Time machine is a hog

When TM is backing up it seems to be a resource hog.  Is there anyway to force it to work at a low priority such that petty much any other application or operation takes priority?  There doesn't seem to be any option for this in the options.

While googling for an answer to TM hogging resources I found the following link: http://superuser.com/questions/209344/run-time-machine-on-a-low-priority
1) What does the nice key do?  I've been unable to track that down. 
2) Clicking the plist opens it in Property List Editor.  Looks a bit like Windows registry.  I can always open in text edit and edit it that way.  What is the propery way to change a numeric value in the Property List Editor window?

Similar Messages

  • Can I use Automator to turn Time Machine on & off automatically?

    My Time Machine seems to hog my Wi-Fi once an hour.  I don't need such frequent back-ups so wondered if it were possible to set something up that would wake Time Machine up in the early hours of the morning when the Wi-Fi is unlikely to be in use and to do it's back-up then?

    Time Machine Editor will allow you to set up and schedule backups to occur whenever you like.
    You might want to take a look:
    TimeMachineEditor - Time Software - Free

  • Limit Time Machine backup/sparsebundle so one machine doesn't hog all the time capsule space?

    Is this possible?
    I have a brand new time capsule, my wife and I will be backing up our computers to it using Time Machine. Is it possible to limit the storage size of the sparsebundles so one of us (probably me) wont hog all the space?
    My wife doesn't use her's as much, while my computer is on almost everyday, so I'm affraid my computer will limit the amount of states, or versions, that she can back up before her time machine has to start deleting old files.
    I'm trying to avoid a situation where my time machine goes back a year while her's only goes back a few months.
    Thanks!

    No. That is not how a Time Capsule and Time Machine work. All backups are adding to existing backups.
    About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
    Alert TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
    So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
    Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
    Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
    To accomplish what you want would mean using just an external backup drive partitioned with volumes for each of you to use, and the use of a different backup utility that overwrites old files rather than saving them as does Time Machine.

  • How can two computers use time machine on same Time Capsule?

    I just purchased a Time Capsule and successfully backed up my computer. My brother is on the same network but cannot get Time Machine to back him up on the Time Capsule without my backup being deleted.
    How does one enable Time Capsule to serve as back up for two different computers?

    There are some options:
    Manually delete a number of old backups from the Mac that's "hogging" the space, per #12 in  Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.  After "compacting" that sparse bundle per the pink box there, you may be able to limit the maximum size of it, per #A8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    Another is to connect a USB drive to the TC (likely with a powered USB hub), and back the other Mac up to it, instead of the TC's internal HD.

  • How can I see what Time Machine is backing up?

    Time Machine is taking 4-hours to do each backup.
    Time Machine use to back up every hour, but because it seems to be such a resource hog that I installed Time Machine Editor and have the backup take place once a day at 3 am. It is now 5:49 am and Time Machine is still backing up, and my machine is rendered almost unusable, because Time Machine is running and slowing the machine down.
    The only files that I can think of that could be causing this lengthy time for Time Machine to run are three virtual machines (that are in the exclude list).
    For the exclude list I used to have the name of the folder, where they reside. Figuring that having a folder name might be a problem, I added the files individually. Checking on the backups, these virtual machines are NOT on the backup, so I doubt that these are causing the lengthy backups.
    I believe the solution to this to find someway to be able to see which files are being processed by Time Machine (in real-time).
    Where do I go with this? How can I find out why Time Machine is taking so long to do backups?

    You might want to give TimeTracker a look to see exactly which files are being backed on each pass.
    Allow some time (maybe 5-10 minutes or longer) for the program to fully load. The Finder like interface will allow you to drill down into each backup.

