Time Machine says backup is larger then the actual disk

I recently had a HD die, I replaced it and restored from my TM back up. I then formatted the TM drive and am now trying to do a full back up however when I do I get an error saying that the back up size is 525GB but my HD is only a 500GB drive of which only 450GB are used.
I ran disk warrior on my main HD, ran disk utility to fix the disk and permissions. I formatted the TM drive and now I'm zeroing out the TM drive (hopefully that will work)
Anyone have any ideas why it would be reading the back up size wrong?
Thanks!
Message was edited by: zymosan

zymosan wrote:
I recently had a HD die, I replaced it and restored from my TM back up. I then formatted the TM drive and am now trying to do a full back up however when I do I get an error saying that the back up size is 525GB but my HD is only a 500GB drive of which only 450GB are used.
That's correct, as odd as it may seem.
Time Machine adds 20% to the estimated size of the backup, for workspace on the backup disk. That's usually not a problem, because a Time Machine disk should be much larger than the data it's backing-up; otherwise, there isn't enough room to keep old backups.
It varies greatly, of course, depending on how you use your Mac, but as a general rule, TM needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.
Short-term, you can "squeeze" a backup onto the disk by excluding something large (so the estimate is under about 410 GB) and run a backup. Then remove the exclusion and run another. Since the second backup will be much smaller, 20% of it will be much smaller, too, so it should fit.
Longer-term, you need a much larger HD; at least 1 TB.

Similar Messages

My external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive. Same thing has happened with Final Cut Express.

My new LaCie external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive.
The same thing happened recently between Final Cut Express and my other LaCie external hard drive used as the Scratch disk. It fixed itself.
I've run out of ideas. Help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

have you done some searches on FCPx and time machine? Is there a known issue with using a TM drive with FCPx? dunno but ...wait...I'll take 60 sec for you cause I'm just that kind of guy.... google...." fcpx time machine problem" Frist page link
http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/fcpx-bug-best-practices-for-using-external-hard- drives-and-final-cut-pro-x/
You cannot have time machine backups on your hard drive if you intend to use it in FCPX.
booya!

Time Machine says Backup Delayed After Upgrading to Lion

Time Machine says Backup Delayed After Upgrading to Lion on both my Macs. It backs up fine when ever I connect to the USB drive but now seems to want to back up hourly when before weekly was OK. When it does not compleye an hourly backup it reports a delayed backup - failure on both machines. How do it revert back to it reminding me to do weekly backups?

I'm having the same issue with Time Machine on OS X Lion!
According to this webpage: http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/LionChanges.html
Backups (i.e., Time Machine, SD, CCC, etc.) will only save the current "Version" of files.
The above statement sounds like the issue @iJRB and myself are having after upgrading to Lion where Time Machine shows the following error message below within "System Preferences > Time Machine"
@iJRB: Is this the error message you are seeing?

Why is Time machine saying backup disk disconnected? Using MBP 17" Lion 10.7

Why is Time machine saying backup disk disconnected? Using MBP 17" Lion 10.7

Do you have an external drive connected?
If you do has it gone into sleep mode? There is a setting in the OS to put drives to sleep if they aren't being used. Energy Saver "Put the hard disk to sleep when possible".
Also most external drives have a built in sleep function that if they aren't being accessed for a period of time they go to sleep by themselves.

My Time Machine says backup drive is too small

After upgrading to Lion I created a new backup. My Time Capsule had 400Gb free, and the full backup is 270gb. However after a day or so time machine cant perform a backup because there isnt enough space on the drive. It says it needs another 270gb. The size of the backup hasnt changed since snow leopard so im not sure why this has happened. I feel it could be to do with File vault 2 which I enabled after upgrading to Lion. Also after I did the full backup it said on the TC that it was only 22mb in size, but this has now changed.
Many thanks

gooober wrote:
What is strange is that I had the exact same problem with Time machine after I moved my Time machine drive from being directly connected to my Macbook Pro to connecting it to our Airport Extreme.
After I moved the drive, I got an error message stating the same - yet there was plenty space left on the drive!
That's a different problem. Time Machine stores backups differently when done over a network. See the blue box in #E2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
And I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.

