TIme Machine - backing up only some data?

First, I should state that my initial backup was interrupted. I have since erased and formatted the external drive.
Now, when I try to backup, it only starts backing up about 45GB of the 115GB on my Mac. I cannot seem to resolve this. There are no exclusions listed in Time Machine Preference except the backup drive itself.
The odd thing is that I can't imagine how there is 115GB of data on my brand new mac. Where? My top level folders add up to only about 52 GB.
I am so confused. Please help...

A "full reset" did not fix the problem. Several attempts.
There were definitely no previous backups on this external HD... however... I left out some information.
Let me back up a bit (no pun intended)...
I bought this 21.5 Mac and used a TM backup of my other 27 Mac (via a brand new, formatted external drive) to transfer all my applications and (almost) all my files to the new 21.5. Now, I encountered these issues when I tried to back up the 21.5 Mac to a different brand new formatted external drive. It only backs up about 45-50 GB of the 116 GB on the hard drive.
When the backups didn't look right (1 of 45 GB), I cancelled them (not realizing that this was probably a bad idea). I just ran TM again and let it run to completion this time.
The logs from all my attempted backups (about 7?) are pasted below in chronological order. Sorry for the cluster and thanks for your help.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.1 GB excluded items size: 332.1 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Backup canceled.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.1 GB excluded items size: 65.5 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 51.21 GB requested (including padding), 464.37 GB available
Copied 5885 files (11.1 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Backup canceled.
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine (WD 1)/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.2 GB excluded items size: 332.1 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Backup canceled.
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine (WD 1)/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.4 GB excluded items size: 65.6 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 51.34 GB requested (including padding), 464.37 GB available
Copied 16 files (1.5 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Backup canceled.
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine (WD 1)/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.4 GB excluded items size: 332.3 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Backup canceled.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine (WD 1)/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.4 GB excluded items size: 65.6 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 51.30 GB requested (including padding), 464.37 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 12 files (952.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Backup canceled.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine - FS1/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Time Machine Backup/Backups.backupdb/James DeRoussel’s iMac/2010-08-17-203457/Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 108.6 GB excluded items size: 65.7 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 51.52 GB requested (including padding), 464.37 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 20.8 GB of 42.9 GB, 214519 of 1117060 items
Copied 243758 files (45.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 278.0 MB requested (including padding), 418.30 GB available
Copied 196 files (775 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.

Similar Messages

Time Machine Backing up too much data (fixed, I think)

About a month ago, I upgraded my Mac Pro from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and in so doing hooked up new external drive for TM backups.
First backup was large, bit slow, and expected.
All backups after that were fairly slow, which I took initially to be partially related to doing recent OS upgrade.
Within last week or so, I started to notice that my backups seemed to be much larger than expected. I went down about 350 GB on the backup drive in a matter 2 to 3 weeks, while adding at most 10 GB of data in that time.
Well today, I discovered the issue via the (freel) app Time Tracker, which showed 10+ GB of data for each backup was coming from TechTool Protection (in Application Support). I went into TM and did a 'delete all' for this backup, and it restored a good 350 GB back to my TM drive.
As I typed this, I initiated a TM backup, that is now 10 MB, which seems normal and expected.
I still feel like a relative novice when it comes to the fine details of using TM, but glad I found this solution.
Definitely have to give shout out to Pondini for pointing me to Time Tracker and for the umpteen other tips I've received from reading the Pondini.org site.
As I marked this as a question, I would say there are 2 items for me that are still outstanding:
1 - the backup of 10 MB is slow - still showing under 100 KB. As I'm used to this from last few weeks, not a big deal, but I'm up for any pointers from anyone who thinks this can be fixed or ought to be fixed.
2 - I'm still curious about exclusions, especially within a 10.6 OS environment. I've excluded items that make sense, either cause I have them backed up elsewhere (i.e. iTunes Library) or because I didn't see the need (i.e. Apple Loops in Library/Audio folder). The ones that perhaps make less sense to exclude, but I'm currently not backing up are:
- Applications folder (did initial TM backup and then excluded)
- DropBox folder
- Library/Caches
- Library/Mail Downloads
- Public folder and Users/Shared folder
If you feel these ought to be included, let me know. And if you feel there is anything else to exclude, I'm up for hearing that.
Thanks.

incidently it seems that time machine backs up everything the first time and only uses the exclusion list on subsequent times

Time Machine back-up, only restores application, how do I open it to retrieve the contents?