  • Users no longer able to back up to Time Machine volume

    Let me preface this thread by saying I have read Pondini's great Time Machine support page, and my issue seems most related to the #C4 topic, but it doesn't seem to cover the specifics of my situation. I have roughly 15 users at my company backing up hourly to a central storage device - an external 4TB  RAID 1+0 volume. It's one giant partition, and everyone has their own sparsebundle on it. Everyone is on OS 10.6.8. Backups went fine for the first half of the year, but eventually the TM volume filled up to about 99% capacity and started rejecting backups for multiple users. Rather than deleting old backups to make room for new ones, the backups simply fail now, with the "not enough space" error message on the client side.
    As a band-aid solution I've been manually deleting the sparsebundles for users, and the backups resume for them as normal. Obviously this only solves the problem temporarily. I've also tried the method discussed in this forum about manually creating a 'dummy' sparsebundle for a user at a particular size, moving that to the TM volume, and then re-enabling backups - but this has never worked; the backups go way beyond the size I've set on the sparsebundle, and the TM volume continues to fill up. I know OS 10.6.3 changed the behavior of the sparsebundle's maximum size, so that's probably why my attempts to limit each user's maximum size has failed.
    At any rate, one person suggested I create one partition per user on the TM volume, but this will result in seeing 15 different volumes available when connecting to it, which I'd like to avoid. If this is the only solution for me, though, I will reconsider it. I'm hoping there is another solution though.

    steagl3 wrote:
    Let me preface this thread by saying I have read Pondini's great Time Machine support page
    Thank you very much. 
    I have roughly 15 users at my company backing up hourly to a central storage device - an external 4TB  RAID 1+0 volume.
    That is probably a lot of users for a single volume.   That works out to about 267 GB per user; as Etresoft says, Time Machine usually needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up, so if your average user has more than about 90 GB used, that may be the root of your problem. 
    Backups went fine for the first half of the year, but eventually the TM volume filled up
    If your users haven't added a great deal to their amount used since then, and roughly 6 months of backups is sufficient, you may have enough room.
    Either way, though, all those sparse bundles are competing for the same space; if a few have managed to "hog" most of it, the others won't have enough space for new backups.  Since Time Machine will only delete backups from the Mac it's running on to make room, once the drive is near full, the size of any one sparse bundle usually won't change much. 
    Since sparse bundles don't shrink when things are deleted, if something gets backed-up by mistake, deleting the backup won't gain any space.  The unused space will be used for new backups before it grows anymore, but you only recover space when the sparse bundle is "compacted" -- Time Machine will do that automatically when it's out of space, or you can do it manually (see the pink box in #12 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions).
    As a band-aid solution I've been manually deleting the sparsebundles for users, and the backups resume for them as normal.
    That won't help much, since the ones with the problem are already too small; deleting one sparse bundle won't really help much. The new one will still be limited by the space taken up by the others.
    If you do in fact have enough room, but some sparse bundles are taking up too much space, you might try deleting the big ones.  When a new backup has been done, try limiting the maximum size of that sparse bundle per #A8 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting  (rather than creating new sparse bundles yourself).  As noted, though, that doesn't always work.

  • Time Machine over the Network: Terribly Slow

    Hello,
    I've been using Time Machine for over 3 years now with no issues over the network; the destination being a 2TB external Seagate connected to another iMac connected through gigabit ethernet. Everything has been working flawlessly: Every hour Time Machine would MOUNT the sparseimage it created on the disk, BACKUP the data and UNMOUNT the disk image when finished.
    Until I upgraded to Lion. The above process is still working per se, however it is PAINFULLY slow! A 50MB backup can take up to AN HOUR! Searching around on the net, advised that there could be an issue with Spotlight as well, however this is not the case for me, since Spotlight finished a new index in under 30 mins. Followed every tutorial I could find on the issue, to no avail..
    I then upgraded to Mountain Lion with the hope that the issue will clear itself. Cleared my old backups, resetted Time Machine by erasing its .plist file, restarted my iMac just to make sure and connected Time Machine to the network share anew, creating a "sharing only" account on the host iMac, i.e. the one that has the external HD connected through USB. Still no luck.
    I painfully realize that I still have the same issue. While backing up, network traffic is under 100KB, and activity monitor does not show any backupd or mds or any similar processes taking anything over 3% of CPU time.
    What could be wrong?

