Time machine and 2TB drive...can t backup

I have a 2TB drive as main and a 2TB drive as target. Even if there is less than 1TB of data on the original drive, time machine refuses to back up the drive and instead asks for 2.5 TB as a destination drive.
This is clearly a design problem. The backup target should be relevant to the amount of data to back up and NOT to the size of the original drive. If there is 500Gigs on the original drive and that data reides on a 2TB drive, Time Machine should be able to back that 500Gigs and then when in need of more space either warn that space has to be made or requesting a bigger drive.
So basically after having spend 2 days copying my data to a single drive I realize that Time machine is not clever enough to dynamically calculate the space needed.
Or am i doing something wrong? having to clone the drive, replace it with a 1TB and then reclone back is a pain in the sphincter. Please fix this for a future version. If there is the space for at least one backup, one should be able to at least have one copy.

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
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
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
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showning, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
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.

Similar Messages

  • Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos.

    Can I view photos and movies from my external hard drive? I used Time Machine and a WD Passport for backup. Since my drive on my MacBook Pro is filling up I was planning to delete some of the movies and photos. I wanted to see if I could view them from the hard drive. Thanks

    Hello, eco1. 
    Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities. 
    This sounds like you are wanting to move your iTunes media folder to an external drive and have iTunes this folder from this location.  If this is the case then I would recommend taking a look at the article below. 
    iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449
    Cheers,
    Jason H. 

  • I manually deleted back-ups from Time Machine and now I can't empty the trash

    I manually deleted back-ups from Time Machine and now I can't empty the trash.

    Using Finder (deleting Time Machine backups) to manage Time Machine files is a mistake. The remedy is somewhat easy, but you will lose all the files on that TM drive.
    If there is nothing elese on the Time Machine drive, try reformatting the drive with Disk Utility. This will effectively remove the files from that drive from the trash. If you have files on this drive, temporarily copy the files to another drive, then reformat the TM drive.

  • How do i use airport as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1

    how do i use my 3TB airport time capsule as both time machine and hard drive? currently on Yosemite 10.10.1.....Many Thanks.

    Choose Computer from the Finder's Go menu and double-click it. If needed, use the Connect to Server command to log into it.
    (119763)

  • What is time machine and how i can use it

    what is time machine and how i can use it ?

    Hope you may find these articles helpful.
    https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machine_(OS_X)
    Best.

  • Upgraded to Mavericks, Enter Time Machine and cannot see any previous backup at all

    MBP, upgrade from 10.6.8 to Mavericks.
    After "Enter Time Machine", the time line on the right side of the screen does not show any previous backup at all.
    In Finder, I can see the backup folder and the inside contents.
    In Time Machine Preference, I did select the disk for backup again.
    Any idea ?  Thank you.

    Thank you for your reply and the links.
    I did this:
    1) I have two ext. USB drives for the MBP time machine backup, did not occur to me to try the other one which is the very first disk, let's call it disk 1, I used for backup, the other one I started using after a year or so.
    2) reboot with the disk 1 connected
    3) do a "Backup Now", and I forgot the exact dialogs and what they say.
    4) something like, "choose a disk for the backup", I chose disk 1
    5) it knows I had two disk for backup and ask me if I want to use two disk for backup, click yes
    6) the time machine pref. says something like initial backup (after new system installed?)
    7) after it done, I can see the previous time machine back up and the time line goes back to where it was before.
    8) connect the disk 2 and "Backup Now", it just went to backup right away, after it's done, I can see the prev. backups and the time line too.
    Thanks again for your help.

  • I bought and external usb hard disc, and i added it to time machine and now i can't use it! what do i do?

    I just bought this external USB hard disc, and what I did was I put all of my pictures in there because I need space for my computer. What I did after that , is that I configured the hard disc with Time Machine, to clear some space also and to "protect" my data. But now I can't use my hard disc, I can't see my pictures I had in it and I can't use it for Time Machine either.
    What can I do to get my pictures back?? Thanks!!

    External USB hard disks come formatted, and unless they're specifically sold for use with Macs, they're formatted for PC's, with FAT, exFAT, or NTFS formats. Macs can read data from all three formats but can only write to FAT and exFAT formatted drives. So you could save your pictures to an external with either of those two formats. However, Time Machine needs a HD formatted and partitioned for a Mac, and if you "configured the hard disc" for use "with Time Machine," you effectively erased the pictures. However, since you "can't use it for Time Machine either," it's not clear exactly what you did, so we'd need to know that first. Also, what do you mean by "clear some space also?" On your internal or the external? And if the external, how did you do that since it already had your pictures and should still have had some empty space.
    I'd suggest looking here to see if your external's format agrees with what Time Machine needs. Just look, don't actually change anything, so we have some baseline to work with. And also look at the box the external HD came in. What does it say about computer compatibility and which operating systems it's intended for (i.e., Windows, Mac, both).