I have iWeb 3.0.3 with a large web site on it that I maintain each month - www.wworkshop.net - This has been running on a G5 Power PC Mac with 10.5.8. The G5 has just given up the ghost, luckily - I had hoped - I have been backing up regularly with ‘The Time Machine’ onto a ‘My Passport for the Mac’. We also have in the family a G4 Power PC Mac PowerBook with 10.5.8 on it, together with an iMac running 10.6.8.
On attempting to reinstall iWeb from the back-up, first it is not recognized by the Time Machine on the G4, it is however on the iMac, and on restoring iWeb appears to be loaded, such that the new size of iWeb on the iMac corresponds with the original - about 500MB as compared with about 30MB for the application with out the web site attached. My problem is, that when I open the back up copy of iWeb on the iMac, the web site is not there, it only wants to start from scratch. I also have a second back up machine that also has (an older copy) of the web site on it, with in a copy of iWeb, that did restore onto the G4, but again, the size would indicate that it contains the web site, but it also only opens to start a new one.
Question.1: How do I get iWeb to cough up my web site, instead of trying to start a new one when I open it?
I always save to a desk top folder from iWeb when updating my web site, then from there load it up to the WWW.
Question.2: Is there any way of using the saved data in the folder to get it back into iWeb to recreate it in the application, or do I have to recreate the complete web site from scratch, all 2500+ photos and text?

When you backed up the website, you should have backed up iWeb the application, but you also needed to back up your domain.sites file - your website in iWeb is not automatically part of iWeb the application, so there is no website for iWeb to "Cough up" - it is the application only, so you need your domain file.
Your domain.sites file is located and stored under your User Library/Application Support/iWeb/domain.sites. This is located under your User Library and NOT your System Library and if you wanted your website back again as well as iWeb the application, then it is this file that you should have baked up.
No, there is no way to get your data back from saved published files on your desktop because iWeb does not and never has had an import facility, so it cannot open these files. The only way is your domain.sites file and if you do not have access to these, then you are looking at re-building your site from scratch.
iWeb is no longer a supported product and has not been sold or supported by Apple for over 2 years now.
If you need to re-build your website from scratch, then do so with an application that is actually being actively developed and supported such as EverWeb.
Other alternatives are RapidWeaver, Sandvox, Freeway Pro/Epress 7, WebAcappella 4 and Flux V.
Also, your OS and your Macs generally seem to be old and at some stage you should consider updating. You should consider purchasing an Intel Mac rather than the Power PC, because you can then update your OS to the latest - you still appear to be running Snow Leopard, which is old now and does not support all the latest technologies. Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and now Yosemite have gone before, so you should consider upgrading to an Intel Mac and keeping at least one Mac fully up-to-date. If you don't do this, it just means that you cannot run the latest software on your Mac and some iPhones, if you use them are incompatible with earlier versions of iTunes.
Technology moves very fast these days and you need to ensure that you keep at least one Mac up-to-date, even if this means buying a new one - you can get re-furbished Macs at cheaper prices.
Unfortunately, as you did not back up the right things, then you'll have to re-build your site from scratch, but don't use iWeb - it is not a supported product and has not been for over 2 years. Get something newer.

Time Machine back up to transfer data to new Mac.

Hi - I am trying to transfer my old Mac data to my new Mac via Time Machine and an external hard drive. When prompted to select a back up source, "Time Machine Backups" shows as an option. On the next screen, "No OS X system back ups were found" appears. In the notes it says only complete back ups of Mac OS X appear on the list. I'm transfering data from a Mac OS X Version 10.6.8. How do I make sure it is complete? I just backed it up again from my old Mac to make sure it was the most recent data.
Thank you.

This website should have answers to your questions:
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Ciao.

