Time Machine - suddenly back up's fail...

Hello,
I have been using an external hard drive as my time machine for years, then suddenly the back ups started to fail.
So I went in to Time Machine settings and found that the reported size of the next back up was greater than space that existed on the drive, then I noticed something odd, my Imac has an internal HD of 250GB of which 94GB is used.
However the next back up had a reported size of 490GB!
All my external drives (one for iTunes, one for video content) are excluded, and yet the estimated size of the back up is 490GB from a 250GB drive...
So, I erased the drive, so now it's empty and ready to take a back up, but with such a huge estimated size it will not fit...
Any ideas why suddenly Time Machine thinks there is 490GB to back up from a 250 GB system drive with only 94GB used?

Gilesm,
I'm going to refer you to the Time Machine FAQ's and Time Machine Trouble Shooting areas. Because TM is part of OS X that is where you will find the correct forums. How you get there is click Discussions in the upper left of this screen, choose the version of OS X you are using (I believe you are on 10.5.x Leopard) and you should see the Time Machine forum area.
Roger

Similar Messages

Why is Time Machine suddenly backing up GBs of data every hour?

A year ago, I had issues with Time Machine backing up GBs of data even if nothing had happened within the previous hour. With the help of Apple my 13" Retina MacBook Pro was stripped down to nothing and a completly reloaded one application at a time. Now, almost exactly a year later, yesterday it started backing up 5 or 6 GB to my Time Capsule even though the computer was sitting unsued overnight. Niether Safari or Mail were running. I do run VMware Fusion but that has not been an issue for the past year and I have not yet updated to it's latest version.
I've tried powering the computer down and back on but to no avail.
Is it possible that the Time Machine software has become corrupted and, if so, how can I reload it?

Virtualization software such as VMware, Parallels, or VirtualBox creates a large virtual-disk container that is constantly changing, so it has to be backed up every time Time Machine runs. That will quickly fill up any backup destination.
You should exclude the virtual-disk file(s) from your Time Machine backups. To do that, click the Options button in the Time Machine preference pane. You may also be able to do it in the virtualization app's settings. Back up the files on the virtual disk from within the guest system, using a native backup application.
A compromise solution is to create a "snapshot" of the virtual machine in the virtualization software (not a Time Machine snapshot.) That will give you a single large file that never changes and only has to be backed up once. All the subsequent changes will be stored in a new file that's initially much smaller, but will grow over time. You should still exclude that file from TM backup. If you ever need to restore the VM from Time Machine, you'll have a working setup, which will make it easy for you to restore the rest of the data from within the guest system.
Another common cause of large TM snapshots is native OS X disk images. If you store a lot of data on one or more writable disk images, they should be in "sparsebundle" format, which will be backed up much more efficiently than any other format. A sparsebundle might be copied in an inconsistent state if it's backed up while the image is mounted and in the process of being written to. Make sure you unmount the image often so it can be backed up safely. Consider eliminating large read/write disk images from your workflow, if possible.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.

How can I force Time Machine to make a complete backup of my Hard Drive. I just installed a new external drive for Backup since my previous one failed. Now when I back up, Time Machine only backs up my data folder and the Users folder.
When I start a backup. Time Machine says "Oldest Backup: None; Latest Backup: None", so it seems like it should do a complete backup, but it only does a partial.

Hi I'd like to jump in here. Your app showed me this:
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 749.3 GB Disk used: 453.81 GB
          Destinations:
                    Plastic Wrapper [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 64
                    Oldest backup: 2013-07-24 23:25:11 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-17 01:40:47 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 999.86 GB < (Disk used 453.81 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
          /sbin excluded from backup!
          /usr excluded from backup!
          /System excluded from backup!
          /bin excluded from backup!
          /private excluded from backup!
          /Library excluded from backup!
          /Applications excluded from backup!
Aside from the size of my backup drive, which I will increase at some point, I'd really like to have time machine backing up all system folders, especially Applications. How to I reset this hidden exclusions?
Thanks,
Darcy

I can not get Time Machine to back up an external WD Passport 2 TB drive! Has anyone else had this problem? The drive is new and I was running Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion and it still won't do it. Time Machine backs up the internal drive fine.

