Time Machine Needs More User Options
Such as ... how often to backup. This thing just runs way too much. The only option we have is what to exclude? Pretty lame.
I was thinking the same thing. Keep the simple setup, but add an Advanced... button in case you want to make changes. I would like to see the option to modify the frequency of backups or schedule them. I don't think I would have much use for an hourly backup. Every hour, I hear my external drive (WD MyBook) spin up and do the backup. That may get annoying. The backup is quick, but the drive fan runs for about 10 minutes before going into standby mode again. Once a day would work and then that could get consolidated into the weekly backup. If they added that option, it might be nice to add an option to wake the computer from sleep to do the backup. That would allow one to set the once daily backup for sometime when the computer is not in use. (i.e. 2 am or so). Previous to Leopard/Time Machine, I used ChronoSync and scheduled it to do a weekly backup early Saturday morning (ChronoSync can wake computer from sleep to perform the backup).
Similar Messages
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Time machine need more space than necessary.
Hi.
Can anyone help. I have a two 1TB external hard drives one backs the other up. Until now it has been fine but suddenly time machine has decided theres not enough room even though there the same size drives. Ive deleted the backup drive and the time machine preferences but it still wont work. I have one drive with 930GB on and time machine says it needs 1.1TB of space. Why dose it need an extra 170GB. Help?
ThanksSince Time Machine keeps copies of previous versions of things you've changed or deleted, it needs much more space than the data it's backing-up.
The extra 170 GB is for "padding" -- workspace on the backup volume, and in case the original estimate isn't accurate, or more files are changed or added while the backup is running.
#1 in the link Carolyn supplied explains this a bit more, and recomends that your backup drive be 2-3 times the size of the data it's backing-up. -
Time machine only copies User Info and Users (Applications, Library, and System are missing) from my quad core Mac Pro. 45 Gb of 162 Gb are missing. Any one having success with time machine copying all folders using Mavericks?
What do I need to do differently?The late, great Pondini was investigating that issue before he passed away.
See here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5125969
I think there might be information there on how to reset Time Machine to do a full backup. I think you basically have to reset it and start over. -
Time Machine sees more data than actually exists
Another way to put it is that Time Machine requires more space than is needed. I found similar posts, but none that were solved.
My MacPro has a 160GB startup drive, and three 1TB (931.2GB formatted) storage drives in it.
I have a 1TB external FW800 drive (931.2GB formatted). I formatted it using Disk Utility and set it as the Time Machine destination. Using the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences, I have exluded everything but the startup disk and the 1TB drive with my actual work data on it (we'll call it data_1) .
There's 79GB in use on the startup disk and 702GB in use on data_1. In the "Options" window of the Time Machine preference pane, it says "Total Included 781.9GB"
When I start the first backup, after a short period of 'Preparing' Time Machine delivers an error message that says the backup is too large for the destination and that 931GB are available but 998.41GB are required.
From system.log:
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Backup content size: 79.2 GB excluded items size: 8.8 MB for volume davinci
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Backup content size: 702.8 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume vivaldi
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Starting pre-backup thinning: 998.41 GB requested (including padding), 930.97 GB available
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Jan 7 00:42:23 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Backup Failed: unable to free 998.41 GB needed space
Jan 7 00:42:29 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd(598): Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
Where is the extra 217GB coming from?
I've reset everything; reformatted the drive, turned TM off, cleared the exclusion list, turned TM back on, reset the TM destination, repopulated the exclusion list. Same error.
Time Machine has worked properly on this computer before. I had a smaller external drive, and only backed up the startup disk.they call me 'Oz' wrote:
1) I can't find any documentation published by Apple that defines recommended drive size. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.
My G5 is in the shop, so I can't get to Leopard Help. And I don't find it on their Support pages. This has been reported by people who talked directly with Apple (Apple Care and others).
2) I've run Time Machine on dozens of Macs (I manage a small network) and none of them had a TM drive 3 times the size of the source disk. They all worked, no problems.
