Time Machine backup ok,, now too small

My 3T disk has 1.4 TB used. My backup disk is only 2.5 TB. It did the first backup and 835 GB are left.. but it is telling me there isn't enough room.
I get it that it is making multiple backups so that I can back up to any point in time. But I can't really go out and buy a 6 TB disk. I am happy with it just backing it up and adding the changes every week or so... then doing a new full backup. This is what my old backup program does. Do I have any options other than excluding important files from the backup?

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Post the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear.
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.

Similar Messages

Time machine backups take way too long

Greetings,
Having trouble with Time Machine backups taking way too long. (No, it's not the first backup after some momentous event, as 90% of what I read about slow backups mentions; it's _every_ backup.)
20" iMac purchased Oct 2008. OS 10.6.8. 500 GB internal hard drive. 3 TB external backup drive. Was tested at the local "Genius" Bar, but they found nothing wrong with it. The best they could do is to recommend a restore from Time Machine, and if that didn't work, start clean and reload the OS and then copy my stuff back. I don't think so. I actually did a full Time Machine restore for a different reason, and it didn't help (except that I gained a few GB of disk space!).
My Time Machine backups now take about 39 minutes to complete. I have a 500 GB internal drive and this problem happens regardless of which external drive I use. (I have 3: 2 WD hard drives and one [noisy!] G-drive.) My current backup drive is a 3 TB WD drive with 2 TB of free space.
These are small incremental backups, typically about 35 MB. It doesn't take half an hour to copy 35 MB!
All phases take a long time, but the most irritating one is where TM appears to get stuck for a long time at the beginning and end of the copying phase. For example, at one point it will say something along the lines of Backing Up 7 KB of 34.4 MB. And it'll be like that for minutes on end. Later it will say something like 35 MB of 35 MB and hang there for minutes on end. During these periods the write I/O rate will go up and down, and CPU usage will often be very high (with backupd using 90 - 100%, in addition to highly elevated System CPU usage). In one particular backup the I/O write rate for one part of it looked like a heartbeat on an EKG! I should have taken a screenshot.
At the beginning during the Calculating Changes phase, backupd is using between 90 and 100% CPU.
There is also high CPU usage during the next phase, Preparing. And the number of items being prepared is in the thousands.
It always goes in two rounds because it finds that the root directory (/) has been modified.
I've Googled and searched Mac forums and found nothing useful. I started with a new .plist file and nothing's changed.
Can anyone help? Thanks!
I wrote the above Jun 28. Yeah, finally getting around to posting it. Since then it's gotten worse. I now do a manual backup once a day and it takes almost an hour. I tried re-indexing Spotlight. No good.
Can anyone help? Again, this is not a "first backup." It is _every_ backup.
Thanks!
AEF

Thanks for your efforts. Here are my answers, comments, and further info:
I believe I have repaired permissions on my drive as part of my troubleshooting. And I'm sure I checked SMART status, which came up with a thumbs up, so to speak. I'm trying again. I don't see any useful messages in any logs on the console. I'm looking at "All Messages" and there is so far nothing useful. Oh, I think you must mean repair as in "Repair Disk," not "Repair Disk Permissions." I believe the "genius" at the Apple store did that or something just as good. The machine checked out fine according to them.
Checked SMART status just now: passed. Ran Quick Drive Test: also passed.
Oh, I installed "Time Machine Buddy". Occasionally, and only occasionally, I get a "deep traversal needed message" like this (I copied this from .Backup.log):
Running preflight for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
        Scanning nodes needing deep traversal
        Node requires deep traversal: /Users/alanfeldman/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Database/apdb reason:contains changes|must scan subdirs|fsevent|missed reservation|
        Calculating size of changes
        Should copy 2919 items (27.8 MB) representing 7116 blocks of size 4096. 546805181 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
Time elapsed: 1 minute, 39.000 seconds
But the vast majority of the time I do NOT get this message. But if there's something wrong with this apdb file, what can I do to fix it?
Note that there is usually, if not always, a lot of CPU activity or I/O (disk) activity, but not a lot getting done.

I have had to reinstall my Mavericks OS and use a Time Machine backup. Now when I open InDesign I get Error:5 , AMT subsystem failure. Do you know a fix for this?

I have had to reinstall my Mavericks OS and use a Time Machine backup. Now when I open InDesign I get Error:5 , AMT subsystem failure. Does anyone have a fix for this?

