Time machine full backup

Why does my computer start a new backup series every week / 10 days now? Never used to with Lion.

It backs up every hour which is OK but the frequency of starting a new backup has increased dramatically since I switched to Mountain Lion.
It now wants to start a new backup every week to 10 days and it takes forever to do a new full backup.

Similar Messages

Time Machine Full backup after disk move

I have followed the instructions for moving my Time Machine backup to a new disk as per instructions here. However, once I have completed the copy to the new disk, the first time that time machine runs, it seems to be do a full new backup and therefore there is not enough room on the new disk.
I get the following error: Time Machine could not complete the backup. This backup is too large for the backup disk.
Please help, this is driving me nuts.
Thanks,
Ian.

Peeps, I am so sorry, I am such an idiot, I have just realise what I have done wrong!!!
Whilst trying to build my new drive (part of which is to be my new Time Machine backup) I created a 500gb backup in my local Documents folder - this is why my initial Time Machine backup was so large, not because Time Machine was trying to do a full backup!!!
Thanks for looking,
Ian.

Time Machine full backup started... why!?

Installed Mavericks, played around a bit, time machine was behaving normally until today.
I thought the usual backup was starting, not so many changes since last one, maybe a couple of giga of new photos to add but Time Machine decided instead to delete the whole content and start from scratch.
My time machine disk is 1.5TB my full backup will be under 1.20TB, and again Mavericks was already backing up normally since I installed that... so what caused this absurd behaviour?
If this is not a bug, what else? Because of this at the moment I have no backup, time machine is working and if I am lucky it'll take one full day or two to have a backup again.

troyboy65 wrote:
I dont understand why when the total of the 2 machines only totals 500gb
Time Machine keeps copies of everything currently on your Mac, plus copies of things you've changed or deleted. It varies widely depending on how you use your Mac, but Time Machine generally needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up, to be able to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.
Is there some settings i need to change or is something wrong?
Probably neither.
If both Macs are running Snow Leopard, you may be getting notices like the one in the blue box in #C4 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. You can stop those notices if you want.
If either is on Leopard, it's a different story. When Time Machine on a Mac running Leopard runs out of room, and the +Warn when old backups are deleted+ option is checked, it fails with a message like the one in the tan box in #C4. Remove the check from the box, and it will start deleting old backups.
But if you're getting the message in the pink box, something is likely wrong. See the suggestions and explanations there.

Time machine full backup after disk and disk permissions repair

my macbook would not boot so i inserted the snow leopard DVD and did a disk repair and disk permissions repair, after that it booted perfectly but when it went to do a backup it did a full backup of 149GB , i am unsure why it has done this and would like to know how to stop it as i am trying to save space on my time capsule.
thank you in advance

Brycycle wrote:
i do not wish to let it do a full backup so as to save space on my time capsule but this is the log up till when it started transferring data.
I'm afraid you don't have much choice. You do have lot of space available, though.
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 165.92 GB requested (including padding), 507.60 GB available
The "deep traversal" means TM compared everything on your system to the backups, and estimates that about 138 GB is new/changed (it adds 20% for workspace on the TM disk - the "padding" in the message).
If there's about 138 GB on your system, see #D3 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some common reasons for TM to do a new full backup.
If there's more, #D4 there has some common reasons for large backups.
If all you did was repair disk and permissions, neither should have resulted.
the reason i did a permission repair and disk repair while running from the install disk was because my laptop would not boot from the internal disk so i did both just to be safe.
That's fine; just do the Permissions Repair again, while running normally.

