Time Machine - mysteriously large BU attempt?!

I use Time Machine for hourly backups to a TimeCapsule. The most recent BU seemed to be taking a long time (most of mine are far less than 1GB), and after checking the progress, found it was trying to do a 28GB BU. I have no explanation for this, and checked the available space on my Mac's drive, but was about where I expected it to be (No additional mysterious 28 GB added to it).
Any ideas on what this could mean, or ways to investigate what the TimeMachine is attempting to BU?
Thanks!

Hi,
There is a section of the Leopard forums specifically for Time Machine, you'll find it there because TM is part of Leopard and Snow Leopard. I'd recommend a couple of things first is reading both Time Machine FAQs & Pondini Time Machine Troubleshooting. If you still don't have luck you can find the forum by clicking Apple Support Communities, typing Leopard in the search box and narrowing your search by clicking the Refine this List box.
Roger

Similar Messages

Time Machine - mysteriously large Backup?!

I use Time Machine for hourly backups to a TimeCapsule. The most recent BU seemed to be taking a long time (most of mine are far less than 1GB), and after checking the progress, found it was trying to do a 28GB BU. I have no explanation for this, and checked the available space on my Mac's drive, but was about where I expected it to be (No additional mysterious 28 GB added to it).
Any ideas on what this could mean, or ways to investigate what the TimeMachine is attempting to BU?
Thanks!

Howdy -
I don't know what those are, and I can't imagine anything I have that would produce that much data. I did, however, do a shutdown and restart (afer stopping the backup attempt), and things seem to be normal again.
Thanks for the response - I'll be back here if things get wacky again...

Initial time machine backup larger than the original

I have been using time machine with a 1 TB time capsule without issue on a older Macbook in the house. I just got a Macbook pro and am attempting to backup on the same time capsule. During setup, Time machine states there is 118GB to back up when looking under options (which is correct). Then when it goes to back up after "processing" it states that it is backing up 330gb (larger than my harddrive of 250GB). I took off about 167 GB of files off the time capsule. I erased the backup file on time capsule and started over. It still says that there is correctly 118GB to back up before it starts but now after processing it says it will be backing up 163 GB. (330GB-167GB=163GB) Of note there is 45GB of other stuff including the backup of the other Mac still on the time capsule. (163GB-45GB=118 GB.) It appears to be calculating to re-back-up what is already stored on the time capsule. How do I deal with this issue?

Your backup drive has been use to backup both computers. TM may think it should still be backing up both computers. If both computers are on the TC network that would be the normal expectation.
If that's not the case but you've given the new computer the same Computer Name as the old computer, then TM may be trying to backup files that are non-existent but still located in the backup set. If this is the case, then reformat the TC.

Initial time machine backup larger than actual computer harddrive

I've got an iMac with a 1TB harddrive and am trying to use a time machine set up to back up my harddrive. The external harddrive I'm using for my back up is also 1TB. I currently have about 135GB of free space on my iMac's harddrive and my external drive is completely empty. When I try to back up using time machine it tells me that the back up is 1.2TB and cannot fit on my 1TB external harddrive. What would cause the initial back up to be larger than the actual computers harddrive? Is there anything I can do to rectify this issue without me needing to purchase a larger external harddrive for back up?

Ikue wrote:
The external harddrive I'm using for my back up is also 1TB. I currently have about 135GB of free space on my iMac's harddrive and my external drive is completely empty.
That means you're trying to back up about 865 GB to a 1 TB drive; and that's not large enough for Time Machine.
Time Machine not only keeps copies of everything currently on your Mac, but also previous copies of things you've changed or deleted, so it needs a lot more space than the data it's backing-up.
What's causing your immediate problem is, TM adds about 20% to the estimated size of the backup, for workspace on the TM drive and in case the estimate is too small. So 865 GB + 173 GB = over 1 TB.
Long-term, you need a much larger drive for Time Machine, at least 1.5 TB, probably 2 TB.
Short-term, you can squeeze your backups onto the 1 TB drive by excluding some big stuff per Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #10 and running a backup.
Then remove the exclusion, and run another backup. Since the second backup will be much smaller, the additional 20% won't be so large as to exceed the size of the TM drive.
But TM won't be able to keep backups very long, and if it needs to do a large backup, there may not be room.

How does Time Machine handle large files?