I have had to reinstall my Mavericks OS and use a Time Machine backup. Now when I open InDesign I get Error:5 , AMT subsystem failure. Does anyone have a fix for this?

I restored a Macbook Pro from a Time Machine backup and now none of my passwords are working (and I know they are the correct passwords). What can I do?

I restored a Macbook Pro from a Time Machine backup and now none of my passwords are working (and I know they are the correct passwords). What can I do?

First, make sure caps lock is not on.
Another reason why the password might not be recognized is that the keyboard layout (input source) has been switched without your realizing it. You can select one of the available layouts by choosing from the flag menu in the upper right corner, if it's showing, or cycle through them by pressing the key combination command-space or command-option-space. See also this support article.
If the user account is associated with an Apple ID, and you know the Apple ID password, then maybe the Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password. In OS X 10.10 and later, this option also works with FileVault, but only if you enabled it when you activated FileVault. It's not retroactive. Otherwise, see below.
Note: If you've activated FileVault, this procedure doesn't apply. Follow instead these instructions.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities window appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar at the top of the screen—not from any of the items in the OS X Utilities window.
In the window that opens, type this:
resetp
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window opens. Close the Terminal window to get it out of the way.
Select the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected. You won't be able to do this if FileVault is active.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.
You should now be able to log in with the new password, but the Keychain will be reset (empty.) If you've forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as the login password), there's no way to recover it.

I just reinstalled from my time machine backup and now it is asking me for a user id. I never had one before

As part of the hard drive recall for imacs i had my drive replaced.
i just reinstalled from my time machine backup and now it set up a user id, I never had one before. Of course I don't know the password and cannot get in.
Why? How do I get around it?

HT201250 I have had my mac stolen, I have an external HD I connect via USB for these time machine backups, I now have a new replacement mac and wish to restore from my external HD, migration assistant doesn't seem to recognise or see my drive ? please hel

I have had my mac stolen, I have an external HD I connect via USB for these time machine backups, I now have a new replacement mac and wish to restore from my external HD, migration assistant doesn't seem to recognise or see my drive ? please help

See Pondini's Excellent information here...
Setting-up a new Mac from an old one, its backups, or a PC
See the Second Chance to Use Setup Assistant here...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html

After replacing a failed hard drive with new one I inadvertently created a different account name(home/user) than the one in the Time Machine backup. Now I cannot restore the photos in iPhoto. What are my options?

After replacing a failed hard drive with new one I inadvertently created a different account name(home/user) than the one in the Time Machine backup. Now I cannot restore the photos in iPhoto. What are my options?

The best thing to do would be to start over. Use Setup Assistant this time.
Boot into Recovery, launch Disk Utility, and erase the startup volume. This operation will destroy all data on the volume. Quit Disk Utility and install OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.
When you reboot, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process. That’s when you transfer the data from one of your backups. For a walkthrough, see here:
Using Setup Assistant
Don't transfer the Guest account, if it was enabled on the old system.
Note: You need an always-on Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection to the Internet to use Recovery. It won’t work with USB or PPPoE modems, or with proxy servers, or with networks that require a certificate for authentication.

Used Time Machine Backup Today- Now This backup is too large for the backup

Hey Everyone!
Some advice please,
My Hard Drive recently crashed. Fortunately, I've been using Time Machine. Apple Store gave me a new Hard Drive (for free), and I came home and restored to Time Machine. I am very impressed, and have lost no data or applications.
So now I have a problem. I can no longer back my hard drive, presumably because there were so many changes to the software today. I am getting This backup is too large for the backup volume. What is the easiest way to delete my old time machine backup and start from scratch with my computer in its current state? Everything seems to be working smoothly, so I don't see any reason to keep my old backups. Any suggestions? Is there any logical reason why I would keep the old backup?
Message was edited by: David Selevan

Thanks Barry!
I called Apple (had to anyway for a new OS Leopard DVD) and he had me go into Disk Utility and choose Erase Disk (as you suggested). I didn't have to do any formatting.
The next step was to go into System Preferences and select Change Disk and set it to None. After that, he had me choose Change Disk again, and select the USB drive, and click Use For Backup.
Now it's backing up the new version of my computer. Problem solved. Thank you.
After having to get an brand new Hard Drive today, I highly recommend that everyone purchase some kind of external hard drive and run Time Machine regularly. Although the backups get large, I've never experienced such a pleasant experience getting my files back after a hard drive failure. This is awesome technology. I can't believe 95% of my applications still worked.
David

Time machine backup fails now that I have installed Mavericks

Time machine "backup now" used to work flawlessly. Now it doesn't work at all after installing Mavericks. I just get an interminable "preparing backup" message.
It worked flawlessly before Mavericks installation - any thoughts?