Time Machine backs up too much data

I use Time Machine with a hard drive connected to an Airport Extreme and so far everything works fine except for the amount of data being backed up everytime. Example: once a TM backup is finished successfully I manually trigger another one. It starts and has 180 MB of supposedly new data to store. Where does this data come from? I already manually excluded the chaches folder in my home directory and moved the EyeTV folders to an external firewire drive--no changes.
Any ideas?
Have a nice weekend.

Here's another update: I performed a manual TM backup without the mentioned disk image mounted. After finishing the backup I ran it another time. This time there was only 1 kb to back up. So it seems the 180 MB or so are one "slice" of the sparsebundle-type disk-image I use. So even if you change only one bit inside the image, TM has to back up at least one slice.
Those of you with GBs and GBs to backup evey single time: you are not using file vault by any chance? As far as I know it is basically the same thing as an encrypted disk image.

Time Machine backing up lots of data when computer is idle for hours

Is there anyway to see what exactly Time Machine is backing up? No new apps installed, only iTunes (sometimes), Safari and Mail running, no new mail and/or nothing with attachments. Not syncing iPhones or buying music. Whether I'm surfing around or or just have my MBP on and doing something else when Time Machine runs every hour it'll be backing up anywhere from 1-2Mb (acceptable) to 600Mb of data and everywhere in between. What files are changing that much/often? This has been happening for several weeks, not sure exactly when it started because I usually just let Time Machine do its thing and don't check every time to see how much its backing up.
MBP, 10.5.6, 500Gb Time Capsule
Thank you for any help

try TimeTracker
http://www.charlessoft.com/TimeTracker.zip
also, are you using any virtualization software, Entourage or any other programs that use large database files? those database files are treated like single files by TM and any time you make any change to any of them TM backs them up afresh.

Time machine backs up too much data repeatedly

Since May 2010, my 500GB WD external HD (connected to an AEBS via USB) performed spectacularly; often backing up data several times per day.
Then, all of a sudden a few months ago the TM icon in the finder bar showed that it was backing up 20+GB when I had not made any changes to THAT much data. Seeing how this continued for a while, I reformatted the external HD and everything was back to normal.
A few days later the same thing happened and I reformatted it again. After happening for the third time, I just let TM back up these very large amounts of data as many times as it wanted until the disk got full (about 5 hours). Eventually the TM backups got so large, that they could not be stored on the external HD despite erasing the older back ups. This all happened a few weeks ago.
Now I have already tried to directly connect the drive via USB to my MB to no avail. Additionally, I reformatted a Lacie 500GB to connect via USB thinking that the problem might be with the drive. Unfortunately it wasnt. Repeated diagnoistics with TechTool Pro confirmed this.
Both the WD and Lacie I formatted in the same way, Journled with 2 partitions, 1 for the TM backup and another for media.
Please, any help anybody can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Also, Time Tracker doesn't seem to want to work on my machine...

I downloaded the Time Machine Buddy widget and this is what is showed for the last few backups:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Ajay's Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 15.37 GB requested (including padding), 106.88 GB available
Copied 9501 files (11.5 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 694.4 MB requested (including padding), 95.37 GB available
Copied 9 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/Ajay's Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Ajay's MacBook/2011-04-16-183942: 102.34 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/Ajay's Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Ajay's MacBook/2011-04-16-173802: 102.34 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 2 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
Then this an hour later:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Ajay's Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 694.4 MB requested (including padding), 102.34 GB available
Copied 150 files (53 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Then this:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Ajay's Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 694.4 MB requested (including padding), 102.34 GB available
Copied 150 files (53 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 694.3 MB requested (including padding), 102.34 GB available
Copied 9 files (93 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.

Time Machine backs up 50GB of data when all but 5GB is excluded

I have everything but my home folder excluded from Time Machine's backups. I have at most 5GB of stuff in my home folder. Yet when Time Machine starts it's backup it says that it's backing up xxxMB of 53.33GB. I don't even have that much stuff on my harddrive grand total. What gives?

Nevermind. It stopped at 5GB. My bad.

HOW CAN I USE TIME MACHINE TO BACKUP ONLY PART OF MY FILES ON EXTERNAL D?