I'm relatively new at the whole Time Capsule / Time Machine process and have learned that large files (eg aperture library) are backed up each time there is a change and this can lead to the TC filling up quicker than normal.
How does this work with daily and weekly backups?
For example, if my aperture library is, say 1Gb and I import a load of photos from my camera and this goes up to 2Gb. I've learned that I should disable time machine while I'm in Aperture (or at least before 10.6...not sure now). So given I've done that, imported the files to Aperture but want to edit them later and ultimately move them into iPhoto to keep the Aperture album small.
When I turn back on Time Machine, the next hourly backup will know the library has changed and will back it up, this will go on until a day backup has been taken - this deletes the 24 hourly backups? or does it merge them?
If I then do the editing the following week, then export the photos and the library is now back to 1Gb again....backed up hourly/daily/weekly etc what am I left with??
Do I have an original, the 2GB version and the new 1Gb version...ie 4Gb......is there a cunning way I can work to change the files within a week so only one of the changes is in the backup?

Orpheus999 wrote:
When I turn back on Time Machine, the next hourly backup will know the library has changed and will back it up, this will go on until a day backup has been taken - this deletes the 24 hourly backups? or does it merge them?
The Time Machine panel of System Preferences says this:
Time Machine keeps
- Hourly backup for the past 24 hours
- Daily backups for the past month
- Weekly backups until your backup disk is full
Each time Time Machine runs it creates what appears to be an entirely new backup set, although it does this in a way that doesn't require it to copy files that have already been copied. So merging isn't necessary. Another effect of how it operates is that each unique version of a file (as opposed to packages of files) only exists on the backup volume once.
According to the contents of my Time Machine backup file, hourly backups are literally kept for 24 hours, not until the next "daily" backup. For a "daily" backup, it seems to keep the oldest "hourly" backup for a day.
If I then do the editing the following week, then export the photos and the library is now back to 1Gb again....backed up hourly/daily/weekly etc what am I left with??
Do I have an original, the 2GB version and the new 1Gb version...ie 4Gb......is there a cunning way I can work to change the files within a week so only one of the changes is in the backup?
You might be able to exclude those files from being backed up at certain times, but I can't be sure this would result in older copied of those files being retained.

Deleted files make Time Machine backup larger

This seems curious to me. I deleted a few large files from my computer. I noticed later that TM was taking a long time to back up. Now, the available space on my TM disk is much smaller. I'm sure there's some logic to this, but I can't figure it out. It seems like it would be the other way around.
Message was edited by: Hookshot

Since you've changed the contents of your computer, TM needs to create difference directory of the updated hard drive contents. Time Machine has save your old configuration and the back up and your Time Capsule (or whichever back up device you are using) still has a copy of your 'old' setup with all those big files you have now deleted. Remember, TM doesn't delete you previous configuration. In fact, if you think want to recover those big files, it will be available using Time Machine if you go back to the point in time in which those files still exist.

Time machine shows larger hard drive, so never deletes old backups and maxed out my drive

So I back up my Mac Pro to a Drobo Gen 2. There is a 3tb and 3 2tb drives in it. When Time Machine backs up, it says there is a 11.88 out of 17.59 available, which isn't true. It actually ran out of room during a back up b/c it's putting so much stuff on there. There is only 238.70 left. (the 3 TB drive is not used in the Drobo system, but is there in case a drive goes bad.) My Mac Pro has 4 TB in it, and there's about 1TB left on it, so the Drobo is showing 5.19 is used, and only the 238.70 left, so all the rest is TM. TM is suppose to delete older backups when disc is getting full. But it's not b/c it thinks there is plenty of room. How do I get TM to see the proper drive space, or is there a way to have TM only do a certain number of back ups then start erasing. I'm not really tech saavy, so whoever can help and speak my language, that would be great!

To clarify, this all happened under Snow Leopard as I had said. My profile lists Tiger, since I haven't cared to update my personal profile since using that OS, and in fact I still use Tiger among other versions. I manage a lot of users. And I never got to upgrade to Mountain Lion on this system, as explained in the post above. So I don't see the confusion.
I don't think the model of Mac makes a difference for this type of problem, but in case it does, the incident was on a 2010 Intel iMac with a 4TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM. I would have mentioned that if this was a problem with hardware specific to the model of Mac. But this is more of a universal issue.
But to stay on topic, I'm guessing my old backups are toast. But if anybody has any experience with recovering from Time Machine deleting their old backups, I would be happy to hear from them. In the meantime, I am going to try to do some old fashioned file recovery, and see what I can salvage.