    Hello again,
    Tries on the other iMac (also running 10.8.2) and things are exactly the same: Image creation takes almost half an hour, and copying crawls at under 1MB/min. While time machine image is mounted and Time Machine is "backing up", accessing ANY disk on the host Mac is VERY slow. Seems like something hogs up appleshare when Time Machine is in use. Mind you, there is insignificant network traffic as seen by Activity Monitor, as well as insignificant CPU usage while backing up.
    Stopping backup and using tmutil to set the Time Machine destination to the mounted image as mounted by Finder, solves the issue again, revving up Time Machine throughput to over 20MB/sec! There is also no issues acessing the other Mac as well, under this scenario.
    Up to this point, the only way I have managed to use Time Machine over a networked external HD is through the NAS server. Both configurations where I am using a Mac running 10.8.2 as a server of the external disk have failed with very low throughput while backing up. Something must be wrong in 10.8.2's afp when Time Machine is mounting the image by itself.
    I may need to remind you that I have been successfully backing up to the external HD for 4 years now; something broke a few months after the client iMac was upgraded to Lion and at the time when the host iMac was upgraded to Mountain Lion. Will try to locate a Mac running some later OS X version to do some more testing.
    Also reminding that I have used two distinctive iMacs and two external HD drives for my tests so far. The client iMac has remained the same, however 10.8.2 has been reinstalled on it a couple of times. Have also used an afp-enabled NAS server which worked fine with Time Machine.

  • Trouble with Time Machine/Time Capsule try Backup instead

    Trouble with Time Machine preparing to download taking hogging your system followed by errors that don't make any sense even if you look at the console logs to try to figure out. Try Backup instead.
    Find the software here:
    http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/backup312.html
    It allows you to configure when to do back ups and specific data you want, and includes templates for configurations to make it easy. The only catch is you loose the Time Machine benefits of restoring an individual file easily. For me it gets around the issues w/ Time Machine hogging my system resources (Finder at 98% CPU cycles both cores) while "preparing backup", followed by strange failures that can't figure out, followed by more "preparing backup".

    I was running backup instead of time machine until I saw snow leopard had time machine improvements. I'm very happy with the performance so far w/ snow leopard (OS X 10.6) time machine performance.

