Time Machine Back-Up vs Clone?

I have been doing some research and have looked into the process of upgrading my hard drive. I have seen several methods, but the two I am having a hard time deciding between are cloning and using the latest back up on Time Machine to load the new hard drive.
If I use Time Machine to load my new hard drive, will it yield the same result as cloning my hard drive?
I want my computer to be exactly the same, just more space...what's the best way to do it? If Time Machine and Cloning yield the same results I feel much more comfortable using Time Machine. Let me know what you guys think!

I was wondering if you could help me. I need to send my Mac Book Pro for servicng (the usb ports are loose) and I wanted to make sure everything was backed up before I sent it out (in case they wipe my Hardrive) My qustion is the following: is it possible to backup software (for example, Microsoft Word, Excel, etc) When I first bought my computer 1 1/2 yrs ago, having missed the technology boat by a few years, (when I was in college, email was starting to explode, via ether net...nothing compaired to today's technology) so when I bought my MAC, I also purchased Apple's version of Word, Excel (I guess that would be Apple's version of office, if I am not mistaken, it is called IWORK. A few months later, I began a teaching job at a high school and one of my students said she had just bought a MAC and thinking I was helping her, I told her that instead of buying office for MAC, she could save money and buy IWORK. Of course my students thought this was hysterical because apparently, they could put offie on my computer with their thumb drive, so the next day, I brought my computer to school and in minutes I had Word, Excel, etc all installed. So now I am wondering if and how I can back them up (either on an external hardrive or after googling some info, apparently there is a;sp backup software that I must download (ie: Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper??) and one site says I can download this in lieu of an external hardrive or in addition to an external hardrive. Can you help me out if possible? I have never tried to communicate like this, so it's probably best to email me at scarletb1212@g**il.com.
Thanks in advance for any help!!
< Email Edited By Host >

Similar Messages

MacPro wont back up to Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner?

I am running 10.6.8 on my 2 x 3 Ghz Intel Mac Pro with 10 Gb of Ram. I have been backing up my two internal drives to an external 2 Tb WD for over a year using time machine and it would lose the drive every once in a while but I could get it back. Now after multiple erasures and reformats I can't get Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner (not at the same time : ) ) to run any faster than 1Gb/13min. Just my big ol' music drive will take 6 days at that speed!
I know there is something wrong for these speeds to be this slow. Does anyone have any suggestions of ways to speed up transfer and get the data flowing freely like it should or even theories about what's going on? I am using USB 2.0 from the drive to the tower. Cheers.

First what interface did you use? USB2? can't and expect any decent backup performance and forget zeroing a drive. FW800? on some WD MyBook, yes.
I would if possible move it into a FW800/400/eSATA drive case from OWC.
Add a PCIe SATA + USB3 CalDigit card and use that.
Move the drive inside an option? some WD MyBook can't, were built around the external drive case.
Your profile is out of date 10.4.11 is way old and didn't include TimeMachine (10.5 Oct 2007)
Lion and ML are better at Disk Utility and managing disk drives.
I use WD Green, very inexpensive, but no MyBook (yet, maybe USB3 NAS some day).
Why keep your data on one drive that has been beaten to death and not try a WD Black or couple other drives - or do you have those just not listed? Clone your system, clone your data, and even a spare TimeMachine... but I would go with two system backup drives. That is safe, and covers anyone's important system and media and digital library needs.

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??

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.

If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer? also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard

If i have Time Machine backed up on an external hard drive, do i just plug the drive into another macbook pro and all my stuff is in the new computer? Also, does it matter if the new computer is running Lion when the backed up info came from Snow Leopard 10.6.8?

No and Yes
Don't use TM for this purpose, clone your drive to an external, plug the external into another MBP and reboot from it. Please note that booting a machine that came with Lion may not be possible from a drive with Snow Leopard.

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 driv

1st) 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.

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch?

