Time Machine back up drive nearly Full, Can I...
My 1Tb back up drive (backup A) is nearly full with multiple networked computers using Time Machine.
I have a new 1Tb drive (backup A1) installed and ready to go as my next back up drive.
If I redirect my time machines backups to the new disc (A1) in order to keep drive (A) from filling and overwriting, will i be able to reconnect in the future to disc A's backup files?
Is there a procedure to follow or am i naive in thinking that i will be able to reconnect to my older backups?
Thanks for your help!
not quit sure what you mean by reconnect here. after you designate drive A1 as the TM drive in TM system preferences you'll be able to access past backups on drive A using browse mode. control-click on TM in the dock and choose "browse other TM disks". and if you ever want to go back to using drive A as the backup drive just reselect it as the backup drive in TM system preferences.
Similar Messages
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My time machine back up drive is full and I need a bootable drive
I hope you can advise me
I have a 1TB external drive which I am using to back up to with Time Machine. Apart from occasionally dismounting itself this is working fine.
I am now considering upgrading to Lion and want to create a bootable copy of my system on the external drive but there is no space.
How do I go about making the space and how much space will I need? The iMac has 640GB and I am using 270GB.
ThanksIf I were in your situation, I would buy a 2TB drive and use carbon copy cloner or super duper to clone the Time Machine drive to it. When satisfied that the TM works, recycle the 1TB disk as your clone drive, which you can use as part of your upgrade strategy, and then later it will be your working clone.
Anyone who relies on having their data should have at all times two backups. One should be a TimeMachine, and the other should be a recent bootable clone. Disk is cheap cheap cheap -- don't waste time, energy or cleverness figuring out how to save disk space when you can just buy another drive and let the computer take care of the job!
Oh -- it's probably a decent idea to partition the 1TB to 650GB and 350GB, Then the 650GB can be your clone going forward, while the 350GB you can use for scratch. Right now, I'd make 2 clones, one on each partition. Upgrade one and play with it, the other one leave alone. Then you can have one as a semi-permanent archive of where you were with a working system in case something goes seriously south with your Time Machine, etc.
Yes, this is straight out of the Paranoid School of Disk Management, but given the price of disk these days it's a pretty cheap piece of peace of mind! -
just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??
Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd.
Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set.
1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price.
I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there.
Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB?
Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopard
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009
where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings. -
Defrag Time Machine Back Up Drive??
getwellroad
Level 1 (0 points)
Jul 6, 2011 9:50 AM
i previously posted this question, but I mistakenly clicked my own comment as the correct answer. i think this makes the thread appear to be finished; so, because i'm still not completely sure what to do, i have attempted to copy and paste the discussion here:Sorry.
Just got Prosoft drive genius 3 software, and it's telling me that the external hard drive that i am using for my time machine back up drive needs to be defragmented. is it wise to do this or should i not??
Grant Bennet-AlderWest of Boston, USALevel 7 (27,805 points)
If your backups take a few seconds longer, so what. I say leave it alone.Beige G3, G4/867, G4/dual 1.25 MDD, MacPro'09 w cheap SSD, Mac OS 8.6 or Earlier, and 9.2, 10.5 and Server - LW IIg, LW 4/600, ATalk ImageWriter L
The hatterLevel 8 (42,475 points)
Let's hope a couple things: that you have bootable clones of your drives also; that the backup drive for TimeMachine has over 3x capacity of the data you plan and are storing. I would also switch TM backup drives so you have a 2nd. Fragmented free space affecting performance happens when the drive is too full which may mean there isn't enough free space for a full backup set. 1.5TB for backing up 500GB, while WD Green 3TB is $140 and WD Black 1.5TB is, about the same price. I'd be worried about the integrity and directory, and whether you can afford to lose that drive. Defragging is also a very slow operation. the ideal: to just clone a drive, or start over with another drive and wait. cloning TM volumes has not been done or has it? SuperDuper hoped to but I don't think they or Bombich's CCC made it there. Trouble with highly fragged is when free space gets to 20% normally, 1/3 or so though for TM volumes, and finding where and a chunk of space for the file being written. Does TM use large spare image files of like 2GB? Best would be to ask in the TimeMachine section Snow Leopardhttps://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard?view= discussions#/?tagSet=1009where there are some good FAQ and tutorials, and people that know the ins-and-outs and shortcomings.
getwellroad
my boot drive is my internal hardrive which is a 250 GB drive. The drive i am using for TM is 500GB, but you are saying that is really too small. TM, as i understand it, creates a copy of everything, and then subsequent backups record any changes that were made since the last backup. and what do you mean "bootable clones" and do you mean for my internal hard drive AND each of the 3 external hard drives that i have? i'm using one of the three for backup using TM, and i am storing movie files on the other 2. i work at a church, and we use many short films that we purchase online. i then import that file into iMovie to give my volunteers a consistent second and a half of black before the clip and 4 seconds of black at the end of the clip. This provides smoother transitions, i've found, than trying to use most of the clips in their original form. i then have been filing these away in folders on the other 2 hard drives. Regarding the TM drive. Drive Genius is telling me that "the used space on the volume 02 [that's the name of the drive] is 25% fragmented (59.14% of total space).
btw, Time Machine keeps:hourly backups for the past 24 hoursdaily backups for the past monthweekly backups for all previous monthsand the oldest backups are deleted when your disk becomes full.