Time Machine says backup is too large for backup disk -- but it isn't...

I have a MacBook Pro with a 120GB drive and a 120GB external drive I use for Time Machine. Everything went fine for months until my laptop's drive got close to full (about 3GB of free space). Then Time Machine started saying it didn't have enough room to complete a backup: "needs 10GB but only 8.6GB is available"
So I told it to stop backing up my iTunes movies (about 7GB). Still didn't work -- same error message (the actual values may have changed some, I don't remember).
Next, I added another 10GB do the "do not back up" list. Still didn't work. Finally, I deleted (actually deleted, not just said "don't back up") about 5GB of files and emptied the Trash.
Now it says it needs 15.9GB of space to do a backup and only 8.6 is available... ??? I've restarted the machine several times, still doesn't work.
My solutions seem to be making it worse. Makes no sense to me.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Peter,
Unfortunately, Apple hasn't documented this very well. However, those of us who know how Time Machine works behind the scenes know this to be true. Of course, Time Machine can back up a given machine at least once with only slightly more space on the backup drive than needed, but subsequent backups will fail.
I have to disagree, though, that most people would fill a 250 GB hard drive. I have what I would consider a "just barely manageable" amount of data in my HOME folder, and my installation clocks in at about 100 GBs. Those "big ticket" items that would tend to bloat my HOME folder- iTunes videos, folders of huge images, etc.- I regularly place on some form of external storage when I no longer need them, removing them from my HOME folder. In fact, I have a partition on an external drive just for the storage of iTunes videos that have already been watched.
If your installation is filling a 250 GB hard drive, you might consider your file management, and just what is consuming so much disk space. It could be that you have some data that would be better stored externally.
Those that would benefit most from using a Time Capsule are those using portable computers, since these are the least convenient to connect directly to an external drive. Certainly, it doesn't make sense to have a portable connected directly to an external to allow hourly backups, which could occur easily when using a Time Capsule. And, I dare say that most portable computer users have internal drives smaller than 250 GBs. I know I certainly do.
All this said, your question is really whether or not a Time Capsule is right for you. If you are filling a 250 GB hard drive, the 500 GB model would do, but just barely. Adding a second machine, also using all of a 250 GB hard drive, wouldn't be possible. In this case, even the 1 TB model would be just barely enough, if that. Again, you might want to consider your file management, or just stick with directly-connected external drives for use with Time Machine. There are scenarios where a Time Capsule makes sense, and scenarios where directly-connected solutions are better.
Scott

Since Lion, time machine says 'backup delayed' all the time??

Why, even after I have just completed a back up using time machine, is there an exclamation point and it says 'backup delayed'. It never did this before I upgraded to Lion and it doesn't show me the 'oldest backup' in preferences anymore..just a dash mark..almost like it's not been saving my backups? Anyone else experiencing this? Is it keeping track of my backups?

For those interested..I reported the bug to Apple and this was their reply. It is a known bug..so we just have to wait for the fix:
This is a follow up to Bug ID# 9975887. After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering. This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 9411363. The original bug number being used to track this duplicate issue can be found in the State column, in this format: Duplicate/OrigBug#.
Thank you for submitting this bug report. We truly appreciate your assistance in helping us discover and isolate bugs.
Best Regards,
Developer Support
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations

Time Machine says backup disk is full

My Time Machine backup disk (FreeAgent GoFlex Drive: 1TB) says it's full. I thought Time Machine was supposed to delete old backups to make room for new backups on an on-going basis. I don't see a setting for it. I'm fairly new to Mac, so forgive me if this is supposed to be obvious. I did see some "expert" in this discussion tell someone to "buy a bigger drive." That's just arrogant and not helpful. Someone else bought a 4TB drive and it solved their problem -- duh! What happens when that's full? Don't need the arrogance, just would like to understand how it works. Thanks.