How do I restart Time Machine back-up from scratch? I have a MacBook Air that was my wife's - now given to my daughter for school. My wife never used Time Machine to back up (she simply copied files to an external drive), so before clearing her files off the Mac HD, I tried using Time Machine for the first time with an external HD. However, the Time Machine back up repeatedly failed after about 2GB of 28GB of files. I manually copied my wife's 28GB of files to another external HD and deleted all the files off the Mac HD. I then reformatted the external Time Machine drive. But when I try to use Time Machine to back up the MacBook Air as it is now with my daughter's files on the Mac HD to the external TM drive, Time Machine acts as if the 28GB of my wife's deleted files are still on the Mac HD and fails back-up after counting to about 2GB, even though there aren't even 2GB of files on the Mac HD now and nothing on the external TM drive. I don't need to save any back-ups of how the MacBook used to be - I just need to start from scratch with how the computer is now. Can anyone please tell me how to get Time Machine to think the MacBook is a brand new computer and act as if it's a first time ever back up? I tried updating to Yosemite, and tried renaming the computer in System Preferences>Sharing, plus (as noted above) deleting all the old files off the Mac HD and reformatting the external Time Machine drive - none of that worked. All I can do at the moment is manually copy my daughter's files to an external HD - very frustrating.

Hmmm.. Office is not hard to restore.
You have something major wrong (Yosemite being the primary one).
Do a verify of the source drive.. to do that you will need to boot to the recovery.. and run the disk utility from there.. it sounds like your main disk is corrupted.
Once that is complete, delete the current setup of TM and try again.. use the widget to find out why it is failing..
See Troubleshooting.
A1, A4 and A5 for further info.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Good luck with it..
I would also download carbon copy cloner.. it is $40, but you can use it free for a time.. forget if a week or a month??.. to try out.. and make a proper backup before you start.. CCC is far more reliable than TM.. and in fact you might decide to simply forget about TM if it works and pays the $40.. because you can produce a bootable clone on the external drive which is a heck of a lot easier to use than TM.

Can I use iPod for time machine back up?

I have several iPods that I don't use, and would like to use them as time machine back up drives, for multiple computers.
They are 30gb iPod videos. I am aware they aren't as reliable as an actual external hard drive and that this much read/write can cause the iPod to burn out, but for these purposes I don't care.
I have 300 computers that I want to restore to one master, as they are all used for the same purpose, but currently they all have OS 10.5.x of varying versions. I currently use a time machine backup on an external hard drive to restore the systems, but I have 15 iPod videos, and I would like to use 2-3 of them, to speed the process up.
I use carbon copy cloner once I get a system restored, to restore the stations around it, but time machine is about 15% faster than using CCC, so I would like to use these iPods to increase my ability to restore these systems on a regular basis without having to buy external hard drives or enclosures to make external HDs.
I have tried:
Erasing the iPod in disk utility.
-It will erase the volume as HFS+ (extended journaled) but it won't erase the main device as it shows in Disk utility, it consistently stays as Fat32.
--Same idea if I recreate the partition. I tried GUID partition scheme, Apple Partition Map and Master boot record, but all produce the same result.
I also selected the iPod and attempted a zero-out of the whole iPod using the security options in disk utility. The system still will not let me use it for time machine.
Has anyone been able to use an iPod for backup? Are there any other techniques anyone can suggest to get this iPod to work?
Thanks for your help.

And to clarify, originally I made sure disk usage was enabled on the iPod.
I have also tried dragging and dropping the contents of a time machine backup to the iPod, but it's still not seen as a backup volume. I suspect there are some hidden files that enable a volume as time machine capable. Any ideas on how to maybe copy the hidden files or any other methods that might work?

