger for Time Machine to back up a FileVault folder?

    Hi,
    I have been enjoying the new MacBook pro and the useful FileVault for weeks now. I read quite some discontent with FileVault, which indeed could be better, but still it provides useful and free encryption.
    With regards to backup on Time Machine, the Home Folder back up supposedly only happen when you log out of a FileVault encrypted account. Meanwhile, I don't always get how it starts and the rules for the Home folder to be backedup.
    I make daily changes on my Home folder and the backup only starts once every other week, maybe randomly? Only few times i see the backup progress bar at shutdown and it seems to happen only after a certain amount of additional data has been added.
    Has anyone more insight in how the backup (i.e. at log out, only way to backup on TM with FileVault) is triggered? Is there a way to make it a mandatory operation at log out, when my backup drive is available? As I use a WiFi HD (through airport), is it related that backup only occur once in a while and not at each logout
    thanks for any tip
    Y.

    With FileVault enabled Time Machine only backs up when you log out or shut down, unfortunately And when it does it copies the entire encrypted .sparseimage every time. There is no incremental backup when FileVault is enabled.
    Regards,
    Michael

  • HT201250 I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was?

    I use Time Machine to back up my entire computer with my external hard drive. I am getting a brand new iMac this month and was wondering what is the process of using this back up to restore my new computer exactly how my old computer was? I want to make sure I will still have various important files on my new computer, like my songs in iTunes, my photos in iPhoto, etc, etc. Thanks so much in advance!

    Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
    When you turn on the new iMac for the first time, Setup Assistant will ask you to restore a backup, so connect the external disk and follow steps to restore all your files to your new iMac. Your new Mac will have the same settings and programs as your old computer.
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  • Why am I unable to connect to my airport whenever I put my computer to sleep while the time machine is backing up?

    Ever since I installed Lion (version 10.7), I am unable to reconnected to my Time Capsule and get on the internet after I put my computer to sleep and then wake it back up. This doesn't happen all the time -- just when I put my computer to sleep when Time Machine is backing up. If I put my computer to sleep when it's not backing up, it's fine. If it is backing up though, when I wake my computer up again, it is unable to reconnect to the Time Capsule to allow me to use the internet. I have to wake the machine up, click on "Stop Backing Up", wait 30-60 seconds, click "Turn Wi-fi off", wait another 30 seconds, turn it back on and then I am fine. If I just turn wifi off and on without stopping the backup, it doesn't work and I am still unable to connect to the internet. I currently have 10.7.1 but it still has the same bug. 10.6.x did not have this bug. Other than "don't put your computer to sleep when Time Machine is backing up," any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    In this case, that hint may help.
    According to Apple support, some configuration files may get damaged or corrupt by time, after updates or upgrades and should get deleted ocasionally.
    OK ... switch off wifi on the machine.
    Then go on and delete the files mentioned below.
    You will find the files on your system drive (not your home folder) as follow:
    /library/preferences/com.apple.preferences.accounts.plist
    /library/preferences/com.apple.preferences.sharing.plist
    /library/preferences/SstemConfiguration/preferences.plist
    /library/preferences/SstemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
    If there are files in this folders with the same name but additional .orig at the end, delete them too.
    It is possible that not all files are on your system. That will be ok.
    The files will get newly created by system on reboot.
    For that reboot the machine.
    Join your wireless again.
    If you are using Lion, the Library is hidden. You have to use (menu bar) "go to" -> "go to folder" on finder to access them.
    If the problem (unlikely) persists, report back here.
    Lupunus
    Message was edited by: lupunus (typo's fixed)

  • Can Superduper and Time machine write to the same external volume.

    I just setup a 750 GB external drive single partition using firewire 800. Any problem with superduper and time machine writing to the same volume?
    Ron

    Can Superduper and Time machine write to the same external volume.
    Yes, they can write to the same partition.
    I am doing this, and can report no problems so far. TM still backs up and SuperDuper is bootable.

  • If I store files in the TimeCapsule's own HD, will i be able to use time machine to back those files up also? (specifically can i store/run my iPhoto library from TC and then have Time machine also make/include a backup up of the iPhoto library?)