I bought 2 2TB WD Passport Drives with the intention of housing my iTunes/iPhoto libraries off my older MacBook. I have successfully transferred the Libraries to one and am using the other one for Time Machine. In Snow Leopard I could back up my computer to Time Machine no problem but when I did not exclude the iTunes/iPhoto drive the back up fails. Both drives have been reformatted, permissions repaired and checked in Disk Utility and one was replaced. I have been to the Genius Bar now 5 times. I have tried using USB drive and FireWire. Both drives are recognized and are working properly otherwise regardless how they are connected. Finally yesterday the Apple store installed Lion to see if that fixed the issue and it did not. Time Machine successfully backed up a USB Flash drive, and today I will try an older external drive. Any ideas on what else to try??? Do I have to resort to third party software like Carbon Copy Cloned to get this done? Any ideas why this wont work? I am using a FireWire converter but as I said, both drives are working normally otherwise (libraries working, time machine working for the computer's hard drive. Any ideas would be appreciated!!?

Thanks so much but none of that helped. It was driving me crazy because it would back up another external drive. I just changed the name of the drive from iPhoto/iTunes Library to Media Libraries and IT WORKED!! I guess for some reason it didn't like the drive being called iPhoto or iTunes ???? I don't understand but I have tried so many solutions and exchanging things out but the name change did it????!!!
Thank you for your help and replying to this. Guess I made my own issue!

My Macbook won't start, and I must reinstall the disk. I haven't used time machine to back up, and I want to use an external drive to back up now. How can i do this from the utilities page?

I am currently in Zambia on missions work and my computer is constantly exposed to heat. I have just been trying to avoid using it during the hottest part of the day. Today though, I started it up and it was stuck on the grey page with the rotating circle for over an hour, then once the circle left, it remained frozen on the gray page. I used command + r at startup to go to the utilities page to analyze the disk. It found that there were problems with the disk, but then it could not fix those problems and told me to backup as much information as I could and reinstall or redo it all. I haven't ever used time machine to back up any of my information, but i have an external drive that I can use right now to backup my files. I can't get into my computer though to backup the files. How can I use this external drive to backup my files while the computer is currently messed up? Please help.

Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
A)          Format an external disk:
          (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
          Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
                    Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
          To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
          Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
          Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
          Click on Partition.
          Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
          Click on Options…
          Select GUID Partition Table.
          Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
          Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
          Click Apply.
          Click Partition.
B)          Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
          (This will be a slow boot. Be patient.)
          If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
          If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
                    If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
                    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
                    https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
          If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
          Go > Computer.
          Double click on the system disk.
          Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
C)          To clone the disk:
          Boot in recovery mode.
          Select Disk Utility.
          Try to repair the system disk twice.
          Whether or not the repair succeeds:
          Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
          Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
          (Take care not to reverse this order.)
          Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups. (Time machine restores can fail.)
Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
          Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
          See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
          and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031