Yes, of course, in many, perhaps most, cases 2 times or even less will work. But it depends almost entirely on what size files are updated/added and how often.
3) Based on the error I'm currently getting, TM requires an overhead of 22% just to perform its tasks. Can that be true? And if it is, why isn't this reflected in System Preferences? (i.e.: Total Included: 781GB, an additional 217GB will be required for working space)
Yes, there is a great deal of mystery about it's calculations. You may note from it's system log messages that it requests a certain amount of space "including padding". Just what that consists of, and how it's calculated, is unclear.
My completely uneducated guess is, at least some of it is for the many hundreds of thousands of alias-type files it uses. Remember, when you look in the TM interface, it appears to have one copy of every file for every backup. The vast majority of those, of course, haven't changed, and are represented, somehow, by those special alias files some also call soft links. Whatever they are, they have to take up some small amount of space, but multiply teeny by a minimum of half a million of them per backup . . .
4) I understand that a main feature of TM is that it saves a history of files. But at it's root it is a backup system. Even if you only had enough space for one most recent copy, and one expired copy, you'd still have a backup, which does not defeat the purpose.
Yes of course, but you don't have anywhere near that much space.
I don't mean to be argumentative. But I was hoping to hear something other than "Get a bigger drive." If the 2-3x 'rule of thumb' is correct, wouldn't the minimum size for any of the newer macs be 750GB? Making one of Apple's own products (the 500GB Time Capsule) be incompatible? Especially when the TC is meant for multiple systems. Seems like my only option is to get a raid of some sort.
Or use CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or the like. Or exclude a lot.
I suppose I'm just frustrated and befuddled at the lack of documentation on this, assuming what you say is true? I guess I'd calm down if I could see some actual documentation. Does anyone have a resource or a reference where this overhead?
Agreed. Why don't you contact Apple directly? And post the results here. -
Time Machine with multiple users on single computer
Hi All,
I have an iMac at home with multiple user log ons. I'm about to get the Time Capsule and start using Time Machine (currently I use backup).
When I switch on Time Machine, does it switch on for all users, or will each user need to turn on Time Machine?
If I have to switch on Time Machine for each user, will each user's time machine back up the entire computer (so I'll have two complete copies on my computer on the external drive)?
If this does occur, can I control what Time Machine backs up so TM only backs up user specific information?
Thanks in advance,
ChrisWhen you first backup it will backup your whole system (user directories, system directories, applications, etc) unless you specify folders to exclude. When a user account is added to the computer, their home folder will be added to the backup in a similar way to if you added a new application. It will back up the directory structure exactly as it is on your main hard drive. The backup will essentially keep a copy of the whole hard drive on the backup drive.
The Time Machine will either be on for the whole system, or off for the whole system. It is not on or off for a specific user account. Users (depending on if they've got admin privileges) may have control over turning time machine on or off, but this does not change who can access the backups. All users will be able to invoke Time Machine to get to their backed up files.
Time Machine does not make separate backups for individual users. Instead, it preserves the permissions for backed up files, so while every user can access the backups, they cant just browse other users' files on the backup. The same restrictions on the main drive are carried over to the backup. Still, a standard user who's lost a file will be able to go into Time Machine, access a backed up version of the file, and restore it. Unlike standard users who are restricted from seeing other users' files in the backups, Admins are also restricted but they can be authenticated to view other users' files if they want to. -
How to restore from time machine for another user login
I use time machine to back my computer which has multiple user login.
First I set up time machine backup using User A. I checked that User B files in the hard disk is also backed up, and I can restore using User B login.
Then I changed the hard disk today and all users I need to recreate again.
After recreating users, I found that User A can restore files from time machine backup.
However, files originally under User B cannot be restored using either User A and User B. The error message is
"The folder “Documents” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents."
Anyone can help?Not sure if this is related enough, but I just wrestled trying to restore from time machine too, trying to reinstall 10.5.8 after putting a new HD in my MBP, 2006 vintage.