Time Machine Very Large Backup Space Requirements

I'm having a bit of trouble with Time Machine. I recently recreated a User Account. The old User account's home library permissions had become corrupt. Rather than try to sort through the permissions, I opted to just move all the personal data to another account (the primary admin), delete the old user account, recreate it, and move all the personal data to the new account. This worked splendidly. However, now Time Machine claims it needs about 2.1 TB to do it's next backup. I find this odd because a full backup is estimated as only 384 GB, and the computer's hard drive is only 1 TB to begin with. So, it needs a factor of 2 more space than is available on the computer. So, there is something amiss. I imagine Time Machine tracked the data being moved to the admin account and to the new account, and it wants to back all of this up. I don't want it to do that. Is there someway to cause Time Machine to forget the most recent changes?
Clearly, I don't want Time Machine to not backup the new account's information. However, I'm would like not to loose the previous backups. Any solutions?

Hello again:
Erasing and then formatting the Time Machine volume and having Time Machine make a new backup would be the way I would do it.
As an aside, I use two external hard drives. I have Time Machine set to make alternating backups on the externals, and I also make a bootable clone (SuperDuper!) on one of the externals. Short of a meltdown, I am reasonably well protected.
Barry

Time Machine "freezes" with Restore attempt

My Time Machine backups appear to work as they should. However, when I launch the Time Machine app (such as to do a Restore) I can move the cursor around the screen but nothing at all happens when I click on any object. I have waited for as long as 30 minutes for the app to become responsive, but no luck. So I have all this great backup data but could not do a Restore if necessary.

You're in the wrong discussion group... This is about iDVD '08.

Time Machine does large and unnecessary backups

I had a thread about this before but I marked it as solved (I thought it was), so I'm opening a new thread as the problem still exists.
Time Machine insists on backing up many folders from scratch, even though the data is unchanged. Folders include
Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support
Macintosh HD/Library/Audio
Macintosh HD/Applications
There are others but these are the main offenders. These backups, which are often around 150-200 GB, happen about once a week and the resilt is that my Time Machine drive gets full.
I have tried some strategies but nothing helps thus far. See previous thread here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5391782
This is driving me nuts. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance....Colin
(I'm running OS 10.8.5)

Found the solution:
Excluding the Parallels Folder in Documents from TM backups did the trick.
The next backup was back to the usual 16 MB per hour....

Time Machine shows large "other" category, small "backup"

Checking under "About this Mac"/"Storage" I saw that the vast majority of the space on my external drive backup is listed as "other" while "backup" is minuscule. Should I be concerned that the data I thought was being backed up really isn't? My Macbook Air's drive has 250 GB capacity. Screenshot attached:
Thanks in advance!

Do you have other files on the drive?
Spotlight probably can't figure out what the data is.
Disk Space - Other

Time Machine backup larger than my new HD

Hello,
I am planning on buying a Retina MBP with 512GB storage. I recently sold my iMac and backed up my 600GB worth of data. I want to make sure I can at least transfer my core OS settings, apps, and files first, but I know the process isn't easily configurable. Will I have issues setting up my new mac and has anyone successfully done this using the wizard?
Thanks,
Jonathan

ultimatist wrote:
but I know the process isn't easily configurable. Will I have issues setting up my new mac and has anyone successfully done this using the wizard?
You can omit things, like entire user accounts, or the content of one or more of the sub-folders (Desktop, Documents, Music, etc.) in a user account.
By all means, use Setup Assistant when your new Mac first starts up, not Migration Assistant later. See Using Setup Assistant on Mountain Lion or Lion for the gory details.

Errors with Time Machine (not completing backup, and needing to erase the ".inProgress" package)

