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

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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 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 Craziness: Way too much data getting backed up

Hello.
I'm on a retina MBP running Mountain Lion. Each time that Time Machine does a backup, it's backing up way more data than corresponds to any changes I have made. I'm aware of issues with virtualization software (I'm not using any) and I'm also aware that it will back up entire large files even if I make a small change to it (that doesn't apply here; I have not altered any files that even approach the size of backups being done).
According to Console, Time Machine is backing up much more than backupd is detecting in its initial scan. Here are a couple excerpts from the Console representing today's backups:
8/3/12 3:28:37.450 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Finished scan
8/3/12 3:29:12.480 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Found 2659 files (290.2 MB) needing backup
8/3/12 3:29:12.486 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: 999.3 MB required (including padding), 141.67 GB available
8/3/12 4:28:43.148 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Copied 20.37 GB of 20.37 GB, 7322 of 7322 items
8/3/12 5:28:43.700 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Copied 40.06 GB of 40.06 GB, 9058 of 9058 items
8/3/12 5:53:34.220 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Found 564 files (18.4 MB) needing backup
8/3/12 5:53:34.228 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: 673.7 MB required (including padding), 95.99 GB available
8/3/12 5:59:10.509 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Copied 274 files (1.65 GB) from volume RUBYEXS.
8/3/12 6:00:46.867 PM com.apple.backupd[4027]: Copied 7185 files (1.66 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
I'm pretty sure this has something to do with files on my external hard drive. There may be some corruption in the Time Machine indexing that is forcing backups of the same files to be made over and over again even when no modifications have been made. In the Time Machine menu bar extra, I can see the backup size snowballing. It will say, for example, "backing up 2.4 GB out of 3.0 GB," and one minute later say "backing up 3.5 GB out of 5.4 GB" and just keep going up to as much as 60 GB.
Any ideas what might be causing this? I can provide more detailed Console logs if anyone is interested. Do you think I should wipe my Time Capsule clean and start backups from scratch? That's what I did when I got my rMBP a few weeks ago, but doesn't the Time Machine utility also need to be cleared out somehow so it doesn't look for the old backups? And what about deleting local snapshots? I don't mind starting from scratch again if necessary, but I want to make sure I'm really getting a clean slate.
Thank you to anyone who has ideas about this!

ClayG wrote:
According to Console, Time Machine is backing up much more than backupd is detecting in its initial scan. Here are a couple excerpts from the Console representing today's backups:
Use one of the apps in #A2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see what's really getting backed-up.
Also verify your internal HD and repair the external and the TM drive, to be sure there isn't directory damage.
If that doesn't help, try repairing your backups, per #A5 in the above link.
Do you think I should wipe my Time Capsule clean and start backups from scratch?
Only as a last resort.
doesn't the Time Machine utility also need to be cleared out somehow so it doesn't look for the old backups?
No. It looks at the last backup on the drive, then figures out what's been changed since then. If the drive is empty, it just starts from scratch.
And what about deleting local snapshots?
No, they're completely separate and independent.

Time Machine backs up too much every time?

I have just setup Time Machine to backup my 3 internal drives into a Raid 0 array (1.14 TB). After the initial backup was completed, I have noticed that it eats up about 80 GB every time the incremental runs. I have allowed it to run without running any applications in between backups and with nothing running other than the default processes. When looking at the Console output something very strange shows up. It seems like two backups happen (I assume this from the duplicated "Copied XXX Files" entries". One with the right (or at least reasonable for a system that has basically not changed) amount of data backed up and one with this strange 80GB volume. You can also see that it is spread out on all the drives. This is the console output:
12/20/07 6:28:19 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Backup requested by automatic scheduler
12/20/07 6:28:19 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Starting standard backup
12/20/07 6:28:27 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup Drive/Backups.backupdb
12/20/07 6:28:28 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] No pre-backup thinning needed: 105.3 MB requested (including padding), 418.81 GB available
12/20/07 6:38:58 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 11 files (27.2 GB) from volume Music Movies Pics.
12/20/07 6:39:02 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 140 files (27.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
12/20/07 6:40:24 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 174 files (30.7 GB) from volume Documents.
12/20/07 6:40:24 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] No pre-backup thinning needed: 105.2 MB requested (including padding), 388.06 GB available
12/20/07 6:40:26 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 11 files (0 bytes) from volume Music Movies Pics.
12/20/07 6:40:30 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 152 files (179 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
12/20/07 6:40:32 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Copied 186 files (179 bytes) from volume Documents.
12/20/07 6:40:33 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Starting post-backup thinning
12/20/07 6:40:33 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
12/20/07 6:40:33 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[823] Backup completed successfully.
Also when I look at the logs in the Time Machine drive (the ones called .Backup.log) only the entries with the small volume show up. Any ideas would be appreciated. I was very hopeful about Time Machine but at this rate, no amount of storage would be enough.

