Time Machine - Moving Target

I am running a early 2008 MacBook Pro 15" and have succesfully moved to Mountain Lion on the day of release. I run two Time Machines, one at work and one at home. The one at work has filled up and I opted to have Time Machine make space by deleting old backups. That is fine until fairly recently. Time Machine now has moving targets and my backups fail. By moving targets, for example, after preparation, Time Machine indicates, say, 3.5 Gb are to be backed up. It seems to go ok for a while, but as it nears the end, the end size keeps increasing so it never finishes and eventually, around 65 Gb of 72 Gb it fails. So I did a manual start of the backup and watched it. Next time around it wants to backup 3.55 Gb. It fails when both the target and have both crept up to 10 Gb. This is not happening on the home Time Machine disk, or at least not yet. Is my only option to erase the entire disk and restart Time Machine on it? Any other solutions? I still have one Time Machine, but I like to keep two (don't like single points of failure).

Thanks, but that is not the case. I usually do a couple things in Windows then I shut down the virtual machine and I usually turn off Time Machine while I am in the VM. I do this because in the past, when using the VM and a Time Machine backup is triggered, it makes the VM rather unusable. Still this doesn't explain why Time Machine works in one location and not the other, because I do perform the same tasks at home and at work.
I've had my internal HDD die before and a full Time Machine backup saved me when Apple replaced my HDD. So after waiting overnight for the restore, everything including the VM virtual disk was restored in one step. I have since upgraded my HDD to an SSD so Time Machine saved me a bunch of grief when I replaced a perfectly working HDD with the SSD. I like Time Machine so much that I found a couple of similar products for my wife's Windows machine and for my mother's Windows machine.
I essentially solved the problem the low tech way, I reformatted the disk and let Time Machine do the initial backup. Since the "old" backups were under Lion, and I am on Mountain Lion, I don't really need the old backups. I did a full verify, via Disk Utility before and after reformatting, the disk was fine with zero errors.

Similar Messages

  • Time Machine Moved all my files

    The first time I used Time Machine, it moved all my itunes files and desktop files, reset wallpaper... it's like it reset my computer... any help?

    Have you gone into TM to the first backup and checked the missing items are there? If yes have you tried to restore them? As much detail as you can provide would be helpful.
    Joe

  • Keeping the Time Machine moving

    My Time Machine says its still backing up but the progress bar isn't moving.
    Backgroud: Confessions first. I don't have a time capsule. I have a 4TB drive attached to my Airport Extreme that I use for my Time Machine Backups. My Mac Mini has two external hard drives attached via USB and the Mac Mini is physically connected via Ethernet cable to my Airport Extreme base station. I am performing the initial backup. The data I've selected for backup totals about 3TB.
    The Problem:  Whenever I return to the computer after 4-6 hours absence I find that the backup has stalled. My energy saver settings say to never put the hard drives to sleep, but I suspect that only applies to the internal drive. I suspect that the externals are going to sleep after a couple hours and so the backup stalls. When I return I have to access files on the external USB drives connected to my Mac Mini to "wake them up" and when I hear them spool up suddenly the status bar starts creeping along again. How do I keep my drives awake and engaged so that my backup can continue without my frequent involvement?
    In case you ask why I've connected the 4TB drive to the AEBN instead of directly to my mini via USB, the answer is: because I want the benefits of a Time Capsule with a larger drive. I want my other computers to have the ability to backup to it wirelessly as well.

    Is TM no fun for rebuilding a drive just because its slow? Or is it not really a reliable backup agent? My externals have my iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes libraries which do change several times a month.
    What's your opinion of the "Copy" tool in Drive Genius 3 compared to CCC? Is CCC really worth another $40?
    TM is slow and is both unreliable at times and difficult to get it to rebuild a single drive.
    Copy tool in Drive Genius 3 I have never used.. if it is not a backup software then you still need something that will do incremental backups.
    Last question. I followed this blog post on how to back up wirelessly using an airport extreme base station (I have the first gen N model).
    It might work perfectly.. for a few months.. then corrupt itself and die.. you set it up again.. and it does the same thing.. in a few months it dies.. over and over and over.. it is not reliable.
    Read the TM expert's opinion.. and do as you see fit.. if you think Pondini is wrong.. go ahead and use AE with USB drive. Lots of people have bet all their data against Pondini being right.. and lost.. you might be the one who wins the lottery.. do you want to risk it??
    http://pondini.org/TM/Airport.html
    And if you want something cheaper you can certainly look around at line level tools like rsync.. it is an exceptional tool.. if you can only figure out how to script it or write the commands properly.. I have tried and failed.. but that doesn't mean I wouldn't try again.. just i am old enough (too old to tear my little remaining hair out over command line tools) that $40 doesn't mean that much.
    http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/mac_rsync.html

  • Time Machine multiple Target disks

    Hi I have a similar problem
    I have two Internal dirves, the OS on my first Internal 250gb SSD and my IPhoto and IMove and Applications on my second Internal 2TB HDD
    I would like to backup both of these drives to my External 4TB backuo drive.
    Currently Time machine is only backing up the First SSD, How do I select the second 2TB HDD for Time Machine to use as a target for back as well ?