That took sooooo long to get back to where I was before swapping disks; what did the trick was ordering a free copy of Snow Leopard install disk (free due to Apple trying to push people from idisk to icloud) which was rushed FedEx (yay) and which allowed me to access Time Machine where my ancient original OSX install disk had not.
And all it took was 2 weeks of cursing! -
Hi, I'm creating an ibook in iphoto and need more design options. Someone said there was a program called "Keynote" on my new imac. If so, how do I find it?
This application is very well available, just not preinstalled on your mac.
It costs $19 dollars on the Mac app store and is worth every penny. -
I turned my macbook on and all the emails of inbox were gone. In time machine, only the inbox option does not shows option to get back old back ups... how I can get my inbox emails?
I figured it out. I couldn't see the old backups because the sparsebundle had not been properly unmounted in a previous session, so it kept giving an "already in use" error. The problem was solved by restarting the Time Capsule through the Airport Utility, mounting the sparsebundle by double-clicking it, and then going through the "Browse other backup disks" option in the Time Machine menu bar icon.
The following links were helpful in figuring this out:
http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html
http://pondini.org/TM/17.html -
Time Machine requests more storage than needed!
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/TM_Backup/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.94 GB requested (including padding), 109.41 GB available
Copied 2539 files (265.1 MB) from volume Snow_Leopard.
Copied 2547 files (265.1 MB) from volume Leopard.
Copied 2754 files (548.8 MB) from volume Data.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.29 GB requested (including padding), 108.86 GB available
Copied 382 files (103 bytes) from volume Snow_Leopard.
Copied 390 files (196 bytes) from volume Leopard.
Copied 435 files (196 bytes) from volume Data.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
As you can see from the log entries above, Time Machine requested 1.94 GB, but it backed up only 548.8 MB.
And then it requested 1.29 GB and it backed up only 196 bytes.
I recall reading in this forum that this may be caused by the size information in some folder being wrong. I have partitioned my internal hard drive in three partitions:
1. Leopard
2. Snow Leopard
3. Data
So, I excluded the Leopard partition and did another backup and it was still more than 1 GB.
I added Leopard and took a backup.
Then I excluded Snow Leopard and did another backup and the space requested was still more than 1 GB.
So I added Snow Leopard and took a backup.
Then I excluded Data and did another backup. It requested more than 1 GB.
So, I was unable to identify which volume had the bad folder info.
I wiped out the Time Machine backup by reformatting the volume,
I then re-created the directory of all three volumes using Disk Warrior.
And then I ran a fresh backup.
And then I ran another backup. It still requests more than 1 GB than needed.
Any else I should try?
Thank you very much.
Roberto
Message was edited by: Roberto SepúlvedaPondini wrote:
Roberto Sepúlveda wrote:
As you can see from the log entries above, Time Machine requested 1.94 GB, but it backed up only 548.8 MB.
And then it requested 1.29 GB and it backed up only 196 bytes.
That's more of an over-estimate than usual. TM adds 20% to the estimated size of the backup, and it's usually fairly close.
no it's not. I frequently see large disparity between estimated and actual backup for smaller backups. in the example I posted the ratio is 5:1! this is completely normal. there is nothing to troubleshoot or see here.
There are some things that will cause the estimate to be off significantly, but most of them result in larger backups, not smaller ones.
It's pure speculation, but I suspect if the same file is updated repeatedly between backups, it's size may be counted more than once for the estimate.
But as you mentioned, something corrupted might be a cause, also. Since there's no way to tell how much was estimated from each partition, I'd run +*Verify Disk+* on the partition you're running from, and +*Repair Disk+* on the others, then do a Restart. -
How to Restore from Time Machine in Single-user mode?
Hi there, I am trying to fix a Macbook Pro that has had its /private folder trashed and emptied. Obviously it won't boot unless you you boot in to Single User mode and I'm wondering if its possible to do a Time Machine restore from the terminal, I would need the 2nd more recent Time Machine image which is sitting on a Firewire HDD.