  • Time Machine backup slow in copying phase

    I've had a gander through Pondini's (excellent!) site and other locations, but still can't seem to get TM to backup at a regular pace.
    I've got it connected via ethernet, but with about 500GB to backup and a copying speed that managed to do only 40GB in 14 hours, it's waaaaaay too slow.  Current message says "Backing up: 44.01 GB of 499.82 GB"
    I've done various things like removing Sophos for Mac, relaunching Finder, checking the Activity Monitor to see if there's anything hogging CPU, re-booted my My Book Live NAS and a few other things besides.  Nothing's helped.  Below is a copy/paste of details from EtreCheck.  Can anyone help?
    Hardware Information:
              MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)
              MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,1
              1 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores
              16 GB RAM
    Video Information:
              Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB
    System Software:
              OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 10:17:11
    Disk Information:
              M4-CT256M4SSD2 disk0 : (256.06 GB)
                        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                        SSD (disk0s2) /: 243.07 GB (75.31 GB free)
                        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
                        eDrive (disk0s4) <not mounted>: 12 GB
              ST1000LM024 HN-M101MBB disk1 : (1 TB)
                        EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                        disk1s2 (disk1s2) <not mounted>: 999.86 GB
                        Boot OS X (disk1s3) <not mounted>: 134.2 MB
    USB Information:
              Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
              Sunplus Innovation Technology  USB to Serial-ATA bridge
              Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
                        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
              Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
              Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
    FireWire Information:
    Thunderbolt Information:
              Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
    Kernel Extensions:
    Startup Items:
              Squeezebox: Path: /Library/StartupItems/Squeezebox
    Problem System Launch Daemons:
    Problem System Launch Agents:
    Launch Daemons:
              [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.barebones.textwrangler.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.fitbit.fitbitd.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.livescribe.PenCommService.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [not loaded] com.maintain.CocktailScheduler.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.micromat.TechToolProDaemon.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.prosofteng.DriveGenius.locum.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.sonycorporation.BloggieInstallerAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backupd-auto.plist 3rd-Party support link
    Launch Agents:
              [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.amazon.sendtokindle.launcher.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [invalid] com.maintain.CocktailPurgeInactiveMemory.plist
              [loaded] com.maintain.CocktailSystemEvents.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.micromat.TechToolProAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.sony.BloggieSoftware.AutoRun.plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.wacom.pentablet.plist 3rd-Party support link
    User Launch Agents:
              [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link
              [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
    User Login Items:
              iTunesHelper
              Alfred
              Living Earth Desktop
              Jumpcut
              Dropbox
              Dropbox Encore
    Internet Plug-ins:
              WacomNetscape: Version: 1.1.1-1 3rd-Party support link
              Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
              WacomSafari: Version: 1.1.1-1 3rd-Party support link
              AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.170 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.170 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
              QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
              iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.8
              SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              GarminGpsControl: Version: 4.0.2.6 Beta - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
              JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 51 3rd-Party support link
    Audio Plug-ins:
              BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
              AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9
              AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9
              iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
    3rd Party Preference Panes:
              Flash Player  3rd-Party support link
              Java  3rd-Party support link
              Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X  3rd-Party support link
              TechTool Protection  3rd-Party support link
              Xmarks for Safari  3rd-Party support link
    Bad Fonts:
              None
    Old Applications:
              Adobe AIR Application Installer:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/Versions/Current/Adobe AIR Application Installer.app
              Microsoft Language Register:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Additional Tools/Microsoft Language Register/Microsoft Language Register.app
              /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/Resources
                        Adobe AIR Updater:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Template:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              SLLauncher:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app
              /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/Versions/1.0/Resources
                        Adobe AIR Updater:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Template:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              VLC:          Version: 2.0.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Garmin Lifetime Map Updater:          Version: 2.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Labels & Addresses:          Version: 1.6.2 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
              Amelita:          Version: 1.0.1 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
              Livescribe Desktop:          Version: 2.8.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Family Tree Maker 2 (372) (415):          Version: 21.2.7 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Remote Desktop Connection:          Version: 2.1.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011
                        Microsoft PowerPoint:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Excel:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Outlook:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Word:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Document Connection:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Hear:          Version: 1.1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Applications/Hear/Hear.app
              /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office
                        Microsoft Graph:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Database Utility:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Office Reminders:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Upload Center:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        My Day:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        SyncServicesAgent:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Open XML for Excel:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Alerts Daemon:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Database Daemon:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Chart Converter:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Clip Gallery:          Version: 14.3.9 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Solver:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/Add-Ins/Solver.app
              /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/Versions/Current/Resources
                        Adobe AIR Updater:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        Template:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
              Microsoft AutoUpdate:          Version: 2.3.6 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
                        /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app
              Adobe AIR Application Installer:          Version: 3.3 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                        /Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework/Versions/1.0/Adobe AIR Application Installer.app
              /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0
                        Microsoft Error Reporting:          Version: 2.2.9 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
                        Microsoft Ship Asserts:          Version: 1.1.4 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
    Time Machine:
              Skip System Files: NO
              Mobile backups: OFF
              Auto backup: YES
              Volumes being backed up:
                        SSD: Disk size: 226.38 GB Disk used: 156.24 GB
              Destinations:
                        TimeMachine [Network] (Last used)
                        Total size: 3 
                        Total number of backups: 23
                        Oldest backup: 2013-11-08 04:18:08 +0000
                        Last backup: 2013-12-19 13:15:46 +0000
                        Size of backup disk: Excellent
                                  Backup size 3  > (Disk size 226.38 GB X 3)
              Time Machine details may not be accurate.
              All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
              /sbin excluded from backup!
              /usr excluded from backup!
              /System excluded from backup!
              /bin excluded from backup!
              /private excluded from backup!
              /Library excluded from backup!
              /Applications excluded from backup!
    Top Processes by CPU:
                  20%          Safari
                  11%          WindowServer
                   4%          com.apple.WebKit.Networking
                   3%          diskimages-helper
                   1%          Activity Monitor
    Top Processes by Memory:
              338 MB          com.apple.WebKit.WebContent
              147 MB          mds_stores
              131 MB          softwareupdated
              131 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
              115 MB          Safari
    Virtual Memory Information:
              10.06 GB          Free RAM
              3.35 GB          Active RAM
              798 MB          Inactive RAM
              1.81 GB          Wired RAM
              856 MB          Page-ins
              0 B          Page-outs

    In case it's useful to someone who stumbles on this some time in future, I had another look at Pondini's site and found mention of TechTool Pro causing issues, of which  I'm running v7.
    I went into System Settings/TechToolProtection and Disabled protection features.  After a minute or so, I got a bump in speed, with TM now copying a GB every 4 - 5 minutes.  Still very slow, but something of an improvement.