I will try to update this post as I find out more information on what is going on with TM. Latest news it that apparently TM is "forgetting" that it backed up some files and is simply doing it over and over. Previously I had this:
12/20/07 10:56:36 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1591] Copied 11 files (27.2 GB) from volume Music Movies Pics.
12/20/07 10:56:39 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1591] Copied 16 files (27.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
12/20/07 11:20:03 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1591] Copied 99 files (42.7 GB) from volume Documents.
By looking into the "inProgress" package I could see that it was copying a bunch of files I had not touched in a long time. One of them was a 27 GB Super duper image. So I removed the file and next backup I got this:
12/21/07 8:29:20 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2121] Copied 10 files (15 KB) from volume Music Movies Pics.
12/21/07 8:29:34 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2121] Copied 293 files (4.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
12/21/07 8:35:11 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[2121] Copied 327 files (3.6 GB) from volume Documents.
So removing that file not only seems to have cleaned up most of the backup coming from "Documents" (where the file resided) but also cleaned up "Macintosh HD". Other than cleaning up file by file I have not really found other ways to fix this.

Time machine backing up too much too often

This has started happening again. I thought the problem went away after my upgrade a few months ago to Mountain Lion.
Time Machine seems to be backing up all the time. And the backups seem to be like 800 MB to 1 GB. It's in the middle of an 849 MB backup right now, but I just started using the computer this morning for the first time, so I didn't change anything overnight.
This does have impact on performance because the disk is constantly being accessed.
In Time Machine preferences I have the obvious culprits excluded: Parallels virtual machines, iTunes podcasts, rental movies and TV shows.
Is there a way to check to see what Time Machine is backing up? I would love for it to get back to it's usual quiet self, doing a 1 or 2 MB backup every hour and quickly getting done with it!
Thanks,
doug

I have 244 images in my photo stream, but only 5 new ones in the last 24 hours.
That's exactly it. The one flaw with iCloud and Time Machine, is that Time Machine checks file metadata, not the photo metadata. Begininng with OSX 10.7.4 there was a hidden system attribute which recorded the last time the file was synced with iCloud. If you are connected to the Internet that tag is updated at an interval (I'm not sure what it is), as well as every time you reconnect, but the OS does this all in the background, so any pictures in photo stream will appear as "modified" to Time Machine, and Time Machine will back up new copies of the files. I'll do a little more poking around the Library and see if I can find something you can exclude, but I'm not sure it can be stopped.

Time machine - backing up too much stuff

I'm capturing DV video these days and it's painful, at least from a Time Machine perstpective.
I've got a camera connected to my Mac through Firewire. Video is captured by iMovie09. The files are very big (eg 15-20Gb). Once captured, I connect my external drive and I transfer the file to it.
Then if I start a backup via Time Machine, I end-up with 100Gb+ files to be saved!!!
I tried the timetracker application, but it does not seem to work (or I dont know how to use it).
How can I find out which files TM is copying and why do you thing this is happening?
Thanks
Yvon
Message was edited by: yvonarchambault

timetracker is the right tool for it. its use is quite simple. you just start it and it will show you a list of available backups. you can pick one and see what was backed up.
With big files as you describe I'm not sure why you think the numbers TM is giving you are incorrect. also keep in mind that your external will also be backed up by TM unless it's on the exclusion list in TM system preferences->options.
Lastly, you might want to exclude from backups the folder on your main drive where those videos are being captured.

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.

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 Backing up too often, do I have a choice?

I'm running a PB G4 1.33ghz and I recently added a Time Capsule to my network. The backup has been working just fine. The problem is that it's been working too much. I can't spare the processor speed. Can I have Time Machine only back up once ever 24 hours instead of every hour?
Maybe I just need to shut off Time Machine in the morning and turn it on at night before I go to bed.
Thoughts?

Another alternative if you don't want to muck around with system files is to switch Time Machine off (the big switch in the preference pane) and just order a backup at your leisure once a day off the dock or menubar menu.

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 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.

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!

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

HT3275 time machine back up not completed due to backup disk image "/volumes/data/.....imac.sparsebundle" is already in use. How do I fix?

time machine back up not completed due to backup disk image "/volumes/data/.....imac.sparsebundle" is already in use. How do I fix?

Pull the power cable from the back of the Time Capsule
Wait a few minutes
Insert the power cable back in the back of the Time Capsule
This will fix the problem 90% of the time. If no luck, see #C12 in this great support document by Pondini:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

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

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