Time machine suddenly not working, advice pls

Hi,
I have two external HD's, one is mains powered and the other is a smaller and more portable USB powered one..
i used to use time machine on the more portable one, but then i changed to using the mains powered ext HD for time machine backing up, and never had a problem with either.
Now i am away from home and only took the portable one with me, and the first time i tried to back up using time machine with this one it fails always after backing up about 30gigs...it always seems to fail at the same point more or less... and the msg i got is below...
One thing to note, is that before attempting this back up, this portable ext HD did have a lot of content on it (mainly music), which is now not backed up on either of my ext HD's - i transferred it to my laptop + deleted it from the external HD before making the time machine backup. now i can't even simply copy and paste anything to the empty portable ext HD. I can remember having problems deleting from the portable ext HD and i think, i had a lot of problems specifically removing the backups folder that was on that portable HD from a long time ago, but i did remove it in the end.
So my suspicions are that this is probably the reason it doesnt work now - odd that i can't even put anything onto the portable HD now... I need to return this laptop to apple asap (due to other non-related reasons), so i need to erase its HD before sending and i cant access the bigger ext HD with my backups on,( to make a new back up) before i need to send it, (that's why I wanted to change this portable HD that's with me to be my time machine back up)as i have a recent back up at home I'd happily just put my new things on a storage device you see, as could use the back up again later when needed.
using time machine is essential for me for its simplicity of transferring everything to the new comp, (likely to be a mac mini when ive done enough research)...but as i say - because i have a fairly recent time machine back up at home, if i can simply transfer the latest additions to my laptop to this ext HD, whilst not ideal, will suffice as i don't have much time.
does anyone have any idea why this is failing? I really need to back up to this ext HD as i am a long way from my usual one and won't be able to access it for a while. Was I not able to change back up device more than once? hopefully its just a case that this portable external HD has just stopped working and a solution is to buy a new ext hD where i am here, but that may not work, and I don't want to fork out another £50 if it's unnecessary.
Apologies for the long-winded explanation...+ many many thanks in advance....

**** i spoke too soon....it stopped again around the 30 gbs transferred mark.
how strange....there must be something that's stopping it backing up, some content it doesn't like?
I tried again to also just move the files I dont have backed up anywhere (200gb) , onto the external hd but it doesnt even start the process, and I get this msg
"the finder cant complete the operation because some data in (the folder i want to transfer) cant be read or written. (Error code -36) "
does this mean there's a "backups.backupdb file in there somewhere it doesnt allow me to move? I got it all from the external hd to my computer at one point though...so would seem strange..
thx
(and its the same, regardless.....whatever file i try to transfer across, be it just an mp3 or a jpeg...i get the same msg and it doesnt let me)

Can you use time machine to back up an external hard drive?

I haven't used Time Machine so far and setting it up now.
Because my retina MBP has the limited hard drive size of 500GB, I'll be using a 2TB G-Tech hard drive as external hard drive.
I'll be partitioning it, 500 GB for the MBP as a time machine back-up, the rest as a hard drive for photography RAW files.
Can I set up time machine to back up the larger partition (the one with the RAW files) to a second external hard drive? Or does Time Machine only handle back-up from the main computer hard drive?
thanks!

Try reviewing this information.
Time Machine FAQ
You will definitely need more than 500 GB to use Time Machine - see question 1.
Time Machine works with the main hard drive and any locally attached storage, but I don't know of any way to make it backup the second partition without resetting the Time Machine Preferences. You can do that with a cloning program.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Two backups are better than one. Drives do fail.

Configuring Time machine to Restore after a failer

Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ? should i just set the time machine to backup to the external hard disk that have the backup and it will automatically detect it and can use it ? what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?

PureHeartKnight wrote:
Hi
how to Configurr Time machine to Restore after a failer ?
Do you mean you want to recover your entire system from your TM backups? If so, see item 14 in +Frequently Asked Questions+ at the top of this forum for details.
Or do you mean, once your Mac is recovered, how to start new TM backups?
When you first boot after restoring, you may want to immediately turn Time Machine off, as it's next backup will probably be a full one -- everything it just restored will be backed-up again. You cannot prevent this, only delay it. It will of course take quite a while, and a lot of space on your TM disk, so you may wish to wait until you're sure your system is the way you want it, or even erase your TM disk with Disk Utility and let your backups start anew.
what if there is another backups for another Mac's ?
That may become a problem. TM knows which backups are for which Mac, and will not mix them. But if there's not room for the first backup of the restored Mac (see above), you have two bad choices: erase the disk, and start both Macs over again with TM; or delete all the backups for the failed Mac via the TM interface (see item 12 of the same article).
If you decide to erase the disk completely, you may want to partition it before beginning backups, so each Mac's backups have their own, exclusive partition, to prevent this hassle in the future. See item 5 for instructions if you want to do this.