  • Time Machine Error ( Hung on Preparing)

    Running the latest Lion software 10.7.4 ..Time machine is looping " preparing backup' ...using Time Capsule  500 gb storage...2 MBP back up to this system..one Snow Leopard and the one Lion.
    Time machine is showing 30 MB available... problem appears to be that the old backups are not being deleted no storage is available and it fails to create any additional new backups.. Problem occured in March and I needed to erase the entire backup disk and start over to clear the issue.. It went successfully..now the same prob 3 months later.
    My backup is about 181 gb the other is about 100 gb..
    Any suggestions why this may be occurring? Obviously the root cause issue was not resolved by deleting the entire disk..
    Thanks for any help!!
    Tony

    tonal wrote:
    Tony Sparsebundle was 431gb with an HD of 126gb (Lion 10.7.4)
    Barb Sparsebundlle was 66gb with an HD of 76gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
    Don't know why the sparsebundle is so huge?
    Time Machine keeps backing-up new and changed items.  Once it runs out of room for new backups, it starts deleting old backups, but only from the Mac it's running on.  That way, it keeps as many old backups as it can, filling all the available space.
    Usually, that's not a problem, but in your case, Tony's backups have "hogged" most of the drive.  See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #33, especially the pink box, for an explanation and some possible workarounds.
    Should I delete the Tony Sparebundle and then backup over ethernet as the best choice at this point?
    That's certainly the fastest, easiest thing to do.    But it may not work for long. 
    Would would cause this problem(storage depletion) to start to occur... was fine for 3 years...problem started in March..
    As detailed in the link, that Mac must have needed a number of extra-large backups, so took up a lot of space very quickly.  Whatever you do, monitor the size of future backups.  If they seem too large, see #D4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
    One solution would be to limit the size of each sparse bundle, per #A8 in the same link.
    Another, probably better, option would be to connect a USB drive to the TC, and back up one of the Macs to it, instead of the TC's internal HD. See #Q2 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for details.

  • Can someone explain what exactly is involved when it comes to Time Machine snapshots?

    Can someone give me a brief and succint description and tutorial on how Time Machine snapshots work?
    I use Time Machine (on Mac OS X obviously, ML 10.8.4) to backup my HD onto a separate external drive at least once a week.
    However, like so many other users I'm online in a variety of places so most of the time (about 99%) my laptop isn't able to be connected to the external designated for HD backups and I've heard and read that the application Time Machine can use "snapshots" to create temporary backups to hold until you've connected your external the next time.
    I wonder how that works?
    How do I go about setting up this snapshot option so that my laptop can be regularly backing up my files without me having to be tethered to the external at the same time?
    Won't that fill up my entire drive due to virtual memory or sleepimage or swapfiles or something along those lines?
    And last but certainly not least, how can the user take use of this option but also prevent the TM snapshots from hogging every availabe byte of memory.