    Thanks for the Link !
    But I am having trouble on finding exactly how you do this, there seems to be no option to select a target disk in Time machine.
    Is there a link that shows you how to set the target disk ?
    Thanks in advance

  • Backup w/ Time Machine via Target Disk Mode?

    So here's my situation, my computer is stuck on the grey screen of death, but it mounts fine in Target Disk Mode. Its been about 2 weeks since my last Time Machine backup, so I would like to recover the last two weeks of files. If I can do that, then I'll just wipe the HD and start with a fresh install, however, since I can't get it to start up, is it possible to backup my computer to my Time Machine backup using Target Disk Mode through my wife's computer? Any help is appreciated.
    (If not, then is it possible to run a time machine backup from single user mode?)
    Here's basically what I'm talking about:
    MBP (Target Disk Mode) > Wife's MacBook > External HD (Time Machine Backup)

    That may work, but you'll get a whole new, full backup, identified as belonging to the MacBook (since that's where TM would run, and the MBP would look like an external HD.)  Unless you exclude it, you'd also get the internal HD on the MacBook. So it will require a lot of space and time.
    There's no way to fool it into making an incremental backup.
    Or, use the same setup, but make a "clone" on a separate HD or partition, via the Restore tab of DIsk Utility, or one of the "cloning" apps: CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. 

  • HT4413 Time Machine- moving files onto a new mac- compatibility issues?

    If you use Time Machine to load files from a mac running snow leopard to a new mac running lion, will everything work normally in lion thereafter on the new mac? It won't try to revert the new computer to snow leopard, will it?
    Also, I want to clear off the old computer once I do this (an 2008 Snow Leopard macbook) so my sister can use it for basic internet, etc. What is the best way to do this?
    Last question: I have a 2008 Microsoft Office Suite program that I installed in 08 on the macbook. It came with 3 access codes total, and I split it 3 ways with 2 roomies and we each have one access code. If the office is uninstalled on this old computer and I try reinstalling it on the new one, can I use the same code as before or will it think that I am trying to use the same code on two computers? I don't need the program on the old computer anymore and just want to "switch" it to the new one.
    Thanks so much for any ideas!

    jlkazmiercza wrote:
    If you use Time Machine to load files from a mac running snow leopard to a new mac running lion, will everything work normally in lion thereafter on the new mac? It won't try to revert the new computer to snow leopard, will it?
    No, it can't revert Lion to Snow Leopard.
    Your user data and preferences should be transferred without problem.
    Applications, if you elect to copy them over, may need updates to work in Lion.
    Some applications won't work at all - those written for use on earlier PPC Macs (the G3, G4, G5 series) won't run at all. That includes Appleworks, Office versions before 2008, and some Adobe Products.
    You'll need to replace those applications with compatible current ones that can open the files created in them.
    Also, I want to clear off the old computer once I do this (an 2008 Snow Leopard macbook) so my sister can use it for basic internet, etc. What is the best way to do this?
    Boot from your grey installer DVD disc 1 (hold down the C key on startup or hold down Alt/option on start and choose the installer disc).
    OK the language page (if present). From the installer screen, go to the menu bar and choose Disk Utility; depending on the OS version it may be in the Utilities menu or Tools menu.
    Do not click 'Continue' yet!
    In DU, select your internal drive in the sidebar (the top item with the makers name and serial no.). Run Repair Disk. If that comes up as disk OK, click the partition tab. Select the partiton from the drop-down above the graphic; 1 partiton is all you need. Go to the options button and ensure that the partition scheme is GUID and the file system to Mac OS Extended (Journalled). Name the partiton (usually Macintosh HD), click Apply.
    This next step is optional;
    When that's finished, select the new volume in the sidebar (indented to the right below the drive) and go to the Erase tab, select Security options and select zero data (one pass is more than sufficient). Click erase. That will take quite some time; probably measured in hours and dependant on the size of the drive.
    (The purpose of this step is to ensure there is no recoverable data left on the drive).
    When that's completed, close DU and continue with the installation.
    When installation is complete, after the restart ignore the setup assistant and shut down the Mac (you may have to do this by holding down the power button).
    The Mac is now ready for the new owner to personalise it as if new.
    Be sure to pass on the original grey discs with the Mac, and the SL retail disc if you loaded SL.
    You can use the Snow Leopard retail disc instead of the grey discs, but you won't be asked to load disc 2 and the iLife software on it in that case. If you use the grey discs first, you can simply follow up by installing SL over the top to upgrade the system files. It won't affect anything else (leave out the partition and erase steps of course!)
    Last question: I have a 2008 Microsoft Office Suite program that I installed in 08 on the macbook. It came with 3 access codes total, and I split it 3 ways with 2 roomies and we each have one access code. If the office is uninstalled on this old computer and I try reinstalling it on the new one, can I use the same code as before or will it think that I am trying to use the same code on two computers? I don't need the program on the old computer anymore and just want to "switch" it to the new one
    Sorry, you need to ask in the MS or Office forums for that.