Time machine back up and deleting photos from macbook pro

I have a macbook pro. I need to free some space on my hard drive. As I am a keen photographer I decided it was best to have at lest to back up in the event than one fails. I keep one off site at a friends. This way if the unthinkble happens.. fire, flood theft etc I do not lose all my images. To do this I require 2 hard drives. Having purchased the second I thought it would make sense to actually do a Time Machine back up as previous back ups were only of photos.
A few seaches of different forums appeared to say that you cannot delete photos from your Mac as this will be just Mirrored on your next Timemachine back up. This makes sense as it is copying the Mac so anything not on there will not be on the Time Machine back up.
SOLUTION : On your hard drive of the time machine back up create an addition folder or folders and using finder drag and drop from your macbook. This way it will not effect your Time Machine. You can replicate with the other hard drive. Having backed up away from the Time Machine will mean the photos do not get deleted by Time Machine after you have removed them from your Mac.
I hope this makes sense! It is the first time I have posted :-)
I would like to know if others have other solutions or use this method. I should say that the hard drive I use for the Time Machine if Mac formatted. It is a 2 TB WD My Book Studio. I purchased from the Apple store. It is not an apple product but is mac of the sleek aluminum and goes well with it. Having said that I keep it at a mates house!

There are several concepts that may help you create a defense-in-depth approach to securing your valuable data.
- Your data is much more valuable than external disk drives. Do not hesitate to purchase the size and number of external drives you need for great (not just good) backup practices.
- Always maintain at least two copies of any data. This means never place live (offloaded) files on a backup volume, even in a separate partition. If the drive fails the backup and the live files will go poof together.
- Do not rely on retrieving live files from a Time Machine backup. Time Machine is for restoring files that were deleted or altered by mistake or for a full restore. It is not for offloading live files.
- Place the offloaded live files on a separate disk drive. Then you will need to backup that live volume or if that offload volume fails then poof again.
- You already some of this base covered. Maintaing two copies (one backup) is good practice. Maintaining more than two copies (two or more backups) is a better practice. Maintaining multiple copies in multiple backup formats is a great practice. Time Machine is great for restoring accidentally deleted or altered data but it is a complex system that is more prone to failure than simpler schemes such as cloning. I recommend maintaining both Time Machine and cloned backups of the internal drive and cloned backups of offload drive.
Backing up the offload disk is where partitioning the backup drive can be handy. Create one partition for your Time Machine backup and another partition for your external drive backup. Backup your internal drive with Time Machine and backup the offloaded files using cloning software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!
You could tell Time Machine to backup both your internal and external live files but then it gets tricky to do a full restore so I recommend using cloning software for backing up the external drive.
When you purchase another external drive, make it a sufficiently large one so you can divide it into multiple large partitions.
A good backup/offload map (two partitions per backup drive):
- Internal drive —> Time Machine backup partition A on the backup drives.
- External offload drive —> Clone backup partition B on the backup drives.
- Backup drives 1 and 2 (one onsite and one offsite), each with partitions A and B.
A great backup scheme includes three partitions on the large backup drives so you can backup the the internal drive with both Time Machine and CCC/SD:
- Internal drive —> Time Machine backup partition A on the backup drives.
- External offload drive —> Clone backup partition B on the backup drives.
- Internal drive —> Clone backup to partition C on the backup drives.
- Backup drives 1 and 2 (one onsite and one offsite), each with partitions A, B and C.
A great feature of having a clone of your internal drive is if the internal drive crashes you can boot off of the backup disk while you replace the internal drive. As mentioned above it also avoids Time Machine backup/restore problems. I have had Time Machine full restores fail so I do not trust them as my only backup method but I find them very handy for restoring individual files.
Create partitions sufficiently large enough for each backup source. Time Machine should be about 50% or more larger than the volume it is backing up to leave room for the older incremental backups. The cloned backup partitions need only be as large as the volumes they are backing up, or larger if you include incremental backups in your cloning scheme. This means you may need 2 or 3 TB backup drives. (4 TB drives are not yet reliable so avoid them.)
For more information on great backup schemes see:
Time Machine Basics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Most commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
PlotinusVeritas gives some great suggestions for purchasing external hard drives in this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5602141?tstart=0

How do I retrieve my iphoto library from the Time Machine back-up drive, when the original iphoto library was on a separate external hard drive that has crashed?

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 Charlotte

Thanks. 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.