    Read > http://pondini.org/TM/30.html
    CS7981 wrote:
    However, like so many other users I'm online in a variety of places so most of the time (about 99%) my laptop isn't able to be connected to the external designated for HD backups and I've heard and read that the application Time Machine can use "snapshots" to create temporary backups to hold until you've connected your external the next time.
    I wonder how that works?
    That's how it works.
    CS7981 wrote:
    How do I go about setting up this snapshot option so that my laptop can be regularly backing up my files without me having to be tethered to the external at the same time?
    Local snapshots are made automatically in portable Macs with OS X Lion or Mountain Lion. Simply disconnect the Time Machine drive from your Mac and your Mac will start making local snapshots.
    CS7981 wrote:
    Won't that fill up my entire drive due to virtual memory or sleepimage or swapfiles or something along those lines?
    These snapshots are stored in the hard drive and they consume a lot of space, as they are backing up the whole hard drive. A lot of users complain about the space they take, but in general, you don't have to worry. See below.
    CS7981 wrote:
    And last but certainly not least, how can the user take use of this option but also prevent the TM snapshots from hogging every availabe byte of memory.
    Local snpashots will be deleted automatically when the hard drive is full, so don't worry about it. If you want to remove them, simply open System Preferences > Time Machine, and turn it off. Leave it for some minutes or hours, and turn on Time Machine again, but there's no reason to do that

  • How should I pick up and go with Time Machine running

    I have noticed that since Time Machine backs up my computer often, programs hang up and don't close right away. I'm often on a short window to pack up my machine and go to a meeting. Can I just pull all the plugs out and go? Ejecting the disk seems to take a lot of time when a backup is occuring.
    What's the best way to do an immediate disconnect from the external hard drive?

    _*Can I just pull all the plugs out and go?*_
    And the answer to this would be a resounding... NO !!
    As a general rule, you should always eject your drive by dragging it to the trash... and waiting for it to dismount before you disconnect it. Just pulling the cable... especially when the system is in the middle of a back up, WILL result in damaging your backup... making the point of having a back up pretty useless. While it is nice to get back ups every 15 minutes... it can be a hog on resources. You may just want to connect your external drive when you know you'll be in one place for quite a while... or use something like Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDuper is more popular, but does not yet make bootable backups for machines with Leopard installed) to make backups when you want them.

  • Less Frequent Daily Backups with Time Machine

    I was not happy with Time Machine hogging up so much system time and seriously slowing down the server and network. So I turned Time Machine off in System Preferences and added the following to the sudo crontab:
    25 20 * * * /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/backupd-helper &
    Any objections? Should I just go with one freeware Time Machine schedulers?

    There is a time in the file /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist.
    You can modify the time (in seconds) to directly change the time machine backup interval.
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>3600</integer>

  • Time machine lost all but one backup

    I ran apple software update yesterday. Today Time Machine says disk is too full to run backup and shows only one backup. I used the finder to look and sure enough, only one backup is there.

    I don't think there's any need to "re-establish" your TM drive.
    In a stupid interface move, even if you check "Warn when old backups are deleted" in TM options, it doesn't always do that - it usually tells you after the fact, when it's too late to get rid of some big files, or certain backup dates, etc; whether you get the warning or not has to do with the size of the last backup, the space left, and whether TM thinks it can squeeze in another backup, but it seems to make that decision based on the size of your last backup; if the current backup is unexpectedly large, it just erases old backups without telling you.
    You may be backing up space-hogging items that you don't really need to back up: the Trash for instance; the legendary giants Entourage and PC-emulators on an IntelMac; the Downloads folder (which gets piled up with stuff that you don't need to keep, or you have copies elsewhere, or it's a movie you already watched...); maybe you don't need a System backup, but just your User folder/Documents assiduously copied...
    There's lots of ways to trim what's being backed up so you can use a smallish drive to back up the most important things from your main drive.

  • Time Machine gives "error code -43" after leopard install

    Hi folks,
    This leopard install has been a mess. I have a one year old macbook on which I've done nothing unusual, and I ran the leopard install. Now I try to use leopard and I find that the one feature I bought it for, Time Machine, does not work. I clickon the icon either on the dock or in the application folder and I get "error code -43". I cannot launch Time Machine. Can anyone help? It is very frustrating to have to consider spending extra money for mac tech support when I haven't done anything out of the ordinary, I'm just installing their product on a recent laptop.
    In addition, this leopard hogs 11 GB of hard drive space and has slowed my computer by at least 50%. Boy do I regret this upgrade, but I don't see any way to go back.

    have the same problem on my imac g4 have not tried it on the macbook pro yet, tried backing up to a La Cie hard drive have another thread going with problems related to this which started when I first initiated time machine wonder if the 2 problems are related

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