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), LaCie d2 Quadra 500GB external driv1st) A fragmented drive is not evil. It will not hurt anything. At worse it might slow down reading a file. However, as has been pointed out by others in this thread, who cares as this is a backup device, not a device you are going to be reading a lot.
2nd) The time you spend defragmenting the drive will far exceed the time you will save when writing new data to the drive.
3rd) Defragmentation will just increase your energy consumption, as all the reading/writing needed to move the files around in order to defragment it, will cause the drive to consume more energy than if it was just sitting idle waiting for the next hourly Time Machine backup.
4th) Defragmentation (if done frequently) may shorten the life of your drive. Not mentioned in "3rd" above is that the extra energy used translates into heat, plus you are moving the read/write heads back and forth all of which affect the drives mechanical and electrical components.
NOTE: There are situations where having a defragmented drive is useful, but mostly it has to do with needing to stream media at a high rate of speed, and fragmented files can affect that. However, a backup drive being used for incremental Time Machine backups is not in that category, and most home Mac usage does not need a defragmented file system either. -
Time machine says my drive is full, but it's not
time machine says my drive is full, but it's not. it is a 298 gig external drive with 51 gigs available. my internal drive on my lap top (the one I am backing up) is a 148 gigs with 44 gigs available. the backup folder on the external drive is
152 gigs.
how can i fix time machine so it can figure out that the external drive isn't full?Lisa W wrote:
Thank you both for your replies. Something is seriously wrong with a backup program that needs that much extra space! So much for incremental back ups.
It doesn't, necessarily. We still have no information on what's going on with your situation.
It's a back up for a laptop and I would like to connect it to the backup hard drive once a week or so, but from what I read time machine only works one way... for a computer to have it active all the time.
No. It works BEST that way, but isn't required.
That just won't work for me for many reasons. Most importantly, time machine slows up my computer and I have to leave it off to run my applications.
Then something else is wrong. Again, without any details, we can't help you determine what.
There is no setting to have it turn on in the middle of the night or once per week.
Not in TM itself. But there is a free 3rd-party app that will do this, Time Machine Editor: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/
It would sure be nice if I could back up when I want. Seems like time machine is just one of those ideas that apple didn't think all the way through.
You can. And TM works just fine for most people. There is something unusual in your setup, or the way you're doing things, that's causing your difficulties.
Let's be clear: if you'd like some help with this, please answer my previous questions and download and post the messages from the wIdget. -
Has anyone successfully used a "WD My Book for Mac" via NAS (plugged into USB port on router) as a Time Machine back-up drive? Apple support tech tried to tell me it wasn't possible and that the only NAS Time Machine could back up to is the Time Capsule, but I'm not buying it. I know it's doable, but I'm having a hard time figuring out which External HDDs will work and which ones won't. If not My Book for Mac, is there an External HDD that will work? (Running OS X 10.9.1 - Mavericks, btw...)
Given the nature of backups, my recommendation has always been to use a strategy that is unequivocally supported by Apple. As you already determined Apple Support unequivocally informed you that your proposal will not work, unless your router is an Apple AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule.
The exhaustive list of devices supported by Time Machine amounts to the following:
AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard disk (any model)
External USB hard disk drive connected to a Time Capsule (any model)
External USB hard disk drive connected to an AirPort Extreme (current model only)
A hard disk drive directly connected to your Mac
That is all.
Use whatever backup device you want, but you should be aware that this site is full of reports of misery from hapless individuals who had been using NAS devices for Time Machine backups, only to find that they were incomplete, corrupted, or useless when they were required. Apple won't care if you lose your data while using a Time Machine configuration specifically excluded from their technical support documents. -
The disk drive in my iMac 8,1 has stopped working, so I now use an LG 8x Slim Portable that works. However, every time I use the LG drive, I lose contact with my Time Machine back-up drive that has to be deleted and reinstalled. Help!
It's not Logic that can't find them, it's your Komplete apps, though if you did exaclty as you say I can see no reason why they can't.
Do you know where the apps installed them in the first place? I chose a non-standard locarion for mine, but I'm sure it installs sounds to your documents folder/native instruments/name of app.
Go into the prefs of each app and choose the library location button on the library tab and point it to the relevant folder in documents/native instruments and see if that works
jake -
Running more than one time machine back up drive
I have a back up drive assigned as my offices time machine back up drive.