Force Time Machine Full Backup

I wanted to update my Macbook Pro with a new Hard Disk, after preparing & installing the new HD and then chossing to restore from the Time Machine, i was surpised that the Time Machine showed me only some Backups(Full Backups), and the last full backup was 6 Months old, although i did a TM Backup just before installing the new HD, but apprently it is an incremntal backup, therfore it was not shown in the list.
So my question is how to force a TM Full Backup so that i can just restore it on the new HD. I know i can do it if i deleted all the old Backups, but i want to keep them, is it possible?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
          <key>sourcePaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/</string>
          </array>
          <key>standardExclusionPaths</key>
          <array>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups</string>
                    <string>/MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.MobileBackups.trash</string>
                    <string>/.Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/.TemporaryItems</string>
                    <string>/.Trashes</string>
                    <string>/.com.apple.backupd.mvlist.plist</string>
                    <string>/.fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/.hotfiles.btree</string>
                    <string>/Backups.backupdb</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DB</string>
                    <string>/Desktop DF</string>
                    <string>/Network/Servers</string>
                    <string>/Library/Updates</string>
                    <string>/Previous Systems</string>
                    <string>/Users/Shared/SC Info</string>
                    <string>/Users/Guest</string>
                    <string>/dev</string>
                    <string>/home</string>
                    <string>/net</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/com.apple.backupd.backupVerification</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/efw_cache</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100</string>
                    <string>/private/var/lib/postfix/greylist.db</string>
                    <string>/Volumes</string>
                    <string>/Network</string>
                    <string>/automount</string>
                    <string>/.vol</string>
                    <string>/tmp</string>
                    <string>/cores</string>
                    <string>/private/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/Network</string>
                    <string>/private/tftpboot</string>
                    <string>/private/var/automount</string>
                    <string>/private/var/folders</string>
                    <string>/private/var/run</string>
                    <string>/private/var/tmp</string>
                    <string>/private/var/vm</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/dhcpclient</string>
                    <string>/private/var/db/fseventsd</string>
                    <string>/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/Library/Logs</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Caches</string>
                    <string>/System/Library/Extensions/Caches</string>
                    <string>/private/var/log</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/cups</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/fax</string>
                    <string>/private/var/spool/uucp</string>
          </array>
          <key>systemFilesExcluded</key>
          <false/>
          <key>userExclusionPaths</key>
          <array/>
</dict>
</plist>

Restore Time Machine Full Backup After Catastrophic Failure

I am new to the Mac and using Time Machine as my primary backup utility. My concern is the way it creates one full backup at the beginning and only incremental ones after that. If the full backup gets overwritten due to the program needing hard drive space, does it know to create another full backup, even if it needs to delete some older incremental backups?
I am concerned I will need to complete a full restore at some point, and will not be able to do so because there will not be a full backup present on the Time Machine disk.
Also, who has had to restore from a catastrophic disk failure using an external time machine disk? Is this easy? Does it work properly?

you concerns are unfounded. due to the way TM keeps data organized every backup is full and independent of any other backups.
when TM makes a backup it only backs up afresh new and changed files. everything else is _*hard linked*_ to existing backup copies.
deleting an earlier backup to save space as TM does sometimes has zero effect on the remaining backups. they remain full and complete. doing a full system restore from TM is very easy. you boot from the SL install DVD and select "restore system from backup" from Utilities menu.
However, it should be noted that TM is still very buggy and doing a full restore can not be tested until you actually do it. therefore, it's advisable to have a double backup using a different backup tool. bootable clones are the best for doing a full restore. CCCloner and Superduper are excellent cloning backup programs.

FYI: No Sleep during Time Machine initial backup

Just an FYI - I noticed that during the first Time Machine full backup, the computer does not go to sleep.
I would also assume that if you computer is asleep, it will not wake for each hourly backup.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You need to know that backing-up that way is "iffy" and +*not supported by Apple.+* See Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Kernel panics are usually caused by hardware problems, but can be software.
Disconnect all peripherals, except keyboard and mouse. Reconnect one at a time to see if you can find the culprit.
If that's no help, run the Apple Hardware Test: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
And perhaps a heavy-duty memory test, such as the free Rember: http://www.kelleycomputing.com/
More kernel panic info:
Apple Support - About kernel panic messages
Mac OS X Kernel Panic FAQ
The X Lab - Resolving Kernel Panics
Apple Developer - Technical Note TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics
Tutorial: Avoiding and eliminating Kernel panics
|
If you still want to back up via the Airport, the first backup will be much faster if you connect via Ethernet.