I have in a previous discussion been talking about errors with my Time Machine backup. The errors were with a problem with Indexing a file, it fails and stops the whole backup. Each time it attemps another backup, it fills my ".inProgress" package with a (nearly) whole backup, filling my Time Machine hard drive, and thus errasing my previous good backups. The error occurs after about 95% completion.
In my last post of a similar disscussion, the problem was indexing the Preference Pane files and this caused the whole backup to fail. This was my last post there: (below in some additional info of my situation)
I did exclude the MobileMe.prefPane. And I got:
12/16/11 9:24:50.468 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
12/16/11 9:24:50.556 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb
12/16/11 9:25:14.418 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:36:15.650 PM com.apple.backupd: 758.92 GB required (including padding), 830.32 GB available
12/16/11 10:25:14.873 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 22.8 GB of 630.5 GB, 782749 of 2357620 items
12/16/11 11:25:15.335 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 86.6 GB of 630.5 GB, 1167675 of 2357620 items
12/17/11 12:25:16.227 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 152.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1393795 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 01:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 305.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1413946 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 02:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 457.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1419190 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:19:07 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 1736865 files (568.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 17 03:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 572.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1848939 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane, /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb/Tom iMac/2011-12-14-171406.inProgress/7DB524DD-EFB9-42A6-8A21-0A2A312EDA6D/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Stopping backup.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 2164998 files (581.1 GB) from volume Mac OS Lion GM.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Dec 17 03:40:50 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Backup failed with error: 11
This time it was the Mouse.prefPane that caused the error. I'd like to exclude the entire PreferencePanes directory.
This was my error message this time:
I just realized this was on my small Developers partition. Perhaps there is an error with the build, OR an error with the initial restore. I'd like to perhaps exclude the entire /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM. I expect that Time Machine is working fine with my main partition and the error happens when it's almost done with the Mac OS Lion GM partition.
The problem now is that I only have 265 GB of 3 TB available on my Time Machine HDD. If attempt another backup, it'll surely erase about 410 GB of my past saved backups. I've already lost 6 months, and I only have two months left of backups. I need to erase the ".inProgress" package again. That'll take time, and it's impossible to do from this main partition, even at root access. This ".inProgress" has a total of two (nearly) full backups; it didn't cleanup the first full backup attempt while starting the second,perhaps it would have had it finished. But I fear even if I exclude the whole "Mac OS Lion GM" partition, It'll create a third full backup before cleanup and erase ~400 GB of previous good backups. Then, I'll have a total of 4 (nearly) full backups! 3 TB is just enough without any past backups.
Maybe I'll just copy my documentations of my 'errasing the ".inProgress" package' last time (from the Mac OS Lion GM partition) and do a full restore of just that partition. Thus erasing the errors all together. If it doesn't fix the errors then this could be a bug in the build that doesn't allow Time Machine to work. I've always included this partition in Time Machine before, even with other Lion builds, so I suspect that it was an error in the initial restore. (I may be answering my own questions, and that the inital restore (of the small partition) is the problem, and I just need to re-restore the small partition)
Again, I'm going to have to erase the ".inProgress" file to regain 1.53 TB of space before proceeding.
Also, I gave myself permission to read the ".Backup.345781513.887697.log", the log that was created last night when I first started Time Machine this last time. It was interesting, but didn't show the error I could see from the console.
Right now, mds and mdworker appear to be going crazy even after I just now turned off Time Machine. I think I'll let it go for the rest of the night. Then I'll work on erasing the ".inProgress" package from the other partition boot up.
That was my entire last post. To add some information, I have two OS X partitons, both Mac OS X Lion. One is my large main partition, the other is one I don't mind testing with. I recently replaced my internal hard drive in my iMac and restored from Time Machine both partitions. This appeared to go smoothly. But I have yet to create a single successful Time Machine backup since. At first it was doing a Full Backup, which I didn't like, but now it just aborts around 95% completion. Each, time, it tries it fills the Time Machine hard drive with duplicate (nearly) full backups errasing my older good backups. I would like to erase the ".inProgress" file to save space.
My main question in this new discussion is does anyone know of a good way of erasing the ".inProgress" file? This is so I can preseerve my previous backups. ACLs and other permissions seem to make it impossible to erase from this startup partition, the one I'm running Time Machine from. Even at root level, if I give myself permission to change permissions or delete a file, it'll say Operation not Permitted instead of Permission Denied. I have been able to delete this ".inProgress" package before when booting from the other partition, but with great difficulty. I have had much help from another Member in this Support Community when it comes to solving my Time Machine problems. I think I have found the problem (indexing files in my small OS X partition), as stated in my copy& pasted post above, but I really need to delete this inProgress package first to save space before continuing!