Hi, I am using time machine to back up all my files at the moment. but I want to get rid of video and photo material from my laptop and keep it on the external hard drive to which the time machine backs up my stuff.
how can i do this without losing the video and photo files permamnently?
thank a lot!

nefsi wrote:
doesn't time machine back up my files on the External hard disk?
By default, Time Machine backs-up almost everything on your internal HD to your External HD. It can also back up things on an external HD, if you want it to.
What I would like is, to find a way so that I could back up everything, but not have all the videos and photos I do not use often, on my laptop. instead I want to put them on the external hard drive and have time machine update all the other files.
Yes, you can do that, but there are two considerations:
You should partition the external HD so the TM backups are in one partition, and the other files are in the other partition. A partition (also called a volume), is treated like a separate disk for most purposes. See #3 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
You should find another way to back-up the videos and photos in that other partition, such as archiving them to CDs/DVDs.
In other words, can Time machine back up only some of my files?
Yes. You can exclude things from Time Machine. See #10 in the FAQ Tip. If you partition your TM drive, the other partition on it should be excluded automatically; but if it isn't, you can easily add it to the +Do not back up+ list in TM Preferences > Options.
For detailed instructions on making another partition on your external HD, see #6 in the FAQ Tip. It shows how to add a TM partition to a drive that already has other data on it, but the procedure is the same.

Does Time Machine back up mounted disk images?

I keep certain sensitive data encrypted on a .sparsebundle file. If this file is mounted when Time Machine kicks in, will Time Machine back up the unencrypted data to my backup disk?
Martin S Taylor

I see. But it's not the sparsebundle I'm worried about: I'm concerned about the contents of the disk being backed up.
From what you say, I'm assuming the contents are never directly backed up whether encrypted or not: if the disk is unmounted, then obviously the contents can't be backed up (only the .sparseimage file itself); and if it's mounted – well, they're just not backed up, because this isn't how Time Machine works.
Have I got this right?
Martin

Restoring a Lion Time Machine back-up to a Mountain Lion iMac.

I have a Time Machine back-up that was backed up on an iMac running Lion. I'm now buying a new iMac and it will be running Mountain Lion. Will this cause a problem if I try to restore my new computer with my time machine back up that was done using Lion? Do I need to do anything before I plug in the backup? I can’t update my old iMac because it died and Apple said it would cost several hundred dollars to fix it.

Nick,
Thank you for the reply. I’m a relatively simple MAC user. I don’t do a lot of stuff on my Mac other than pictures, videos and documents… simple things. Very little third party stuff was on my Mac.
When I booted my old machine I know there was a screen asking for me if I want to use a time machine back up to transfer data to my new iMac, at least there was in Lion. I used that feature when the HDD went bad in my old iMac. It was very easy. Do you know if I can use that same feature or do I have to do something special because it is a different OS? I don’t want to go back to Lion. I just want to make sure it will recover my old stuff easily.
Again. Thank You!

Time Machine DELETED all of my data & will only show backed up data Jan 10

My harddrive was replaced by Apple. I was not concerned about data loss because my time machine backs up every night. When I got the computer back, I followed the directions for the computer to use a time machine backup. But, when it pulled up the drive, the only date available was Jan 2010. Thinking I could backup when I got into the system, I went ahead with that date back up. The computer restarted and I, after a few tries, was able to access my backup as of March 18, 2011, elated, I hit "restore" and the file began to copy.
Near the end of the copy, an error message popped up indicating that the copy could not complete because of duplicate names (?). Thinking I could just restart the restore and fix, I went back into time machine but there existed no backups between Jan 2010 and last night.
Before the restore started, the files were there, my user names were there, everything was there, now they are gone!! I cannot find an entire year of my life. Can someone help, please!! And, no, I am not sophisticated enough to have erased my time machine backups.
I talked to Apple Support and they were at a loss and said they couldn't explain how, as it appears, that time capsule, as some point during the copying, backup-ed over the existing data and that all my data is now lost.