Time Machine Back Up of Damaged Hard Drive

Hi everyone. I've searched through the forums for this, but I have not found an answer specific to my problem (at least that I could find).
Is it possible to perform a Time Machine back up of my damaged internal hard drive to my Time Capsule, but using a bootable external hard drive with Mountain Lion installed?
The issue is that I cannot start up my Macbook Pro (2011) itself. It gets stuck on the grey screen with a progress bar at the bottom that reaches under 1/4 of the way through before the screen goes black and the computer shuts down (silently, without the typical electronic *beep* when it is forcibly shut down).
I booted up from my external hard drive and ran Disk Utility. When I tried to repair the disk it gave the following message:
"Error: Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."
Although I have a recent back up, it doesn't contain the very latest work I have done and so if at possible, I would like to perform a back up if at all possible, before erasing and restoring.
(I assume booting up from the Time Capsule itself is not possilbe? And even if it were, could a back up be performed?)

Try cloning it to your Time Capsule/external hard drive.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

How to make a bootable 10.6 in hd with time machine back up?

i have:
- not so stable internal hd
- 10.6 retail OS disc
- an external hd that is a time machine back up of the internal hd
can I make a bootable OS copy in the external hd without erasing the time machine back up In it?
macbook 2007

You would be better off with 2 external drives. If you put a bootable clone on the existing drive and the drive fails, you have lost both your backups. I would get a larger 2nd external, copy the Time Machine backup to it, erase and reformat the 1st external, and then put CCC clone there. You can copy the backup using Disk Utility Restore tab.
Stuffing 2 backups on a 120 GB drive would be a bit of a pinch.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

Is a Time Machine back up sufficient if I have a USB pen drive with Mavericks from which to reinstall the OS?

I have used SuperDuper to make bootable back ups in the past, but if Time Machine backs up files on the fly it seems unnecessary to make a full back up from time to time. The bootable backup is easier to restore, but takes up another disk. The chances of both the computer's and the Time Machine disks failing simultaneously are, one hopes, fairly remote.
Any advice or comments appreciated.

Yes you can always boot in recovery mode and restore from the TM backup. If your data is important to you then you should have a secondary backup on another drive for safety. Drives are cheap and you just never know what's could happen. Lightning strikes in a home can fry more than one piece of equipment at one time. If you can't afford a large enough drive for a secondary backup, then a smaller drive could be used to backup just your data files using SuperDuper.
I only have one backup drive myself. But my backup drive is partitioned with TM on one and a SuperDuper clone on the other partition. Even a TM backup can become corrupt or fail. I also just like to have a bootable SD clone in case my internal fails. I can boot from the external SUperDuper clone partition and continue on until my internal could be replaced.

Does Time Machine back up my Bookmarks, Favourites, my tool bar etc and that sort of thing ?

I'm backing up my Macbook Pro on Time Machine prior to installing Snow Leopard. Does Time Machine back up things like my internet bookmarks, as well as my Toolbar ones? If not, what should I do?

It backs up everything. If you were to use it with Migration Assistant after a clean install, it should bring everything back. If you have an external drive though, a clone of the existing drive before a major upgrade is always a good idea. That way you could easily go back to exactly what you have now if you had a problem. Carbon Copy Cloner is the best solution for that.

Time Machine Back Up Discrepancy...

Hi All,
I have a June 2010 17" 2.66 i7 UMBP which has a 500GB internal HD. I recently purchased an external HD of the same capacity so I could keep a full back up of all my data.
The internal HD shows capacity of 499.76GB with 160.24GB free. After connecting the external HD to the UMBP & doing a back up via Time Machine, it shows capacity of 499.76GB with 166.99GB free. This means there is a difference of 6.75GB between my internal HD & the back up one which to me seems a large amount.
I can only assume that Time Machine has not backed up this missing 6.75GB of data & would like to know why this is so & what I can do to correct it. I have run Time Machine again a few times but the numbers still stay the same. Please can anyone else help me out here as at present, I just do not feel comfortable with they way things are & there is no way I can tell what data is missing on the back up HD - my luck is that it will probably be something(s) that might be important/critical in future!
Many Thanks,
Suave!

