Time Machine re-Backuping with new network connection!

Hi,
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro, running 10.8.5. I have a new 3TB Time Capsule I set up last Sept 25 (2013). Well, when I did that I backed up the MacBook to the Time Capsule via WiFi (about 100GB of data). And used WiFi ever since.
Well today I connected my MacBook to my local network via an Ethernet cable. Both WiFi and Ethernet conections are on my same local network. All was working well. Then after a couple hours I noticed the Time Machine was backing up, so I opened the Time Machine to see what it was doing and I see it was backup up 25GB of data!!! And it said "Oldest backup: September 25.2013"!!
I then noticed the size of the backup kept growing, "Backing up 25GB of 26.1GB" became "Backing up 32GB of 33.1GB"!! ....both numbers just kept growing! And using up space on my Time Capsule! I finally selected "Stop Backing Up".
I just restarted the backup, and the same thing is happening! Why is it doiong this? Why is Time Machine apperantly backing up all my files again to the same backup on the Time Capsule? Simply because I change the network connection?? Will it re-backup up another 100GB+ if I go back to using WiFi??
Why can't I use WiFi OR Ethernet with Time Machine??
I have turned off Time Machine on the MacBook until I can figure out whats going on here.
Thanks,
Jeff

I used "Verify Backups" from the TM menu, I saw it was verifing the backup so I went to do something else, it was going to take a while....when I came back it appears to have completed the Verify.....but there is no message as whether it was sucessful or not??? eeeee
PS How come spell checker doesnt work on these forums??

Similar Messages

Time Machine back up with hard drive connected to D-Link DIR-655

Recently D-Link updated the share port utility with a mac version. I have heard that Time Machine does not easily recognize network shared hard drives but to my surprise this morning it did. With using the new software and hooking up my hard drive to my router Time machine recognized it! This is great since I dont have to buy a Time Capsule now.

First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.
It's your choice, of course, but I wouldn't trust my primary backups to it.

Using Time Machine to backup FROM a network drive

Can time machine be configured to backup files that are stored on a network drive? Drive is mounted via SMB.
Thanks
Simon

disconnected wrote:
although it is now capable of backing up TO a network device, there must be a work around.
It will back up to some network drives, but not reliably to one connected to your Airport Extreme, and possibly not your NAS, either. See #2, especially the pink box, in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Possible solution: mount a networked drive as a local volume so that as far as time machine is concerned, it is seen as a local drive. How could one accomplish this?
No such hack has been posted here, and it's doubtful there is one.

Time Machine incomplete backup on new External Hard Drive

I have a LaCie 2TB firewire external hard drive I bought 2 years ago. I made 3 partitions, one called "Time Machine" for TM backups of my iMac HD, one called "Video" for video files, and one called "HD2" that I used to install new programs and store edited photos and img files. I ran TM onto this HD for the last 2 yrs with no problems. I recently decided that I needed to have a backup of my iMac HD --- AND the 2 partitions (Video and HD2) on my LaCie. So I bought a Seagate 2TB external USB HD that I planned to use ONLY for Time Machine.
So I hooked it up and formatted it (no partitions), then went to TM options and selected the new Seagate Hard Drive to backup to, and in the options I excluded the Seagate (by default) and the Time Machine partition on my LaCie. Nothing else was excluded. In other words, I wanted to backup my entire iMac HD, and my Lacie Video and HD2 partitions.
My internal iMac HD has 116 GB used, my Lacie Video partition has 355 GB used, and my Lacie HD2 partition has 175 GB used. So I was expecting the Seagate to backup 646 GB.
When my Time Machine backup started at 1 AM, I was happy to see that the status box showed "Backing up 1 GB of 646 GB." When I woke up at 8 AM, I was happy to see that the status box showed
"Backing up 536 GB of 646 GB."
But it stayed stuck on 536 GB until 12 Noon, then started slowly working again. By 7 PM, the status showed "Backing up 623 GB of 646 GB." Then at 8 PM, the status box disappeared and it seemed like everything was backed up. But my Seagate HD shows only 629 GB of used space. So I decided to check the backup in Finder to see what went wrong.
In the Seagate backups folder, I have three folders - one named "Macintosh HD" which shows 112 GB on disk, one named "Video" with 341 GB on disk, and one named "HD2" with 175 GB on disk.
So it appears that my iMac HD was only backed up 112 GB out of 116GB, my Video partition was only backed up 341 GB out of 355 GB, but my HD2 partition backed up the entire 175 GB out of 175 GB.
So my question is - is this normal, or is my backup really missing 4 GB of files from my iMac hard drive and 14 GB of files from my video partition? I started to look at them file by file to see if they matched, but there are so many files, so I thought I would ask in case any of you might have heard of this before. If your answer is that my backups are corrupt or incomplete, should I reformat the Seagate and start over?
Also, is it safe for me to manually delete all the files in my time Machine partition on my LaCie hard drive, since I won't be using that anymore for Time Machine backups? Or is there a process I must follow to delete those older backups?
Thanks for reading this far and for any advice you can shoot my way.