  • Time machine and Hard drive

    Hi,
    i want to buy a hard drive which i can use as a time machine whilst also using as a standard hard drive is this possible?
    i was thinking of buying the WD my cloud 2tb what do you think?
    want to spend about £100...
    or shall i buy a Time capsule and a Hard drive separate? but want to link this

    About TM "Backup Drive is Full" Alert
    TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
    So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
    Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
    Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
    I suggest your do a fresh install of OS X on your new SSD, then  you can manually transfer what your want from your backup. But I would work from a cloned backup instead of a Time Machine backup because it will be easier to transfer your stuff.
    Clone Mavericks, Lion/Mountain Lion using Restore Option of Disk Utility
    Boot to the Recovery HD:
    Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
         1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu then press the Continue
             button.
         2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
         3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
         4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it
             to the Destination entry field.
         5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
             the Source entry field.
         6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

  • Time Machine and Hard Drive Weirdness -- start again?

    I bought a LaCie 500 Gig slick Porsche metallic drive to go with my slick metallic iMac last year. Set up Time Machine, was in awe, life was good. In recent weeks, I've noticed the drive running hot and a little louder than normal. Since it's not crucial for me to have TM always on, I just turn the drive off.
    Recently, I noticed TM machine wouldn't mount. It was doing a lot of work, running real warm, but not mounting. In disc utility, the drive was blinking in and out of being accessible. Finally I was able to access it, and I verify/repaired it twice.
    The next time it booted up, the drive icon wasn't in 'go' green but 'wait a bit' yellow. In preferences, I could see it preparing and preparing. It seemed like it would never end, and finally needing to go to sleep, I turned it off on yellow. This morning, it mounts GREEN and is working normal. Not hot, not noisy.
    Here's the big question: now what I do?
    You see, I've got some warranty left on this drive, and I can't figure out if it's about to break, or Time Machine is breaking the drive.
    My gut tells me to trash my backups.backupdb file and start all over again. After all, I'm at a nice place where I don't need anything from a while ago. I figure if I try to do this and it outright fails to backup, this is an indication of a weary drive.
    Also, if I were to backup all over again, it would be about 160 gigs of info. My backup drive currently has 130 available. There's maybe another 60 gigs or so of stuff on this drive tops, and so it seems Time Machine has nearly doubled in size of what it's backing up.
    So, would y'all recommend purging the backup and starting again?
    Sorry for longwindedness, but just trying to provide all info I can,
    Me
    Also, I see that I've got about 130 Gigs open on the 500 gig drive. I'm using half of my iMac's 300 gig drive, and so by my best guestimation I'd say Time Machine has already double

    Jerome,
    First, make sure Spotight is not set to Index the LaCie drive. That could have been the cause of the excessive use.
    Next, if Time Machine hasn't been backing up for a while ("wouldn't mount"), then the next time it successfully mounts it will do a long "Preparing..." (I believe it's called a "Deep Traversal") session to compare what has changed since the last time it connected. This is normal and will show the drive as busy (Yellow light). Let it do its' thing in that case - perhaps leaving it on over night.
    Your Drive is most likely fine.

  • Time Machine and external drives

    Since upgrading to OS X 10.7.4, I keep getting messages complaining that a server could not be found. The server in question being the machine on my home network that has my Time Machine volume on it.
    I use a laptop as my primary machine and spend my working life split between my office at home and visiting customer's offices. Before I upgraded to Mountain Lion, Time Machine obviously couldn't back up while I was out and about so it used to notify me in the Time Machine menu on the top of my screen. This worked fine for me and I knew that data I added to my machine wouldn't be backed up until my laptop was connected to my network at home.
    Since upgrading to Mountain Lion it seems that Time Machine has changed so that it repeatedly notifies me about the unavailable Time Machine Volume by way of putting a dialog message in the middle of my screen, in front of everything and interrupting my workflow by demanding I hit the OK button before I can do anything else. It seems to do it several times in a row each hour or thereabouts. It's so annoying! Why has the behaviour been changed so that it constantly gets in my way?
    OK, I understand that some users might not have noticed that subtle little bit of feedback in the menu and this could be dangerous. I also understand that stopping the user in the middle of whatever they are doing and getting them to positively respond to a dialog message does ensure that they have some idea about something, but in all fairness the message doesn't exactly say "Time Machine cannot back up your data because the disk it backs up onto couldn't be found". If users are so unaware of the intracacies of Time Machine then this dialog doesn't cut the message clearly enough, and if they are savvy enough then it just annoys them.
    I believe it would have been better if a setting had been introduced, and was set to "on" by default, allowing the user to choose to have 'verbose and insistant' reporting of any errors. That way, less familiar users would by default get messages like this one, but with much clearer wording, suggesting there's a problem, and people who are aware that their Time Machine can only back up data while they are connected to the Time Machine drive could disable the messages and just have the little bit of validating information in their menu bar.
    Would this not seem like a good way forward?
    While I admit that this issue could go away when I install 10.7.5 I am still somewhat certain that it wont have the helpful feature that I suggest here.
    Now, how do we get Apple to take this on as a feature request?