Nothappy123 wrote:
When your Mac first started up, and you got a window asking if you wanted to +Transfer your information,+ what did you select?
I selected to transfer my information from a Time Machine back-up. The lastest date it had was Jan 2010, which was strange because it backs up every hour (or at least it was supposed to)
That sounds like Time Machine had started a new "sequence" of backups in January 2010, and transferred your data from the old set.
After I got to the user screens, I signed in and went into time machine. It was a little tricky because it took all of my settings (passwords) back to 2010, so I it took me a minute to remember what my server password was. When I got into the star wars, after a couple of times entering the time machine, March 2011 magically showed up. I selected the hard drive and hit restore.
That explains more. Unfortunately, Apple does not make it clear that you can't do that. You can't restore the system you're running from that way.
Yes, I have a time capsule. How do I get to that? Honestly, I thought that was what I was in.
Yes, that's what I thought; you hadn't mentioned it before, and I wanted to be sure.
As mentioned above, what I think happened is, for some reason, in January 2010, Time Machine started a new set of backups, and restored from the old set instead of the new one.
To confirm that, do this:
From a Finder window, in +Column View,+ locate your Time Capsule in the sidebar and double-click it. You should get a display something like this:
|
|
See if there are two (or more) +sparse bundles+ listed, as in the sample.
Post back with the results (or if you have trouble getting that screen -- I don't know how familiar you are with this).
That should clarify the situation.
|
Did a little more digging. The backup is case-sensitive and i think my hard drive is case ignorant, which explains the copy fail. how do I fix?
No. That's different, unfortunately.
As odd as it seems, your backup drive can be case-sensitive. In fact, that's the what Time Machine uses when you let it format a backup disk for you.
The problem is if the old +*internal HD+* was case-sensitive, but the new one is not, it could explain part of what you're seeing.
All Macs come with the internal HD set up as case-ignorant, so if you bought it new, and didn't change it (which requires erasing and reinstalling everything), that's very unlikely.

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down eliminate

I am trying to get space on an external hard drive which has some old time machine back up files that I do not need but can not eliminate, even by going into the time machine, clicking on the backup file to be eliminated and using the drop down menu with the gear box symbol to eliminate

I cannot find this 300GB "Backup" in the Finder, only in the Storage info when I check "About This Mac".
You are probably using Time Machine to backup your MacBook Pro, right? Then the additional 300 GB could be local Time Machine snapshots. Time Machine will write the hourly backups to the free space on your hard disk, if the backup drive is temporarily not connected. You do not see these local backups in the Finder, and MacOS will delete them, when you make a regular backup to Time Machine, or when you need the space for other data.
See Pondini's page for more explanation: What are Local Snapshots? http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
I have restarted my computer, but the information remains the same. How do I reclaim the use of the 300GB? Why is it showing up as "Backups" when it used to indicate "Photos"? Are my photos safe on the external drive?
You have tested the library on the external drive, and so your photos are save there.
The local TimeMachine snapshot probably now contains a backup of the moved library. Try, if connecting your Time Machine drive will reduce the size of your local Time Machine snapshots.

Retriving data from an incomplete time machine back up

Hi,
I have an incomplete time machine back up. Can I retrieve data from it?
Thanks,
v8r.

v8r wrote:
It was my first time machine back up. Mid way I felt that it is stuck so I powered down my mac book pro. Now its not booting. I gave the details in a simultaneous thread "Gray screen, spinning cog and midway to first back up of time machine". I am assuming that if I have lost all the data on my harddrive, can I at least get some from the incomplete time machine back up.
well, it might be possible but it won't be in any form that you can retrieve automatically. so your first priority should be to get your computer to boot and after what you can start worrying about getting your data from an incomplete TM backup. I've done that it the past and it works sometimes but it really depends on the situation. I had to do it from terminal too as it didn't work from finder.
but it need not be that you lost all data on the main drive. boot from the SL install dvd and see if disk utility sees the drive. if so, repair the drive and try booting from it. if you have disk warrior it might help too if disk utility can not fix some errors.
Thanks,
v8r.

How do i restore all my data from a time machine back up from an iMac to a Macbook Pro?

How do i restore all my data from a time machine back up on an external hard dirve???
From an iMac to a Macbook Pro.

I tried this but my external drive is not appearing for some reason. Although it is accessible through finder.
Is ther perhaps another way of doing this??
Your help is massively appreciated!!

TIme Machine - backing up only some data?

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