Thank you for your well thought out response. It was really helpful by showing me where to look at things more closely.
Time Machine automatically excludes some things that aren't necessary for a restore, such as system work files, most caches and logs, and trash.
This is good to know. Although I didn't have anything in the trash, I have no idea how much is in the various caches and logs. I'd be surprised if they totaled 4GB, though. I'm still worried about this backup, as explained below after doing a Console log check.
If any files were open, they may not have been backed-up (a partial file wouldn't be of much use). I don't know of any special exclusions for video files or apps, but there may be some. You might want to try the Terminal command in the yellow box of #11.
I didn't have anything else running except TM, so no files were open. I checked the exclusions in the yellow box #11, the Terminal Command, and /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pl ist, but nothing seemed to point to the video files I have saved. So I'm still at a loss with this part of the backup.
You might want to look at the log of that backup
I looked at the log - thank you for the link on how to see it - but the entries show that the size of the backup was even less than I thought - It seems I am actually missing 0.2 GB from the HD2 partition, 6 GB from the iMac HD, and 14.4 GB from the Video partition. And since it shows the exclusion amounts, I'm really at a loss for the iMac HD now. Here's what the Console listed for this backup:
Aug 29 00:55:54 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Backup content size: 174.7 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume HD2
Aug 29 00:55:54 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Backup content size: 355.7 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume Video
Aug 29 00:55:54 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Backup content size: 116.3 GB excluded items size: 30.5 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Aug 29 00:55:54 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 776.02 GB requested (including padding), 1.82 TB available
Aug 29 00:55:54 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Waiting for index to be ready (909 > 0)
Aug 29 02:37:30 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Copied 3275 files (174.5 GB) from volume HD2.
Aug 29 05:49:40 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Copied 5412 files (515.9 GB) from volume Video.
Aug 29 19:18:46 paul-imac-5 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[567]: Copied 146976 files (626.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Is it possible to see how many files are in each drive that I was backing up? If I could match the file count, it might give me a better idea. I used Finder, but it only gives me the GB Capacity, Used and Free. For example, if I could see if the LaCie Video partition has exactly 5412 files (or 2137, if the file count above is a running total), I will believe that all the files backed up but may have been truncated. If the partition shows more than 5412 files, then I'll know that not all files were backed up. So at least I can start looking manually.
It will be much faster and easier to erase the partition with Disk Utility.
Thank you for this advice. This should save lots of time. I won't erase my other partitions when I do this, right? Also, will it leave a blank partition there so I regain my space?
I'm really bummed out by this backup. I haven't used my iMac for anything except Safari since this happened, because I do not want to start working again until I know that I have a safe backup, and I don't want to make any new files until I can resolve this. I thought of just reformatting the Seagate and starting over, but I have a feeling it may do the same thing. So at this point, I don't know if the Seagate is faulty, if the TM is not working properly, if I am making a dumb user error, or if this is perfectly normal. The worst thing that could happen is that my iMac HD or Lacie HD fails and I try to restore from my Seagate TM backup, only to find out that my TM backup is incomplete or corrupt.
So I really do appreciate your help and any additional insight you or anyone else might have. Thanks.

Time Machine stopped working with new Mac address.

Greetings,
I have an IOMEGA 500, FireWire which I used to use for Time Machine. I now have a new Mac address and do not have access to the old Mac address. Is there any way that I can get the IOMEGA to start working with Time Machine? If so please give me step by steps instructions on how to make this external hard drive work again with Time Machine.
Any help is most appreciated.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

macuserr222 wrote:
Greetings,
I have an IOMEGA 500, FireWire which I used to use for Time Machine. I now have a new Mac address
Do you have a new Mac, or a new logic board? Either will get you a new MAC (Media Access Control) address, which Time Machine interprets as a different Mac.
Do you mean you haven't started doing backups of the new Mac, and want to view the old ones? If so, see #E2 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If you want to use the old backups to set up a new Mac, see [Setting up a new Mac from an old one or its backups|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
When you do your first backup, OSX should ask how you want to handle the old backups. See #B5 in Troubleshooting for details.
If that's not what you mean, please explain exactly what's going on, and what happens when you try to do whatever you're doing.
Message was edited by: Pondini

How do I set Time Machine to backup a new startup drive?