I need to set up an off site back up drive too. I know that time machine will only allow a connection to one back up destination at once.
What problems could i encounter if i set up a off site drive as another time machine drive, disconnect on site drive and connect the off site drive to back up.
ThanksThat will work just fine, other than the hassle of having to tell Time Machine every time you swap.
Give the drives at least slightly different names (that's for you; Time Machine knows they're different).
Each set of backups will be complete and independent. When you do a backup to either one, it will contain all the changes you've made since the last backup +*to that drive.+*
The first backup after a swap may take a bit longer than usual, as there may be more changes to "catch up" with, but otherwise there should be no troubles. -
I tried to manually clear my Time Machine back up drive (a La Cie) of some of the older backups. But now the Trash is filled with files (over 130,000) and it doesn't seem to want to trash them - it's taking forever!! how do I get rid of them now in a quicker way?
dear Sue
i've tried the alt solution to empty trash but it does not work
I still got the -8003 error
for emptying time machine backups that i foolishly put in the trash
i've also tried this solution using terminal and it did not work either
http://www.imore.com/how-force-empty-trash-your-mac-using-terminal
any help you might offer would be greatly appreciated
i am using a 24 inch iMac
OSX 10.6.8
Message was edited by: summer_laughter -
How do I partition my Time Machine back up drive (G-Drive) to back up both my IMac and my MacBook Air?
That's not needed, but if you want to do it, use the Disk Utility in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder to create a new partition.
(70423) -
Time Machine Back-Up Drive Question
Is it possible to use the Time Machine External Drive for storing information aside from back-up files, while using it for Time Machine at the same time? For example, I collect live shows of a certain band. Would it be possible to store the music files on the Time Machine Back-Up drive and still be able to use the drive for Time Machine? Thanks in advance.
Ben Goodkind wrote:
Is it possible to use the Time Machine External Drive for storing information aside from back-up files, while using it for Time Machine at the same time? For example, I collect live shows of a certain band. Would it be possible to store the music files on the Time Machine Back-Up drive and still be able to use the drive for Time Machine? Thanks in advance.
No problem but I suggest this:
Create a folder for you personal backups and put everything in them.
TM will create a unique folder for itself and it will be happy with that.
I have, on my G5, a TM drive that also has several old backup folders, (Not TM) which live perfectly with TM.
Just don't put anything into the TM folder.! -
I recently backed up my iMAC and Simpletech external hard-drive to a 1 TB WD Passport external hard drive, using Time Machine's back-up utility. Today, I tried to access my iphoto library from the back-up drive, but received a message saying "the iPhoto library is a Time Machine back up, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPHoto with options key held down to choose another library." Since my Simpletech died on me, what other iPhoto library is it expecting me to access? I know approximately 169 GB were backed up, and my iPhoto library is roughly 54 GB.
Angie in CharlotteThanks. I will try going through TM. Since my Simpletech is on the way out, I'll be plugging in a new external hard drive (other than the back-up drive) and trying to restore the library to the new drive. Any advice or warning if this is NOT the right thing to do?
Meanwhile, that is a great tip to do an alternate back-up using a different means. It's been tough to figure out how to "preserve access" to digital images and files for posterity, knowing the hardware will always fail/obsolesce sooner or later, and that "clouds" are only as good as their consistent and reliable accessibility. Upping the odds with redundancy will help dull the edge of my "access anxiety", though logically, it can never relieve it. Will look into
Carbon Copy Cloner. -
Hi there! I have to change my Time Machine back-up unit with another one.
Can anyone help? I have a partition on the first external hard drive, and I cannot change it.
Is there a way to transfer the content of my "old" hard drive used for Time Machine on a new back-up unit?Check out Pondini's FAQ;
http://pondini.org/TM/18.html -
Good morning,
I am trying to compy some folder from my time machine back up onto my desktop and I have changed the privilige for my back up to read and write...but it;s still not letting my copy the files. How come?See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.
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Time capsule & external drive - Time Machine Back-up of two macbooks - Can't connect
My wife and I each have a macbook pro and want to back them up using Time Machine. I had my macbook and a time capsule for a while before she got her laptop, so I backed mine up to the Time capsule - no problems.
Now, I have purchased an external drive so that mine backs up onto the time capsule drive and hers is set to back up on the external drive due to space limitations.
However, with hers set up, my macbook can no longer see its original back-up file. Meaning that hers will back-up all the time, but mine can't ever connect.
Is there a different configuration / setting that I should try to make this work?
Help is greatly appreciated!I don't follow how the change on one laptop can affect the other, unless they are networked together in some way.. how is the second laptop connected??
I suggest you reset Time Machine.. and rediscover the TC..
A4 here http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
If you upgraded to Lion or ML recently that is the issue.. reboot the TC and maybe the whole network to clear the old IP addresses.
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