I was going to just see if I could find the orignal OSX install disk and just do a fresh install of the OS which I don't mind doing (since everything important is backed up in Dropbox), but I can't seem to find the CD anywhere nearby, so the Time Machine option would be much preferred.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.Not sure if this is related enough, but I just wrestled trying to restore from time machine too, trying to reinstall 10.5.8 after putting a new HD in my MBP, 2006 vintage.
That took sooooo long to get back to where I was before swapping disks; what did the trick was ordering a free copy of Snow Leopard install disk (free due to Apple trying to push people from idisk to icloud) which was rushed FedEx (yay) and which allowed me to access Time Machine where my ancient original OSX install disk had not.
And all it took was 2 weeks of cursing! -
Time machine needs reinstalling?
Greetings,
I wanted to enable Time Machine for the first time today.
So I go to System Preferences and click "Time Machine". One thing is weird here: a first click only shows "Loading Time Machine" in the title bar but doesn't open the pane (I can wait forever). I have to click a second time to open the pane.
Then, the padlock is invisible (I only see the "Click the lock to make changes" prompt but not the padlock). Moving the mouse over the padlock makes it showing. At this point, I'm thinking the prefs pane is corrupt.
And... that's all... Clicking the padlock (which is closed) doesn't ask me for the admin username and password and doesn't open the padlock so I can't do anything, except using the "Show Time Machine in menubar" checkbox.
So I'm thinking of reinstalling the Time Machine prefs pane using "Pacifist" (archive and install isn't an option for me because my internet connection is too slow for all the updates). However, I see one problem: my install DVD is around 10.5.0 and my installed OS is 10.5.8. I'm guessing the Time Machine prefs panes are different for these 2 OS versions. What can I do, otherwise?BDAqua wrote:
Hello,
First, Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), use Disk Utility from there to Repair Permissions, test if things work OK in Safe Mode.
Then move these files to the Desktop...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Then trash the original of this last one, since move only copies it.
Reboot & test.
PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.
Hello, and thanks for your answer!
I've followed your advices (mostly: I've not put the finder and desktop plist files to the desktop, I wanted to do it at the very least. However, the problem has disappeared before that).
So, I can now finally access Time Machine (thanks again, BDAqua!). However, all seems to indicate it hasn't been installed correctly (I'm speaking about the preferences pane). While Time Machine is actually working (does the backup), it has several weird glitches:
1: in System Preferences, the icon is the generic System Preferences icon instead of Time Machine's icon.
2: the prefs pane's title shows "com.apple.prefs.backup" (or "Loading com.apple.prefs.backup" when it loads). Along with point 1, it seems to indicate it can't access the resources in the bundle, I'm wrong?
3: both in the status menu and in the prefs pane, the dates are weird number-formatted (instead of expected dates, they show like "22065118000". I can't explain this number, it doesn't even seem to be the number of seconds since 19 january 1904 (a standard base date in computers, as you may know)).
4: the ON/OFF switch doesn't show.
For points 2, 3 and 4, I've taken a screenshot:
http://homepage.mac.com/anic297/timemachine.pict
Most of these problems aren't annoying now that Time Machine works in its basis. The only problem that is still annoying is the one about the dates. I'd like to see "Last backup: <correct date>" in the status menu instead of "Last backup: 2207019000", as it is now. Macs were more easy to control and repair in Mac OS 9 days!
Any idea? -
Time Machine needs "work space" after reinstall of Snow Leopard
Hey all,
I had to completely nuke my hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard after my hard drive got corrupted and my MacBook wouldn't boot up. I restored my system from my Time Machine backup, and after installing all updates, everything on the system seems all hunkey-dorey.
Except for Time Machine. Whenever TM tries to do a backup, it tells me that it needs 250GB of storage for a backup - as if it's completely ignoring all my old backups. I'd prefer not to wipe my external drive, so if there's a way to get TM to work again without a wipe, I'd love to hear it, but I suppose if I have to, I have to.