The HD in my iMac is getting ready to bite the dust - it's hung up on me a few times recently and is making clicking noises intermittently. AppleCare has expired and I don't want to open the iMac to change the drive myself, nor do I want to pay Apple approx $400 to replace the old drive. I used Carbon Copy to clone the iMac's HD to an external firewire drive, and now I boot from the external drive.
I think Time Machine is still looking at the internal drive as the source drive, because it is having some problems now. How can I make sure that Time Machine is backing up the external drive?
Thanks,
Doug

Go to Time Machine Preferences > Options.
If the external drive is listed in the exclusions box, it is not getting backed up. Select it and click the minus sign at the bottom. Time Machine will do a full backup of it on the next run. That will, of course, require a lot of time and space on your TM drive.
If the internal HD isn't listed in the exclusions box, click the plus sign at the bottom, select it on the next window and click Exclude so Time Machine will quit trying to back it up.
And while running from the external, to view the backups of the internal HD, you'll need the procedure in #E3 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

How Do you get Time Machine to work with a network drive?

I have not been able to choose a Drive for Time Machine on a Network Drive. The network drive is active and shown on my desktop. How Do I use it?

Correct. Back up to a network volume (other than Time Capsule) is not supported, so if you want to do it you have to use the command line to set something as shown in the article.
Another option you could do would be to create a large disk image file on the NAS device and mount it on your client and back up to that. You'd use Disk Utility to create a large (say, 200 GB) sparse image on the network storage and then double click it to mount it on your machine and set TM to back up to that. I could show you how to do this in 30 seconds but instructing it over a forum post... not so easy

Time Machine slow backup with Date Validation error?

Console is spitting out this garbage and I don't know what it means
Dec 24 01:17:46 Macbook-Pro mdworker[7772]: Date validation error: EXDATE = '20080626T150000,20080807T150000,20080814T150000'
Dec 24 01:17:48 Macbook-Pro mdworker[7772]: Date validation error: EXDATE = '20071022T150000,20081027T150000'
Dec 24 01:17:48 Macbook-Pro mdworker[7772]: Date validation error: EXDATE = '20080527T130000,20081028T130000'
It creeps along and eventually finishes but if I have a lot of data to backup it takes hours for a few hundred MB. Any ideas?
I've tried starting from scratch and have repaired permissions on my MBP with no luck.
Message was edited by: jgoettel

mdworker relates to Spotlight. Check this thread to see if it helps:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8372393&#8372393

Time Machine Starts Backup, Hangs, on USB connected drive

I have been using this same USB-connected backup drive for years. There is plenty of remaining space on it. I start the backup, it backs up for a tiny bit (1.2Mb out of 476MB) and hangs there. No error messages. Nothing. Just won't finish. Any tips on what to do? Have tried again and again, same problem.

Below is the link to a site that help you trobleshoot TM problems.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
Allan

Do time machine back up with HD attached to mac, then change HD location?

I want to do my first time machine back up with the HD directly attached to mac (faster) then take that HD and connect it to my Airport Extreme (dual band) 802.11n router for subsequent periodic back ups (as future back ups, unlike the first one, will be far smaller, obviously).
Is that possible?
If not, what else should I do?
Ethernet directly to the router (a pain for my situation, but possible)

BreeBrizzle wrote:
I want to do my first time machine back up with the HD directly attached to mac (faster) then take that HD and connect it to my Airport Extreme (dual band) 802.11n router for subsequent periodic back ups (as future back ups, unlike the first one, will be far smaller, obviously).
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
Is that possible?
Not without a lot of hassle. Time Machine manages backups on a locally-connected disk completely differently from how it managed backup on a network disk. It's possible to convert between the two schemes, but it's not easy.
If not, what else should I do?
Ethernet directly to the router (a pain for my situation, but possible)
I'd back up to the disk while it's connected to the AirPort Extreme, but connected via Ethernet for the first backup. It might minimize the pain if you do that overnight.