TM does thining, until you are left with only weekly backups. Then it deletes those backups from oldeset to newest.
However, it WON'T always delete a backup to make room, as this depends on a few particular details, and also it won't delete the only remaining backup.
Your 1TB isn't really that large anymore, so I can somewhat see why even an 'expert' would suggest a bigger drive. Most internal drives around 1 TB these days alone.

Time Machine Error: backup to large requires 523 MB but only 8.4 GB avail

For about a week now I am getting the following backup error:
This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 523.3 MB but only 8.4 GB are available.
Then the latest backup fails.
This makes no sense to me. My backup volume is 150GB external USB Buffalo drive. It has been working great for months now. Based on some information I read in another post I excluded my application folder that added another 15.2 GB not needed to backup. I also tried unchecking the box that warns when old backups are deleted.
I have read through many post but have not found an answer yet.
Any suggestions?
Below are the details on my external drive as reported
USB2-IDE Bridge:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
Version: 1.06
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: BUFFALO INC.
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record)
Product ID: 0x002a
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
Vendor ID: 0x0411
Volumes:
Time Machine Backups:
Capacity: 149.05 GB
Available: 8.18 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk2s1
Mount Point: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Details on my hard drive and partitions
ntel ICH7-M AHCI:
Vendor: Intel
Product: ICH7-M AHCI
Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.10 Supported
Maxtor 6L160M0:
Capacity: 152.67 GB
Model: Maxtor 6L160M0
Revision: BACE1GE0
Serial Number: xxxxxxxx
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 132 GB
Available: 20.07 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /
WINDOWS XP:
Capacity: 20.35 GB
Available: 6.52 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk0s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/WINDOWS XP
<Edited by Moderator>

Thanks for the quick and accurate advice. Since I had never done this before it took me a while to figure out how to partition the drive as GUID. I did not understand I had to create a partition and click on options.
On Apple's Support website for OS X 10.5 Time Machine under Mac 101: Using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (see below) it should have information about how important it is to partition a new drive as GUID then how to do it. It just says I won't have to worry about backing up again. For me I had to erase all my backups - this time nothing was really important that was not on my main drive. It would have been good if I could have set it up correctly the first time.
Getting started
The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac OS X Leopard-based Mac, Time Machine asks if you’d like to use that drive as your backup location (you may need to erase the drive first). Choose yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else, automatically, in the background. _You won't have to worry about backing up again._
Message was edited by: John Soles
Message was edited by: John Soles

Time Machine Error, Backup to large - 496 avail and only 79 needs backed up

I have a 1 TB TM with 496.9 GB available (I already have 1 computer backed up on TM)
The second computer I want to back up has 80 GB used of a 500 GB HD.
Time Machine prefs show 496.9 GB available on TM and shows the back up will be 79.1 GB total.
But I get a error each time I try to back up saying " Time Machine Error, This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 614.1 GB but only 496.9 are available."
Two questions:
How can 496.9 GB be to small for a 79.1 GB backup?
Why does a 79.1 GB backup require 614.1 GB of space?
Thank You
Doug

Here's what Backup Buddy says:
Starting standard backup
Backup destination alias resolved to path: /Volumes/Doug's Time Capsule
Disk image /Volumes/Doug's Time Capsule/Jackie’s_001b63b59975.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Jackie’s
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Jackie’s/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Backup of Jackie’s
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 432.7 GB excluded items size: 0 bytes for volume Backup of Jackie’s
Backup content size: 80.2 GB excluded items size: 1007.5 MB for volume Macintosh HD
Starting pre-backup thinning: 614.25 GB requested (including padding), 496.85 GB available
No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room
Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.
Backup Failed: unable to free 614.25 GB needed space
Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.