Suave! wrote:
I read somewhere that one should ideally use Firewire Drives for mac back ups instead of USB 2.0 as the latter can cause some problems - any truth to this?
Some. FireWire 400 is somewhat faster (and F/W 800 much faster) than USB for sustained copying, but other than your first (full) backup or if you have to do a large or full restore, the speed isn't much of an issue.
Also the FireWire chipset does some of the work that has to be done by your Mac's CPU for USB, so if your CPU is maxed-out while a backup is running, it may make some difference.
And many folks think FireWire is more reliable; I'm inclined to agree, but don't know if that's really true.
Also, is it possible to simultaneously run both Time Machine & SuperDuper on one external back up drive
I'd avoid putting all your backup "eggs" in the same basket. Use two different drives, if at all possible. Otherwise when (not if) that drive fails, you may lose both sets of backups. And if you use a portable external for the SD backups, you can take it to a secure off-site location, such as your safe deposit box, workplace, or relative's house, so you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, direct lighting strike on your power lines, etc.
If you do use the same drive for both, partition it, so each has it's own, exclusive space. See #5 or #6 in the FAQ if you need instructions.
And be sure the clone is excluded from TM backups, per #10 in the FAQ. Note you'll have to connect it to exclude it, and the exclusion won't appear while it's disconnected.
I think I read somewhere that the latest version of SD was "Compatible" with Time Machine?
That probably means SD can copy TM backups. CarbonCopyCloner (similar to SD) will copy them in "block copy" mode, but not "file copy" mode. But there's usually no reason to copy them, and other ways if you really want to.
Finally, my UMBP does have 4GB of RAM built in so I guess this "Sleep Image File" you mentioned would also then account for 4GB missing out of the 6.75GB amount on my Time Machine Back Up Drive but this then still leaves 2.75GB un accounted for - would things like system work files, most caches, logs etc (my trash is empty) really take up such a large amount of space?
Yes, easily. See the blue box in #11 of the FAQ for instructions on seeing the sizes of some of them (note that their sizes right now may not be the same as when you did the backups).

"Can't connect to a current Time Machine back up disk"

OS X Yosemite, version 10.10.1
Macbook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013)
Processor 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Computer is supposed to seamlessly back up to Time Capsule via wi-fi, but ever since upgrading to Yosemite it's been broken. "can't connect to a current Time Machine back up disk" is the message that pops up, just after it shows me the files on my Time Machine for a split second. So it sees them, for a moment, then it pops up the message and freezes my computer. I have to do a hard reboot. I tried the instructions here: OS X Yosemite: If Time Machine can’t find your backup disk, and various instructions I've found on the internet regarding fixes from deleting plist files to whatever.
This is very annoying, I'd like to fix the problem. And also vent, this *****, this isn't why I purchase Apple products, it's a known problem and they aren't publishing a fix. Apple isn't very elegant anymore, it's cumbersome, troublesome, and I'm wondering why I'm spending the extra when those were the benefits I was paying for.

Apple isn't very elegant anymore, it's cumbersome, troublesome, and I'm wondering why I'm spending the extra when those were the benefits I was paying for.
Don't upgrade next time until the following version is out.. I updated not long ago to Mountain Lion.. and it works very nicely. Apple is playing MS game.. don't fix the problems.. just release a new fangled OS. So issues that have existed over Mavericks and all its updates are still there and in fact exacerbated in Yosemite.
To fix your issue.. You may need to do some major work.. did you upgrade or clean install Yosemite??
I guess it is too much to ask if you still have your previous OS install intact?? Making a bootable clone before updating is a necessity now IMHO.
TM does not really allow you to go back to the previous OS.. but you can clean install Mavericks or whatever you used and then recover your files.
To fix Yosemite a clean install can be a big help. Especially as wireless is a major flaw.
Do you own the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter? It is like $35 and a well worthwhile gadget to own.. since I think your mac has no ethernet port.
See if it works ok by ethernet.
Otherwise factory reset the TC and try mounting it manually in finder by IP address, not name.
ie in Finder use Go, Connect to server and type in the IP.. thusly
SMB://10.0.1.1 (replace with actual IP)
It is a bit tricky if the IP is not static.. but start there and see what happens.
Remember to save the password to the TC in the keychain when asked.

Time Machine Back-Up vs Clone?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for