Time Machine after migration to new Mac

So, I just got a new Mac, and used the option to copy settings and files from a Time Machine volume to the new machine. Now that everything's run, though, I can't use Time Machine to backup the new Mac -- it says "Volume not found". I've Googled a bit, but most of the troubleshooting seems to assume that the drive is missing or won't mount -- the drive is there, but the Time Machine software won't use it.
What are my options here?

Hi VK
A supplementray question:
I have one i-mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
I have just bought a second i-mac (stops the fighting!) and propose to use migration assistant to move my [admin] account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts on the old one. I see from your posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups. But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? If so, should I partition the external drive and start the new back ups from the new i-mac on this new partition. I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
Does this make sense? I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expandin mac world.
MVBW
Mervyn

I'd like Time Machine to backup my personal account's files separately from my guest account's files. Both have big files. What's the best way to do this? Should I connect 2 external HD to my new iMac, one for each account?

I'd like Time Machine to backup my personal account's files separately from my guest account's files. Both have big files. What's the best way to do this? Should I connect 2 external HD to my new iMac, one for each account?

NeuroBrain wrote:
Since my new external hard drive is have a lot of space, I'm thinking of splitting it for Time Machine and external storage.
This is a common mistake and I highly advise against it.
1: TimeMachine saves states of changes and thus requires more room on the TM drive than the boot drive it's backing up.
2: Something happens to the TM drive, loss, theft, dropped, power surge, etc., you lose both backups.
3: The storage drive might become a portable need, with it being on the TM drive, now your increasing the risk to the TM backup that something could happen to it along with the storage drive, due to increased movement.
Seriously, have a read,
Most commonly used backup methods
it's ASC User Tip that saves us regulars all the trouble of having to repeat ourselves over and over again in the posts, because we tend to forget things too, or not here sometimes etc.
"Plan for the worst and the good will take care of itself" - Donald Trump

Why do I get this message every time I travel with my laptop and then return home: To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.

Why do I get this message every time I travel with my laptop and then return home: "To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."
I get this on my new MacBook Air, but never got it on my old MacBook Pro.
Thanks!

See #C13 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Hi there,I was using MacPro with older snow leopard just now i install OS X LION,before install i backup all deta to time machines about 70GB,now when i connect i dont know how can backup the old deta to OS X LION,but it just backup the recent deta to tim

Hi there,
I was using MacPro with older snow leopard just now i install OS X LION,before install i backup all deta to time machines about 70GB,now when i connect i dont know how can backup the old deta to OS X LION,but it just backup the recent deta to time machine,pls guide me how i can backup my old deta to my computer??
Will be much appreciated !!
Thanks.

>Step 1. Backup existing data using time machine.
Time Machine is nice, but you have very little in terms of ability to verify that your data is all backed up. I find Time Machine is better for the occasional recovery of previously written data at specific times. A good backup solution that survives an erase and install (there is no clean install in Mac OS X), is a clone, and preferably TWO clones. See my FAQ*:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
Time Machine can work as good as a clone, and in fact I once had to rely on it because my hard drive died. Thankfully it did recover everything. But I had my clone just in case it didn't work. Now I feel more comfortable since clones allow you to boot themselves, and thus prove all the important system information got saved, and not just the user data.
Clones are also easier to import with the migration assistant.

Getting this error: Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you.

I keep getting this error on my new Macbook Pro w/ Retina.
"Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."
Connected to a wifi network and QNAP storage system. There are 5 computers on this network, and each backs up just fine. The issue is isolated to this one machine.
This error shows up every week or so.

A third-party NAS is unsuitable for use with Time Machine, especially if it's your only backup. I know this isn't the answer you want. I know Time Machine accepts the NAS as a backup destination. I know that the manufacturer says the device will work with Time Machine, and I also know that it usually seems to work. Except when you try to restore, and find that you can't.
Apple has published a specification for network devices that work with Time Machine. None of the third-party NAS vendors, as far as I know, meets that specification. They all use the incomplete, obsolete Netatalk implementation of Apple Filing Protocol.
If you want network backup, use as the destination either an Apple Time Capsule or an external storage device connected to another Mac or to an 802.11ac AirPort base station. Only the 802.11ac base stations support Time Machine, not any older model.
Otherwise, don't use Time Machine at all. There are other ways to back up, though none of them is anywhere near as efficient or as well integrated with OS X. I don't have a specific recommendation.
If you're determined to keep using the NAS with Time Machine, your only recourse for any problems that result is to the manufacturer (which will blame Apple, or you, or anyone but itself.)

Time Machine re-Backuping with new network connection!

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for