I too have had a few failed Time Machine backups since updating to Maverick. I backup to a NAS/server and didn't used to have this problem before.

Time Machine Backup File Size : Very Small compared to MAC HD

I did my first backup and my MAC HD where everything is at is about 319.73 in capacity and Im only using 167.78 storage space. When the backup is complete the file size is only 40Gb , I find that so odd , is that normal will everything restore to its original state If I had to reinstall the OS ?

OK, here it is
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: >afp://[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://[email protected]/Data
Running backup verification
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
CopyHFSMeta: cannot replay journal: Invalid argument
Backup verification passed!
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Data/myname’s Computer (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time >Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/Dom's HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 21.02 GB requested (including padding), 889.63 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Copied 26534 files (22.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.
So, is the problem that I used Time Machine on my previous machine to backup to a different volume? Then perhaps it has just tried to backup things that may have changed in the couple of months since I last backed up on that machine?
If so, how do I get time machine to start afresh with my new Time Capsule?

Time Machine back-up disk too small

Recently I had to restore my system from a Time Machine back-up, all seemed to work fine. Now I have a situation where time machine gives me an error when I attempt a back up, saying there's not enough free space on the back-up drive. The drive I'm backing up is max 500megs, the external BU drive is a TB. I fixed all the prefs but it seems as though Time machine is not deleting old files from my BU drive to make room for new ones. Any ideas?

OrangePanda wrote:
Hi, I have the same problem.
My backup drive (G-Tech Q 500Gb) has 465Gb of space and my Pro has only 434Gb,
Your backup drive is much too small. To work well (and keep a reasonable number of backups for you), TM usually needs roughly 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. See item #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
yet when I tried to update it says I still need 63Gb of space??? I downloaded the Time Machine buddy recommended here, the message said that some old copies were deleted but still need 64Gb, only had 40Gb.
Did I miss something? should I just wipe my G-Tech and try again?
Short-term, probably. Without the actual messages, we can only speculate, but most likely you've made a lot of changes or for some other reason TM is trying to back-up about 54 gb (the 64 includes about 20% extra for workspace). Copy and post the TM Buddy messages here and we can be sure.
Long-term, you need a bigger drive.

Restored my mac from a time machine backup but now iCal isn't working?

There are no calendars listed on the side, not even the ones I had in my backup or the ones that come default in ical. Won't let me create new calendars or sync with icloud to get my cloud calendars. Any one know how to fix this? iCal is currently unchecked in iCloud but that didn't help anything. I tried deleting the calendars folder but it didnt help. I also tried deleting the com.apple.iCal.plist file but nothing changed in ical and perference generated a new one titled: com.apple.iCal.plist.HPjnF3U
Does any one have a solution to this problem? I build multiple calendars for work in iCal so I lost a lot of work and it won't even let me rebuild it.

You can add a new local account in Calendar/Preferences/Accounts - + sign and then CalDAV account.
Do a backup.
Quit the application.
Go to Finder and select your user/home folder. With that Finder window as the front window, either select Finder/View/Show View options or go command - J. When the View options opens, check ’Show Library Folder’. That should make your user library folder visible in your user/home folder. Select Library/Calendars - enter Time Machine to restore.

Time machine backup too large

i had a weird quirky thing happen to my computer. It crashed and when I restarted, all my login items and programs were asking me for my licenses and registration nos. as if i had just installed them. Plus all their settings went back to default. Recovering all my registration information would have taken an act of god, as my appshelf data was corrupted too. After many different recovery attempts, I scrapped it all, did one final Time Machine backup, and restored my computer from a date I knew was working (about 3 weeks earlier), using the system disk. My Time Machie backups went back nearly a year. When I was up and running, I then went in to Time Macine and brought over piecemeal new files that had been added since three weeks ago.
A couple days later, I attempted to get something from an old Time Machine backup, but now the bakups did not extend back as far, but they only went to the date I restored from 3 weeks earlier. I thought that was weird, but continued on. Later, it was only going back a couple days. Having a "working system" I thought nothing of it..but now it is telling me July 25 is the oldet backup, taking up 230.84 GB of 499.76, and any successive backup fails. Instead of incrementally backing up, Time Machie is now attemptng to do a full bnackup, requiring 250 GB, but only 230 are available. Does asnyone know it's not just backing up the changes, but attempting to backup the whole thing??