I have been using time machine to back up my Mac Book Pro 3.1 to my Time Capsule. Now the Time machine hangs up on "calculating time remaining".

I have been using time machine to back up my Mac Book Pro 3.1 to my Time Capsule. Now the Time machine hangs up on "calculating time remaining".
Mac Book Pro - 3.1-15-inch 2.4/2.2GHz), Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Operating system : OS X 10.10.1
Time Machine Version 1.3, Copyright 2007-2014 Apple Inc., Modified Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 6:03 PM
Time Capsule: 500 GB C 2007
This Time Machine software worked satisfactory until Monday Nov, 10 2014 and I have backups until that time. For several years, the software deleted the oldest back up to save the latest one. This is acceptable to me as I have off site storage that is updated every 3 months. How do I get Time machine working again?

I have spent a couple of days trying to respond to Linc Davis. Finally I figured it out . The following is a copy of data from my console from the initiation of a time machine backup until it gets stuck trying to calculate the time remaining. There is no indication that anything starts saving. I copied about 3 minutes of data. This is probably way too much data, but I do not know what is relevant.
Thanks for the help,
calcool
12/22/14 3:16:54.655 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Starting manual backup
12/22/14 3:16:55.057 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.262 PM mds[33]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7fed5ab54000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/Time Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.565 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Time Capsule using URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:17:08.000 PM kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro on device disk3s2
12/22/14 3:17:09.625 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro
12/22/14 3:17:11.112 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Backing up to /dev/disk3s2: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb
12/22/14 3:17:24.931 PM “name”[593]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:17:24.944 PM “name”[594]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:17:24.958 PM “name”[596]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201654.20141222201724
12/22/14 3:17:26.544 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:17:34.767 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
12/22/14 3:17:34.768 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Reading cached event database from: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/F85FEA51-E137-471A-84DA-A2C00E4ECB42/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:38.115 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Using cached disk scan
12/22/14 3:17:39.114 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Saved event cache at /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/5BC46A53-25E8-4C4A-8947-AFB221D1FA0C/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:39.355 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Not using file event preflight for Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:19:14.782 PM CoreServicesUIAgent[294]: unexpected message <OS_xpc_error: <error: 0x7fff77befc60> { count = 1, contents =
"XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff77beff70> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }
}>
12/22/14 3:20:15.207 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:17.267 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:17.884 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:18.483 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:21.646 PM com.apple.metadata.SpotlightNetHelper[310]: [SLSUGGESTIONS] Location managed failed with error Error Domain=kCLErrorDomain Code=0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCLErrorDomain error 0.)"
12/22/14 3:20:23.892 PM WindowServer[143]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Spotlight" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
12/22/14 3:20:26.526 PM WindowServer[143]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Spotlight" after 3.63 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
12/22/14 3:20:28.298 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:29.094 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.quicklook[599]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.quicklook
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.294 PM com.apple.InputMethodKit.UserDictionary[600]: -[PFUbiquitySwitchboardEntryMetadata setUseLocalStorage:](808): CoreData: Ubiquity: “name”~00000000-0000-1000-8000-001B63947FCF:UserDictionary
Using local storage: 1
12/22/14 3:20:32.317 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.769 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:34.580 PM Console[601]: Failed to connect (_consoleX) outlet from (NSApplication) to (ConsoleX): missing setter or instance variable
12/22/14 3:20:35.540 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
12/22/14 3:20:36.388 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.auditd[604]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.auditd
12/22/14 3:20:36.693 PM “name”[608]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:20:36.718 PM “name”[607]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:20:37.045 PM “name”[610]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201724.20141222202036
12/22/14 3:20:37.438 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: Invalid Connection ID 0
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.612 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.613 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot.log, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot-syms.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot-syms.log, it will probably fail

Is information stored in Time Machine considered backed up?