Pondini wrote:
Gator TPK wrote:
Now I'll have to fix the small partition? How's the best way to do this? There could be thousands of files that won't index fine.
See if there's anything you haven't done, that applies, in the pink box of #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
Otherwise, since most (or all?) of the indexing errors are in OSX, you might want to just reinstall it. Something may have gone wrong sometime, that damaged those files.
I reviewed #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting and I have already done most of those things. I have just learned something new though:
When I included my Main OS X partition again, I got an indexing error for the first time for that partition. I might be interesting to note that the _spotlight process was running, and it's running again (the magnifying glass has a dot and it generically says "Indexing Tom's iMac"). mdworker, mds and backupd processes really are working hard, one moment they used over 500% of my CPU. It's nice to know for once quad core is good for something other than video encoding. (Now if they could just get the Finder to do more than 100.1%, only 1 thread is doing 100%, I'd like to see file size calculations 8 times quicker!)
I never got an indexing error once in the past 2 weeks for that large Mac OS X v10.7.2 main volume, and it had appeared to finish that partition backup before running into problems with my smaller test partition. Also, I had just updated the smaller test partition with a later build of Mac OS X. But It appears that the beta builds are clearly not the problem. I thought I could just restore again (from the December 4th backup) the small partition and both would be fine.
I'll finish reviewing all the suggestions on Time Machine - Troubleshooting and go from there. Hopefully, the _spotlight indexing simutaniously was the only problem. It's strange that the indexing hasn't happened since the original restore last week untill I finally got a good clean complete partial Time Machine backup. Why would the first Time Machine backup trigger indexing again?
For now, I'm going to exclude the Main Partition again, and let another good backup run. And try your suggestions. (And wait till mds, mdworker, etc. to finish!)
I have the logs of the first two sucsessful backups and the last two failed backups from the last 3 hours, if that would help.?

Time machine transfer troubles

Numerous attempts fail. Data Rescue program clone the drive. Browsing the Time machine works with either drive.
Neither drive transfers to a fresh drive.
Using Lion on an iMac. Two Buffalo branded external drives. One 500 GB, the other 1 terabyte, approximately 470 GB of data on the 500 GB in Time Machine backups. First attempt using superduper, it fails. Then I try Disk Utility. It fails. (input/output error, the console log says) Carbon Copy Cloner in block mode fails indicating bad sector blocks. OK. So I use Data Rescue and make a clone of the 500 GB drive onto the 1 Terabyte. All the data is safely in two places. But now the one terabyte thinks it is 500 GBs in size with only 30 GBs left.
Purchase a 2 TB Western Digital, try to use Disk Utility to copy (restore) the Time Machine from the 1 terabyte clone. It fails with the same input/output error. Carbon Copy Cloner in block mode fails as well. Then re-tried the original 500 GB drive to the 2 TB Western Digital. All attempts fail.
Any suggestions of how else I can transfer his data to the larger drive so that he can continue his backups? Forgetting about the backups is not an option, he is in litigation and foresees the need for some of the historical record.
Here is informative console log:
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: Restore Disk
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800:           Source: “Time Machine Backups”
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800:           Destination: “Time Machine Backups1”
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800:           Erase Destination: Yes
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800:           Erase “Time Machine Backups1” and copy the contents of “Time Machine Backups” to it.
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800:
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: Starting Restore…
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: Validating target...
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: done
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: Validating source...
2012-01-31 18:15:05 -0800: done
2012-01-31 18:15:07 -0800: Validating sizes...
2012-01-31 18:15:07 -0800: done
2012-01-31 18:15:11 -0800: Restoring
2012-01-31 18:31:00 -0800: Could not restore - Input/output error
2012-01-31 18:31:00 -0800: Could not restore - Input/output error
2012-01-31 18:31:00 -0800:

Paul Cartwright1 wrote:
Carbon Copy Cloner in block mode fails indicating bad sector blocks. OK. So I use Data Rescue and make a clone of the 500 GB drive onto the 1 Terabyte. All the data is safely in two places.
All the data may be there, or it may not.   Whatever was on the bad sectors most likely didn't get transferred, so the backups are incomplete. The I/O errors tend to confirm that -- part of a file or files (or entire files) may be missing.
You cannot successfully copy corrupted Time Machine backups.
You can try repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. If that's able to repair them, you may be able to copy them.   That will take a very long time, at best.
But your best bet is probably to just let Time Machine start fresh on the new, empty drive.
You can still view and restore from the old backups, although you'll have a problem if you happen to hit the damaged file(s), via the Browse... option, per #E2 in that same link.

How do I restore a second volume from Time Machine?

I lost an external hard drive due to failure. Luckily, I found out that for some reason Time Machine had backed up the drive's volume along with my startup internal drive.
Now I just want to restore that lost drive's volume folder from Time Machine to a NEW external drive. However, I imagine that if I merely click "Restore" from Time Machine app it will attempt to put this volume (which is 100GB) onto my internal drive.
Is there a way to direct the location of the restore of that volume folder to my new external drive? Or can I just go into my Time Machine Backup drive and drag and drop the volume contents from the Time Machine volume onto it?

I was able to access my external disk through the status bar of the finder in Time Machine: double click on the Macintoshand select the drive. I have not restored yet (no sufficient room) but it should be ok.

Time Machine - mysteriously large BU attempt?!

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