Time Machine thinks backup disk is full but its not

I just purchased a new 1 Terabyte hard drive for backup. In the past I backed up both my internal Mac harddrive (250 Gb with 8gb free) and an external iOmega archive drive (DRIVE H 320Gb with 41Gb free) to a 500Gb Lacie drive. I purchased an iOmega 1 Terabyte drive (DRIVE G) because the Lacie drive was full. I went into Time Machine and changed the backup drive to the G one terabyte drive and did a full backup of my internal hard drive. When I did this I did not have the external H archive drive attached so Time Machine didn't back that up. I did it that way because I wanted to first backup the internal drive then do some work and then go backup the external archive drive over night. I plugged the H archive drive in, so it show up in the finder and then told Time Machine to Backup Now. It started the back up but right after doing the initial computations when it actually started backing up I got the standard error message that "the backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly..." I've double checked that the backup disk is set correctly in Time Machine to the 1Tb G drive and when I do a Get Info on the G drive it shows Capacity: 1TB, Available: 713.54 GB.
Is it possible something is wrong with the new drive? Can I test that?

Its funny how sometimes asking a question can prompt your thinking. As soon as I finished posting this I thought "of course Disk Utility". I ran a check disk and got the following error message:
Unused node is not erased (node = 107)
I did a restore which corrected the error. Turned Time Machine back on and its backing up the rest of my data now.

How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme

How do I use time machine to backup to an external hard drive plugged into my airport extreme? I used to be able to but now time machine will not recognize my hard drive to select as a backup when plugged into my airport extreme. I'm not sure what happened or changed. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

Can I set Time Machine to backup both my hard drive and an external hard drive?

Hi. I've been working with a lot of family video lately and my internal hard drive has filled up significantly. iMovie doesn't seem to have a good archiving facility like Adobe InDesign which I use at work were all the relevant files are gathered together into one folder. Apple advised me to relocate my movie files to an external hard drive and herein lies my query.
Is there a way for me to set Time Machine to backup both my iMac's internal drive and the external hard drive that would contain my movie files? I've been using Time Machine for my backups for a few years now, but backing up the external as well has me stumped. If Time Machine could be used then all the necessary file accociations etc would be safely backed up as well - that's why I don't want to have to manually backup the external.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

7string48 wrote:
Thanks so much Pondini!! You just quickly answered a question that none of the Mac people in 3 stores or Apple Care have been able to answer.If you can format it HFS+ (any variation of Mac OS Extended), it will work. If not, it won't.
I'm not too surprised about the Apple Stores, as they don't get much training on Time Machine. But AppleCare sure ought to know.
Oh...what about if the external drive is an array...like a Drobo with it's own proprietary formatting...I guess that would not work...??
I've never used a Drobo. A number of folks here have used them as their Time Machine drives, but I don't recall seeing anyone try to back one up with TM, so can't say for sure. But if you can format it as HFS+ (any variation of Mac OS Extended), it will work. If not, it won't.
At least part of the reason is, Time Machine uses the File System Event Store, a hidden log of changes that OSX keeps on each Mac-formatted disk/partition, to figure out what's changed and needs to be backed-up. See How Time Machine works its Magic for details.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for details and considerations of backing-up multiple volumes with Time Machine.
However, even if it will work, that may not be your best strategy, depending on your circumstances:
Since Time Machine keeps copies of things you've changed or deleted, the destination needs to be considerably larger than the data being backed-up. How much larger varies widely depending on how you use your Mac, but a general "rule of thumb" is, it needs at least twice the space to be able to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.
If you have a large internal HD, fairly full, plus a large external HD, and the files on the external don't change frequently, you might want to use Time Machine for the internal, and a different app to a different disk or partition, on a different schedule, for the external. Especially if space is a consideration, you might not need to keep previous versions of files on the externals. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for some alternatives.

Unable to boot after Time Machine full system restore!!