    vincas,
    Your backup of the failed drive should still be there. You're not seeing it because the volume is not present, according to your Finder. This is one of those "ah, I see" things.
    Do you have a replacement for the failed drive yet? If so, either format it and give the new volume the exact same name as that on the failed drive, or simply change the name of the mounted volume on the new drive accordingly (with the same name). Once you have done this, connect your Time Machine drive. Open a Finder window showing the empty, but properly named volume, and click the Time Machine icon in your Dock to open Time Machine. You should be able to navigate "back in time" to see the backed up contents and restore same.
    If you do not yet have a replacement, the backed up files can be accessed in the Finder normally by navigating into the Time Machine backup folder. Open a date/time stamped backup, and you should find a folder for every volume that was backed up at that time. Any files you find can be copied manually.
    Scott

  • Time Machine and partitioned drive

    Hiya.
    I have a macbook pro running snow. I use TM to an external hard drive.
    When I first got the macbook I (foolishly) thought it would be a good idea to partition the internal hard drive. I've now realised my error and would like just one partition, however this does not seem to be possible without wiping the drive (or buying something like ipartition...)
    Can I wipe the hard drive starting up from a version of osx on the hard drive, create one partition and then use TM to put back my osx setup to the new single partition? Or can it only put back the two partitions?
    Thanks!

    jonniecrossley wrote:
    Hiya.
    I have a macbook pro running snow. I use TM to an external hard drive.
    When I first got the macbook I (foolishly) thought it would be a good idea to partition the internal hard drive. I've now realised my error and would like just one partition, however this does not seem to be possible without wiping the drive (or buying something like ipartition...)
    Can I wipe the hard drive starting up from a version of osx on the hard drive, create one partition and then use TM to put back my osx setup to the new single partition? Or can it only put back the two partitions?
    If OSX is the first partition (on top of the diagram that Disk Utility shows, when you select the top line of the drive and click the Partition tab), then you'll only have to delete the other partition. If it's second, this is going to be a bit more complicated: if so, post back and we'll tackle that.)
    Then you can just drag the lower-right corner of the top partition down to fill the remaining space.
    As Jolly Giant mentioned, I'd strongly recommend making a second backup of everything before you start this. You shouldn't need it, but remember: Murphy was an optimist!
    Once that's done, you'll have to be careful of a few things. First, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* to view the backups from the now-missing partition.
    Second, you'll need to restore the top-level folders to an alternate location. Select them, click the "gear" icon in the TM Finder window's toolbar and select the +*Restore <item> to ...+* option, then specify the now-single partition on your internal HD.
    Third, you may have to "redirect" some things from the deleted partition, if you had, say, your iPhoto library there. And you may have had some aliases directing things there.
    Last, do all this with TM off. TM's first backup after this will be a big one; everything you moved from the deleted partition is new to the remaining partition and will be backed-up again. That will, of course, take a lot of space and considerable time. TM will, eventually, delete it's backups of the deleted partition, but if you're going to have a space problem on your TM drive, you might want to leave TM off for a while, be sure everything came over properly, then use TM to delete all backups of the deleted partition. Use the same procedure as above, but this time select the +*Delete all backups of <item>+* option.

  • Time Machine Stuck in Preparing: Can You backup a 1TB Raid

    Hello,
    I have been trying to use time machine on my server to back-up my 1TB Mirrored Raid to an external 1TB firewire drive. Time Machine is stuck in preparing for days and does not back up.
    Does time machine work with RAIDs?
    I have recently reformatted the backup drive with the GUID partition. I also ran disk utility on the RAID set and everything passed.
    I've read on Apple's site not to stop the preparing mode, so I have left it, but it has been 2 days which seems like an extraordinary amount of time.
    Any thoughts? Or is this normal?
    Thanks!

    just let it work. it sometimes can take a very long time if TM goes into deep traversal and scans all the files for changes.
    see this link
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1516

  • Time Machine and USB Drive

    I use Time Machine to backup my datas. The problem is that my HDD (on my MAC) was full, and added an Firewire DD on my MAC. Is it possible to include my firewire in the backup on Time Machine ( no problem with the capacity of this drive)?