Sometimes, this error is legitimate. The user may not realize that they need to exclude additional hard disks that TM may be seeing. This is done in the “Options…” window of the Time Machine Preferences.
Nevertheless, many times this error just doesn’t make sense, stating that not enough free space exists for a backup that is clearly smaller. (“The backup requires 45.9 GB but only 182.6 GB are available”)
The answer and fix may have been discovered by a poster in the macosxhints forums: (http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-84284.html)
Essentially, while Time Machine DOES delete old backups from the sparsebundle, it DOES NOT free up the space occupied by those old backups. Eventually, "all previous backups were deleted and no space was gained. . . . What appears to be going on here is that the sparsebundle isn't self-shrinking - unused bands aren't being automagically discarded."
The solution is to compact the TM backup sparsebundle in Terminal using:
hdiutil compact yoursparsebundlefilename.
He concludes, "I gained 30+gb of space on the backup volume by compacting that sparsebundle. And now TM runs just fine, since it has plenty of space."
Obviously, this is a bug in TM. It does not appear to effect everyone, and only seems to appear under certain curcumstances.
Let us know if this works for you.

Unreadable Time Machine backups

Had a disc crash a few weeks ago. Caught it in time and did a full Time Machine immediately. It never booted nor mounted again, so I was unable to do a simple disk image or folder copy as I would have liked. So all I have is Time Machine. (I had been traveling for some weeks, and my most recent backup at home is safe and accessible, but a few weeks old.)
I immediately did a copy of the Time Machine according to the instructions at Pondini.org. This was done with "Duplicate the volume", including the "Ignore ownership on this volume" setting, and immediately changing the name of the volume as instructed. So I should have two copies.
Replacement disc (500Gb SSD) is smaller than Time Machine (pretty full 750Gb disc). I found in Pondini that I could selectively restore and then delete folders within the Time Machine. So I went to the Time Machine, and restored Music and Pictures folders to a blank OS X installation, then moved them to a spare disc for safety. Then I selected "Delete All Backups of this folder" for both, to make the backup smaller. This last step I now realize was unnecessary and quite possibly damaging.
Then I reinstalled OS X again, and attempted to use Setup Assistant to transfer the now smaller Time Machine in full to my machine. Unfortunately however, Setup Assistant cannot see any Time Machine backup at all any more. (Nor can Migration Assistant or OS X install at the "Restore from a Time Machine" point.) This I put down to my having deleted some of the folders and therefore having broken it. That would be logical, if very unfortunate.
Next idea was to try the same with the copied version. No go. Nothing will see that either. This I find puzzling as I copied the backup in the correct manner, and didn't touch it again afterwards.
When I use "Browse Other Backup Discs" on both Time Machine backups, I now cannot see any folders of documents, only shortcuts to them which don't go anywhere. So I can't pull the remaining documents from the backup that way, as far as I can see. Or maybe I am looking in the wrong place?
All I really care about getting access to at this stage are the Desktop and Documents folders.
Any thoughts?

I see that you're familiar with Pondini, so maybe you've looked at this already -- but if you haven't, see:
http://pondini.org/TM/E2.html
and http://pondini.org/TM/E3.html
Hope that's helpful.

Can't copy Time Machine "Backups.backupdb" to another drive.

My external Time Machine backup drive now displays this message every time I connect it to my Mac.
Mac OS X can't repair the disk "Backup Drive"
You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can’t save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can.
Since this is a Time Machine drive, I found these instructions here -- Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive -- that say to copy the Backups.backupdb to a new drive.
Every time I do this, the process gets to about 150,000 files then crashes my Mac. Sometimes it's a grey screen with words telling me to hold the Power Button down to force a reboot. Sometimes it just crashes and reboots itself.
I've repaired disk permissions and it keeps happening.
How do I copy Backups.backupdb to a new drive when the process keeps crashing my Mac?

Try using one of the clone apps to copy. It's possible the drive is too damaged and the files will not copy.
Both of these applications can be used to create a clone.
SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
CCC http://www.bombich.com/download.html

Time Machine backup ok,, now too small

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