I was having some serious slowdowns with my computer. I did multiple RAM and HD hardware tests, everything seemed to be working fine. I had recently deleted a bunch of files in order to free up some HD space, so I thought that may be the culprit. So I did a Time Machine backup and restored the Powerbook to it's original 10.3 software. All was fine. Then I upgraded back to 10.5 and all was fine. Then I did a Time Machine full system restore overnight and got the message "Your restore was successful, you must now restart your computer" (or something to that effect). Now I get the start-up chime and startup screen (apple logo) but then the computer shuts itself down. I have reset the PMU and PRAM to no effect. I have tried booting up in safe made, also no dice. I have tried starting it up with the time machine HD attached - doesn't help. I guess I'll need to hit the genius bar but wanted to ask the friendly discussion forum folks first. thanks in advance.

Hi coldengray
Did you try to start from your System-CD? Hold down C-key during startup, start DiskUtility from the menu and verify/repair disk and permissions there.
If the CD is not available you can also connect your TimeMachine-Disk, select it as startup volume in System Preferences/StartupDisk, restart and then run DiskUtility from folder Applications/Utilities
Good luck P

Time Machine restarts backup of external drive

I have two external hard-drives: a 4TBer I've been using for Time Machine, and a 1TBer I've been using to keep media. I'd like to be able to backup the 1TBer, as it has a about 500GB of data I don't have stored anywhere else, but I've found that if I disconnect it and a backup occurs while it is disconnected, the next backup will attempt to re-backup all 500GB. A similar problem was reported here: Time Machine restarts backup of removable drive and solved by a full reset procedure, but that doesn't seem to be helping in my case. Does anyone have suggestions to deal with this?

The problem can be caused by backing up a volume on a drive that doesn't have a GUID or CoreStorage partition table. Time Machine doesn't work reliably with other partition types.
To confirm, launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the drive in question—not any of the volume icons nested below it. At the bottom of the window, note the Type. If it's not GUID Partition Scheme or Logical Volume Group, see below.
This procedure will destroy all data on the drive. Afterwards, restore from a backup. To be safe, you must have at least two complete, independent, up-to-date backups. One is not enough.
Select the Partition tab. From the Partition Layout menu in the window, select
          One Partition
From the Format menu, select
          Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Click the Options button and select
          GUID Partition Table
in the sheet that appears.
Click the Apply button and confirm when prompted.
The next time you back up, you may be prompted to "inherit" the backup history. Confirm. Even so, TM may copy all or almost all the files. After that, only the files that have changed should be copied.

Time Machine vs Backup

I plan on reformatting my computer and would love to know if I should use Time Machine or Backup. I want to keep some of the programs and data from the computer, but not all of it. Which one will allow me to select data to "bring back"?
Thanks for your help!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You do not want to use Backup for large amounts of data. It's fine for it's original purpose: to get relatively-small amounts of data off-site to iDisk, automatically, but don't use it for anything more.
Time Machine will back-up your entire system by default. The first backup is, of course, lengthy, but thereafter it will back-up only new and changed items hourly. This gives you an excellent chance to recover things that were deleted or changed in error, or somehow corrupted. But whether you use Time Machine or some other app, use something or you can lose some or all of your data in an instant.
But the question here is, are you doing this only to get rid of some apps and files? If so, that's not the best approach. Unlike Windoze, a periodic reload is usually not needed on Macs.
Unless your internal HD is over 85% full, your best bet may be to get an external drive thats at least twice the size of the data on your Mac and let TM do a full backup. Then start identifying and deleting the things you don't want. If you delete something you shouldn't, you can easily get it back from Time Machine (for a while).
Most applications on Macs can just be deleted. Some need uninstallers. Apps will be where you put them, hopefully in your Applications folder. Most data will be in +<your home folder>/Library/Application Support,+ usually in a file or folder containing the name of the app or maker.
Unless you're very tight on space, you could make a folder named +Apps to be Deleted+ or something similar, at the top level of your home folder, and move them and their data files there, rather than delete them immediately. You could even create a sub-folder for those apps that have data files, and put both the apps and files inside them. Once you're sure they're not needed, delete them.
Doing it the other way is much riskier; if you omit things you actually need, all sorts of things may go wrong, unpredictably.
For info on Time Machine, you might want to review this Time Machine Tutorial
and this: Time Machine Features
and perhaps the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of the Time Machine forum.