    I curretly use my iphoto library from an large external HD (2 tb)  and then have time machine back it up to my airport extreme (which has an external HD attached, 500gb ) Long story short... I am running out of storage space on the 'large external hd 2tb'. however, I still have space on the HD (500gb) that is attached to my airport extreme.
    My question is,
    1. If i move my iphoto library over to the HD attached to my airport extreme, Is there a way for Time Machine to also back this up.
    2. same question only applied differentliy  = If i purchase a  Time Capsule. and store files on its HD. (specifically an iPhoto library) would time machine create backups of this 'locally' stored data on its own TC HD? 
    TC = time Capsule
    HD = hard drive
    TM = Time machien

    1. If i move my iphoto library over to the HD attached to my airport extreme, Is there a way for Time Machine to also back this up.
    Sorry, but no. Time Machine cannot backup from network drives.
    1. If i move my iphoto library over to the HD attached to my airport extreme, Is there a way for Time Machine to also back this up.
    2. same question only applied differentliy  = If i purchase a  Time Capsule. and store files on its HD. (specifically an iPhoto library) would time machine create backups of this 'locally' stored data on its own TC HD? 
    Again, sorry, but no. Same reason. The TC's internal HDD is treated as a network drive.

  • Time Machine not backing up 2nd external drive, remove option grayed out

    I have two external hard drives, 300gb (firewire) and 500gb (usb). Time Machine is backing up to the 300gb. In Time Machine's options, the 500gb is excluded from being backed up, and the remove option is grayed out.
    The 300gb Time Machine Backup drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended. The 500gb drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32).
    I know the backup drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS Extended, but will it not even back up other drives that are FAT32?

    I am having a similar problem. I initially set it up 3 days ago and had it back up just the iMac to Time Capsule (about 120 GB) which it did no problem (I initially had my LaCie drive excluded). I then un-excluded my other drive, where all my photos and music reside (about 130 GB). Since then, it keeps trying to back up about 102 GB each time. Looking at the list of backups it does not appear that it has ever successfully backed up the LaCie. I am not aware of any error messages, but I have not been home much. I normally shut down the computer at night but I have been leaving it on trying to let Time Machine do its thing. All I can say is that every time I am at the computer TM is running and it always looks like it is in the middle of backing up 102 GB (usually seems to be near the beginning, never seem to see it more than halfway done). Looking at the TM panel it says the latest backup was 2 days ago. I'd appreciate any advice!

  • Time Machine to back up MacBook AND External Drive?

    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
    I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up, but I have no idea what I'm doing. The first time I backed anything up I just copied and pasted again, from both the first drive and my MacBook, which is ridiculous and took hours and is pathetic.
    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have. Any advice on how to set this up without losing my data would be appreciated. Thank you!

    1980qt50 wrote:
    I have a MacBook and a 1TB G Drive which holds all of my photographs and iTunes library (none of which is on my MacBook, since I ran out of space long ago), and where I have backed up my Documents folder by simply copying and pasting.
    I bought another 1TB G Drive to use as a back up
    That may not be large enough. It varies greatly depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. So add-up the space used on your MacBook's internal HD and the amount used on the other drive. If that's less than 500 GB, you'll probably be fine. If it's between 500 GB and about 750 GB, it might work, at least for a while.
    I want to set up Time Machine so all of my applications and settings are backed up, in addition to my files which are in two separate places right now. I'm not sure how to set up the second drive to take care of both.
    Most likely, piece of cake.
    After looking at the FAQs at the top of this forum, I'm afraid that any partitions I set up may re-format the drives and thus wipe out everything I have.
    No, Time Machine won't wipe out your data.
    First check the Format of the media drive. You can do that via +Get Info+ in the Finder. In the General area of the Info panel it will show Format. If it's any variation of +Mac OS Extended,+ then Time Machine can back it up. If not, your best bet will be to switch drives -- format the new one for your Mac, copy the data to it, then erase and reformat the old one to be used for your backups. Post back for instructions if you need to do that.
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    When you're ready to start Time Machine, click the Options button in Time Machine > Preferences. See if the media drive is listed in the exclusions box; if it is, select it and click the minus sign. Then Time Machine will back it up.
    You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial

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