Time Machine Error - backup too large

I haven't backup my Macbook Pro for more than 10 days. I was out of town for a week and then had to turn it in for repair to replace the faulty nvidia GPU (lost all display - see http://www.macrumors.com/2008/10/10/some-macbook-pros-affected-by-nvidia-gpu-fai lures/).
So I just picked it up from the repair facility and tried to backup and got this message:
"+This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 174.0 GB but only 106.3 GB are available.+
+To select a larger volume, or make the backup smaller by excluding files, open System Preferences and choose Time Machine.+"
My computer's hard drive is 200GB and my Time Machine is 500GB. Why doesn't it just do it's job and delete old backups to make space for the new backups? Does it no longer recognize that I have previously backed up my computer? I don't want to delete the sparsebundle and start all over.
Mark

billsharar wrote:
I also have this problem after selecting the option to restore a new computer from a backup.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Do you mean you got a new Mac and restored the backups from an old one? If so, exactly how did you do that? If not, what do you mean?
I assumed I could continue using the backup with Time Machine on the new computer, but this does not work.
On Snow Leopard, you should get an option to make a new backup or "re-use" the old ones.
It tries to backup to a new name on the same volume.
Did you select the same volume in TM Preferences > Select Disk?
Has anyone successfully resolved this issue?
Yes, probably, but it varies depending on exactly what the situation is, and whether you're now on Leopard (per your profile) or Snow Leopard. So please clarify.
Have no Apple engineers helped?
This is a user-to-user forum. Apple does not monitor it for technical issues.

How to restore from Time Machine when backup is larger than HDD

In an attempt to upgrade my 13 inch, 8GB 2010 MacBook Pro (750 GB HDD) from Mavericks to Yosemite, the Yosemite install was stuck at "about a minute remaining" for hours (overnight). So I cancelled the install and tried again only to be stuck at the same spot. I took the mac to an Apple Genius Bar to have it looked at while it was stuck at that install step. They couldn't fix it and did a fresh install of Yosemite. Luckily, I had backed it up about a week before, so I wasn't losing a whole lot. I attempted to restore from the Time Machine backup using Migration Assistant (2TB external USB 3.0) of the latest backup but the estimated time to restore from backup kept climbing to more than 150 hours. Eventually it had an error message that there wasn't enough free space on the HDD (the same 750 GB drive that my backups were from). There was less than 100GB of free space on the HDD before attempting the upgrade.
How can I restore at least a portion of my Time Machine backup, like my Documents and Apps? I don't even mind going back to Mavericks so that I can use my computer again! For example, I need MS Office but I cannot use it on Yosemite if I do not first get my original backup working again so that I can unregister the current version (the product key is "lost" with my inaccessible backups!).
Most of the information I can find online is how to prepare for a proper backup, but at this point since Apple Genius did a fresh install, Time Machine has my only backup!
Any advice would be great!
p.s. This may be useful to know: I had several virtual machines from Parallels: Windows, Ubuntu, etc before I upgraded to Mavericks from Snow Leopard. Mavericks required an updated Parallels that I never got but I'm sure those VMs are hiding in my backup drive.

OS X Yosemite: Restore items backed up with Time Machine
While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.
If you need to restore from a backup of the hidden user Library folder, first select a snapshot, then press shift-command-G. A Go to Folder dialog will open. In it, you'll enter the path to the folder. The dialog will help you by automatically completing the parts of the path when you start to type them.
The path begins with slash character ("/"). Enter that. The rest of the parts will be separated by slashes.
The next part is the date and time of the current snapshot. Enter a "2", and the rest of the date should be filled in automatically. Press the right-arrow key to jump to the end of the path. Enter a slash to start the next part.
Next is the name of the volume (usually "Macintosh HD" unless you gave it a different name.) Start to type that, then jump to the end and enter a slash.
The next part is "Users", followed by a slash.
Next is your (short) user name, which is also the name of your home folder.
Finally, enter "Library", then press return. You should now be in the Library folder. From there you can get around as in the Finder.