  • Time Machine Backups with Multiple Target Drives

    I am looking at setting up a Time Machine backup solution, for a client, and I was wondering if it was possible to rotate 2 USB drives, and use 1 each week for backups with little or no user intervention.
    Even Week = (Drive 1) --> Xserve
    Odd Week = (Drive 2) --> Xserve
    and cycle this by simply unplugging and plugging as needed.
    I am currently without the hardware to test, which is why I post this here, rather than simply experiment.
    My current question essentially comes down to, does Time Machine choose target drives based on the S/N of the drive, or simply whatever you have labeled it?

    busterv: I used to do this myself for those exact reasons, fire, water damage what ever. I can say that it works well other than having to reset system preferences when you change the drive and the fact that you are exposed for a week or so until you swap the drive.
    I say used to because now I use a drive from a company called ioSafe. http://www.iosafe.com. It's fire proof, water proof and even crush poof, now I don't even have to worry about it. I don't work for ioSafe BTW.

  • Time Machine Just Doesn't Work Anymore

    I was a happy Time Machine (with Time Capsule) user for months. But it just doesn't work anymore. It takes longer than an hour to do every hourly backup so it is backing up 24 hours a day. It finds hundreds of thousands of files changed every hour and tries to back them up. Finders says only tens of files have been modified all of today. I have tried rebuilding my spotlight indexes, repairing my Time Capsule with Disk Utility and starting over with a brand new backup. But it just backs up hundreds of thousands of files every hour. So I am turning off Time capsule since it is clearly broken. If anyone has any suggestions at all I would welcome them.

    Marcia,
    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.
    One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412)
    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.
    Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can created major changes in the structure of your directories. Time Machine will backup every file that has changed 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 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.
    This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude itself by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule 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 Prefs “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.
    *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 any of this helps.
    Cheers!

  • 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!

  • Time Machine stopped backing up now

    Time machine was working well ( i think!) but now takes up an enormous amount of space 180gb. My external drives are too small at 160gb and I feel time machine has multiplied the amount of space it needs as my hard drive only contains 75gb of data.
    Help! I have tried removing files and some applications from the back up volume, but it still wants more space than the apparent volume to back up.
    Do I need a bigger external hard drive or will it keep multiplying as I suspect it will.
    Thanks

    Rob,
    This might give you some ideas as to why it's filling up so fast.
    *_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.
    If none of the above seem to apply to your case, then you may need to attempt to compress the disk image in question. We'll consider that if the above fails to explain your circumstance.
    Let us know if this was helpful.
    Cheers!

  • Problem with Time Capsule/Time Machine and MacBook Pro

    I have run Time Machine against a Time Capsule for some time without problems. Suddenly I get an error message saing the disk in my Time Capsule is full. When entering Time Machine I can only see one "step" back in history despite the backup file using 650 GB on my Time Capsule.
    My iMac that I havn't used much yet uses 46 GB and the disk in the Time Capsule is 1 TB so there should be plenty space... IF I undestand the file naming correctly...
    Isn't Time Machine supposed to delete oldest backups when the disk is starting to get full? I hoped this system would be maintance free
    As I can only see one step back in Time Machine I suspect some kind of error. Anyone have an idea what this could be?

    Nick,
    My first, suggestion is, mount the TCs hard disk and see how many disk images there are. There should only be one. If there are more than one, then at some point Time Machine lost track of its' previous backups and performed another Full Backup.
    Alternatively, are you sure TM isn't backup up additional hard disks attached to your Mac?
    Consider the following as it might give you some other ideas to explore.
    *_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
    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.
    One poster observed regarding Photoshop: “If you find yourself working with large files, you may discover that TM is suddenly backing up your scratch disk's temp files. This is useless, find out how to exclude these (I'm not actually sure here). Alternatively, turn off TM whilst you work in Photoshop.” [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1209412]
    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.
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    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 looks for EVENTS (fseventsd) that take place involving your files and folders. Moving/copying/deleting/saving files and folders creates events that Time Machine looks for. [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.
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    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.
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    *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 the above helped.
    Cheers!

  • Time Machine Not Up to Date

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    Cheers.

    Some people use cloning programs instead of Time Machine. Below are the two most mentioned:
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    Time Machine will now allow you to back up to two drives, which would give you a 'spare.'

  • I moved files off my computer to an external hard drive now time machine won't back up like it used to.  It says there is not enough room.

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  • Moved to Lion and all folders in mail disappeared. How can I restore them from Time Machine?

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    Se the blue box here:
    http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/15.html
    Regards,
    Colin R.

  • How to remove time machine backup from a mackbook pro used in target disk mode

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