One more thing, according to the Time Machine Buddy widget, TM detects that it has a migration, but the UUID doesn't match. Here's the full log.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb
Detected system migration from: /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-30-220159/Macintosh HD
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
Starting pre-backup thinning: 253.69 GB requested (including padding), 64.14 GB available
Found partially deleted backup - trying again to delete: 2010-04-20-180830
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-04-20-180830: 64.87 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-30-181632: 64.88 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-30-171626: 65.03 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-30-170427: 65.04 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-30-160235: 65.19 GB now available
Removed all 5 expired backups, more space is needed - deleting oldest backups to make room
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-04-27-174822: 71.78 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-05-04-171714: 75.79 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-05-11-094053: 77.26 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-05-18-165214: 81.98 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-05-26-173141: 82.82 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-06-02-214217: 106.60 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-06-09-100848: 114.84 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-06-16-115343: 120.15 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-07-29-112106: 123.57 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupdb/Brian Charous's MacBook Pro/2010-08-02-104709: 123.71 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Passport/Backups.backupYou reinstalled OS X which causes TM to backup the drive from scratch. This is normal.
See User Tips for Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine. -
How do I access time machine from different user account
Hi there.
Last week I had to take my comupter into the local Apple Store because I was having problems with Boot Camp. The genius at the store had to delete everything from my hard drive and reinstall it from my external hard drive. As part of the process she created a "Apple" user account. I now want to restore some files (unrelated to this Boot Camp story) from my time machine archive. However, all the files prior to this Apple Store encounter are red -- and it says I do not have permission to view them. When I click "get info" it says that the "Apple" account has the read/write access to them and the option to unlock them is greyed out. How can I get these files from the archive and get them onto my main user account where they belong? The "Apple" account does not have a password so I think I can easily log on as that account, but I don't know where to go from there.
PS The files in question are iTunes libraries.
Thanks for your help.Ok, I fixed it. Here's what I did.
I logged into my computer under the Apple account. Then I went into Time Machine. I found my old files under Users-->"my main account". I was able to restore those files to Users-->Shared. Then I was able to log back into "my main account" and retrieve the files from the shared folder. It worked! Hope this helps someone else some time! -
Restoring to older file in Time Machine need newer bookmarks
A month ago I upgraded to Yosemite and have been in computer **** ever since. Last night, I decided to return to Mountain Lion, where life was running smoothly. I erased my drive, turned Time Machine on to restore it back to working level and woke up this morning to find everything good as new. Now, I need all my browser bookmarks, documents, etc that I've added since that old back up. I figured out how to restore my docs and pics from a newer backup, but can't figure out how to do the bookmarks. Anyone know?
Quit Safari.
Hold Option.
Go to menu bar Go > Library.
In the window that opens, double click the Safari.
Open Time Machine from the menu bar at top right.
In TM, go to the date you want, find the Bookmarks.plist file, select it and click Restore. -
Recovery with time machine needs over 1000 hours
I have a Macbook Air (Mid 2011, 128 GB SSD, 4GB RAM, Mountain Lion) and I wanted to recover the OS for testing purposes from my external hraddrive (500GB USB Gdrive). Now the recovery has started and it shows me a remaining time of more than 1000 hours. The value still increases. There was no need for recovery, I only wanted to check the functionality. backups were running without problems. Whats wrong now? Any suggestions?
I'm sorry I have no idea what you're asking; I don't know what you mean by 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)? I bought the hard drive specifically for use with this Mac; I plugged it in & copied across around 58MB of files from the Mac hard drive with no problem; I did it in small parts but the total thing only took a few hours. I was then advised to do this 'total back-up', which is now taking several days to only back up 59MB. Why is life so complicatd with Macs?! I'm used to just plugging things in & they work, no fuss or bother.
I really would like to stop it now; but need some advice as to whether what has already been copied across over the past 28 hours will actually be on the HD, or will I have to start all over again? Second question; clearly it is easier to just drag & drop files across to the HD - this Time Machine thing is useless - but I am not totally sure which files it is copying. Would I just copy everything from 'My computer' / applications, etc?
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