    JGaron wrote:
    Is it possible to include my firewire in the backup on Time Machine
    provided there's enough room on the destination drive, yes.
    in fact, time machine should automatically include any properly formatted drive, connected directly to your computer, for backup.
    have a look @ #1 and #2 here: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html.
    JGG

  • Time machine and hard drive space problems

    It's a long story, but in a nutshell...I've had some problems with my time machine backups on my external hard drive and my MacBook Pro has been taking a long time time boot up.  So, I decided to wipeout the backups on my external by deleting them (I know that's a bad idea) and then I started to transfer all the stuff from my MacBook Pro that I wanted to backup, and now I have ran out of room on the external (1TB) drive.  However, the space that is being used doesn't seem to match what should be available.  There is around 200gb (I think) that isn't accounted for.....is there some hidden stuff I might have missed?

    johnl927 is suggesting you wipe your external hard drive to remove any ghost files or errors in the file system. That would be the fastest and least time consuming way to go.
    Your alternative is to run Disk Utility, verify disk and the partitions of the external hard drive, and if still in doubt verify permissions. The disk may sometimes claim to have less free space than really available because at some point in the past your computer or else where you plugged it in forgot to do some general housekeeping on the external hard drive.

  • Apple TV, Time Machine and External Drives

    I have an apple TV, A 1TB time capsule and a 1GB hard drive attached to the time capsule. My itunes library is too big for the apple TV. My itunes application is on my laptop and my library is on the storage drive, backed up by time machine.**
    My question - Obviously any content I sync to apple TV is available to the whole family but am I right in thinking that all the other content that can't be synced because of size can only be accessed when I am at home with my laptop?
    If so then it would appear that mac have invented a fantastic product but made the weird assumption that our home movies, audio and movie downloads will not exceed the maximum size of the ATV unless we buy a dedicated computer! I am not much better off than I was when I simply streamed music through airport or had my ipod connected to my stereo. Because I cant sync my whole library I have to sync only playlists so there is no cover flow, just a list to scroll through same as I had on my ipod!
    It makes me wonder if the design and marketing department at apple have lost the plot and concentrated on media sales rather than customer satisfaction. If you take into account that the itunes movie rentals are more expensive and no more recent than those in Blockbuster (I just rented 5 blue ray for £10.00) then the ATV is looking like a temporary toy that already fails to meet the needs of the average consumer. I love apple products but at the moment I'm thinking I could have just plugged endless storage devices into my playstation and achieved much more.
    Someone please tell me I'm wrong.......

    flintonmac wrote:
    Thats a rather ragged defence of a poor bit of design.
    It's not a defence, it's an explanation. If you don't like the Apple tv model then fair enough but it's not bad design by any stretch of imagination. My point being that Apple tv deliberately moves away from the model you seem to want to follow, you have your right to your opinions but you need to accept this isn't what most people want and why you can now rent 5 disks for £ 10 from Blockbuster.
    My main point. If you don't sync your whole itunes library then you have to scroll through a playlist which removes the convenient cover flow interface
    Not at all, there is no cover flow and lets hope that if there ever is, it's an option only. Cover flow is very pretty but quite impractical for large libraries.
    and leaves you in the same position as you would be scrolling through the content of external drives on any other media player.
    Not at all, all the other media players I have reviewed have resulted in a chaotic interface when it comes to searching for media on attached drives.
    It would not have been hard for apple to allow itunes to send a playlist that is seen by the apple tv as its entire content.
    That's exactly what the Apple tv does. It strikes me that you haven't really taken the time to see how the Apple tv works properly or what it has to offer you.
    My secondary point. Apple is behind most other service providers in terms of providing access to new releases and price.
    Again that's incorrect, Apple offers similar content to some other online media providers but usually more than most. It's true that in comparison to traditional physical media, it's offerings are somewhat poorer but this is the result of protectionism applied by the movie studio to try to support a flagging physical medium industry, all online suppliers have the same issue with the movie studios.
    While I am moaning...... The HDMI connection stays live even in standby so every user has to reach behind the TV when changing from apple to cable tv. Not a reasonable solution so it means that I use the AV outputs instead. If you link that to my second point then yes I can rent DVD's in HDMI but I have to change my cable set up before I do.........
    If this is an issue with the Apple tv then it's something that does need resolving, but at this stage you can't say for sure it's not your tv, if it works fine on one port but not on another it sounds more like the tv to me. None of the 5 tv's we have that have an Apple tv connected to them display this behaviour.
    Your points are very valid in your case, I'm not dismissing them, just pointing out the model you would seem to prefer is the model that most people are wanting to turn away from, so it isn't bad design, it's just that you don't like it.

Maybe you are looking for