Time Machine says "Backup volume could not be found"

Okay, I know what I did; now I need help in untangling an unintended consequence.
I surmise from the error message (and from some info from Time Machine Buddy widget) that the problem is the cookie doesn't match.
"Cookie file is not readable or does not exist at path: /Volumes/BigBackup/.000d9356b794
Volume at path /Volumes/BigBackup does not appear to be the correct backup volume for
this computer. (Cookies do not match)
Backup failed with error: 18"
I can guess why: I had some significant cosmetic damage to my G5 desktop a week or so back, and I moved all internal parts -- drives, RAM, even the added cards -- over from the "injured" G5 to an identical G5 that I had in reserve. Booted up and ran perfectly, no problems with identification from any outside sources and all software thinks it's still "home" and is running fine.
However, if the cookie left by Time Machine on the backup uses a device identifier for the computer beyond just the basic computer network name (a safe guess!) then I see how I've created a problem -- yes???
So, without destroying all of my previous backups or rendering them unreadable from this machine, HOW can I fool Time Machine, the G5, the cookie, and/or the backup volume into believing they've all been in love forever and ignoring the "oops, it's just a clone" problem? Can I doctor or hack the cookie or otherwise un-mess my mess? Thanks!

Steve Jolly wrote:
However, if the cookie left by Time Machine on the backup uses a device identifier for the computer beyond just the basic computer network name (a safe guess!) then I see how I've created a problem -- yes???
Yes. Time Machine knows it's a different Mac, via the address that's embedded in the hardware of the replacement Mac's logic board.
So, without destroying all of my previous backups or rendering them unreadable from this machine, HOW can I fool Time Machine, the G5, the cookie, and/or the backup volume into believing they've all been in love forever and ignoring the "oops, it's just a clone" problem? Can I doctor or hack the cookie or otherwise un-mess my mess? Thanks!
You might be able to use the procedure in #C8 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine not backup up anything, from the very start

Hello,
I have recently purchased a 1 TB external drive for use as a backup drive. I plugged it in, reformatted it as HFS+ and set up Time Machine to use it as a backup drive.
Time Machine has supposedly been running for almost a week now, but all of the backups are emtpy - they are simply backups of "Macintosh HD" as an empty folder. Clicking "Backup now" results in a half second backup, which is supposedly successful, but which is empty.
I've turned TM off, ejected the disk, deleted the Time Machine .plist and restarted the Mac Pro and then the process of setting up Time Machine, and yet the initial backup lasts mere moments and turns out to be empty.
I've verified the startup disk and the drive being used as a backup in Disk Utility. The disk is 1 TB, empty, verified, and working. Time Machine is for some reason not. Help?

Bizarre.
About the only other things I can think of are (loooong shots, of course):
Try the Terminal command in the yellow box of #11 [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
If there's any extra space on your internal HD, make a very small partition on it temporarily, copy a handful of test files to it, and see if they get backed-up. If they do, then change some things and run a second backup. See #3 in [Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/DU.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Using Snow Leopard+ forum) if by chance you don't know how to do that.
Something may be corrupted/damaged in your installation of OSX. I'd suggest downloading and installing the "combo" update. That's the cleverly-named combination of all the updates to Leopard since it was first released, so installing it should fix anything that's gone wrong since then, such as with one of the normal "point" updates. Info and download available at: http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate Be sure to do a +Repair Permissions+ via Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) afterwards

Time machine doesn't work because reads the wrong disk size

Time machine started insisting I had not enough space on the disk. Normally it would delete old backups and get on to it. But this time I kept getting the "disk full"or "not enough space message" (do not remember witch one). So I formatted the disk, many times. The message stuck.
No I checked what Time Machine itself was seeing, and it is pretty weird. Time Machine thinks it is a 700mb disk, while it is a 1Tb one as you can see below.
It was working well enough, thank that started.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
PS: I use Yosemite 10.10.1, Imac 20, mid 2011

The first screenshot shows the amount of data on the volume, not its capacity. Apparently it's not large enough to hold all the data you're trying to back up, including about 20% of padding that Time Machine requires.

Time Machine says backup is larger then the actual disk

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for