Time Machine same backup size every time

Anyone have any idea why Time Machine would backup the same amount every time? Every hour mine backs up 1.8 GB, unless I've added more than that to my hd.
I only back up the internal drive on my macbook to a 500 GB Time Capsule via wifi (802.11n only, 5GHz). Not that I figured it would make a difference, but it still does it if backed up via ethernet.
I've also noticed that as soon as it completes the backup, it will backup all over again - and not because an hour has passed. I'm not sure if it does this every time (but I think i does), or if it does it more than twice when it happens.
Thanks in advance!

See if the following might give you some ideas as to why...
*_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
Open the Time Machine Prefs on the Mac in question. How much space does it report you have "Available"? When a backup is initiated how much space does it report you need?
Now, consider the following, it might give you some ideas:
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
*Events-Based Backups*
Time Machine does not compare file-for-file to see if changes have been made. If it had to rescan every file on your drive before each backup, it would not be able to perform backups as often as it does. Rather, it relies on a process called FSEvents. This is a system log that records changes that occur with all the directories on your Mac. Moving / copying / deleting / & saving files and folders creates events that are recorded in this log. At the beginning of each backup, Time Machine simply looks at this log to determine what has changed since the last backup. [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14]
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your directories. Every one of these changes is recorded by the OS as an event. Time Machine will backup every file that has an event associated with it since the installation.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
*Backups WAY Too Large*
If an initial full backup or a subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups. Time Machine will attempt to backup any hard disk attached to your Mac, including secondary internal drives, that have not been added to Time Machines Exclusion list.
This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude its’ own backup disk by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule/AirDisk users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Preferences “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
*Recovering Backup Space*
If you have discovered that large unwanted files have been backed up, you can use the Time Machine “time travel” interface to recovered some of that space.
Launch Time Machine from the Dock icon.
Initially, you are presented with a window that represents “Today (Now)”. DO NOT make changes to file while you see “Today (Now)” at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the window just behind “Today (Now)”. This represents the last successful backup and should display the date and time of this backup at the bottom of the screen.
Now, navigate to where the unwanted file resides.
Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
Let us know if this resolved your issue.
Cheers!

Cannot open time machine; message on screen: time machine in backup. I want to find last 12 mos. of pictures.

cannot open application to time machine: Message on screen: time machine in backup.
Purpose to get into time machine; is to pickup lost photos

northernresort wrote:
I workedwith apple support on the phone it believe the backup is corrupt.
Yup, sure sounds like it.
It does have a .sparsebundle for the machine that is backup up. There is only 52G free on the 1T time capsule, so it seems that the data is there,
That's good, obviously. Often it won't mount at all, and you're in a very large pickle.
I'm not seeing nor beleive I'm having a hardware issue with the time capsule.
Probably not.
I'm wondering if I have some sort of version issue between 10.7.x that the Time machine on the time capsule was created with and 10.8.4
No, at least not that's been reported. A sparsebundle is a sparsebundle, as far as we can tell.
I don't use hdiutil or fsck, so bear with me. Drag the sparsebundle into Disk Utility's sidebar and try Repair Disk on it. See what messages it shows. (They may not appear in the window; click the Log icon or select Window > Show Log from the menubar.)
Do you have a copy of DiskWarrior? It can operate on a sparsebundle, and sometimes can fix things Disk Utility (and hdiutil or fsck) can't.
I haven't found any good way to parse out/copy files from a sparse bundle
If you double-click it, does the disk image (named "Time Machine Backups") mount (should appear on your Desktop and/or Finder sidebar)? If it does, can you open it via the Finder? If so, you'll find the usual Backups.backupdb folder inside, with one folder named for your Mac, and inside that all the date-stamped backup folders, each with one folder per drive that was backed-up, and inside that the full folder structure.
If so, you can probably drag & drop, but depending on what kind of damage there is, and where, that may not work well, if at all.
Best, of course, is if you can repair it and just do a full restore.

Time machine full backup

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