Sorry for the newbie questions below - I scanned the threads but didn't find exactly what I was looking for.
1) As far as backing up contents of my computer, is Time Machine (and the external drive it's running on) considered safe? That is to say - if my only back up is Time Machine to feel that my pictures, videos, etc are safely backed up - am I crazy?
2) When the external drive Time Machine is currently running on fills up, do I buy another one and disconnect and store the first one?
3) Getting close to buying a HD camcorder - so - how best to manage the big volumes needed for storage? Can I rig up a big external drive specifically for large files such as high res photos and HD video? Will iMovie and iPhoto reference such an external drive?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers.

Time Machine is currently my only form of overall backup. There are two ways to do a restore.
If you start up from your Mac OS X installation disc, you can run a utility that restores the entire volume. I have actually tried it recently, to make myself feel comfortable with how it works, and it did work as expected. I did do a clone to another volume immediately before, in case the +restore complete volume from Time Machine backup+ process failed.
The other way is to go into the Time Machine archive directly. So if I want to start with a fresh system installation instead, I can go do a system installation onto an erased volume. Then run Migration Assistant and use my Time Machine backup as the data source. Or I can migrate the data manually using Finder (the way I would really do it), by going into the Time Machine archive directly. The folder structure is organized by date/time of the backup. By using something called multi-linked files when Time Machine created the backup, Finder will show a complete backup for any available date/time, even though a file that never changed is stored in the archive only one time. In other words, each date/time folder shows everything being backed up, even though 99% of it did not change from the backup one hour earlier. So I can manually copy the files I want from the archive to the new installation, just by picking which available date/time to use.
Since I have these two options, I feel comfortable with Time Machine being my only backup for most of my personal data. For data that is extremely valuable, I back that up separately to another hard drive. But I would do that second backup (for the most critical data) no matter what backup method I was using.
When Time Machine runs out of space on the drive, it tells you. If you let it continue, Time Machine starts deleting your oldest date/time backup states to make room for the newest date/time backup states. So how far back in time you can go starts moving forward. However, there is no need to get a new drive, if that automatic process is OK and you mostly want the recent backup states. It is a good idea to buy as large a drive as reasonable, so that Time Machine has plenty of space. From my experience, Time Machine starts to take a long time to perform each run once the free space on the drive starts to become low (or gets to a point where it is deleting the oldest backup states).
You can tell Time Machine to back up attached external drives, as long as the Time Machine volume is larger than the total size of the data being backed up. To operate effectively, the Time Machine volume really should be +at least+ twice the total size of the data being backed up. In System Preferences +Time Machine+ pane, the Options button shows a list of what NOT to back up. External drives are put on the list by default. If you want an external drive to be backed up, remove it from this list.
You can generally tell applications where to store data.

Time Machine defaulting back to old drive

I had set Time Machine to back up to a 2nd internal drive while I replaced a FireWire drive. Once the external was attached, I copied the internal/Time Machine drive to the external and set TM preferences to use the FireWire drive. Once that was seemed to be OK, I erased the internal TM volume.
Problem is this: if the FireWire TM drive is turned off, Time Machine insists on trying to use the previous drive (the internal)--it resets to the internal drive in the preference pane (there isn't enough room on the internal at this point, so backup simply fails). I turn the FireWire drive back on, choose it in the preference pane, and it backs up normally--until the external drive is not mounted.
How can I get TM to simply do nothing until the proper backup drive is available?

Scott_R wrote:
I had set Time Machine to back up to a 2nd internal drive while I replaced a FireWire drive. Once the external was attached, I copied the internal/Time Machine drive to the external
Do you mean you copied the internal TM drive to the new external? How did you do that? If you used drag and drop via the Finder, it's not going to work. You must use either the +Duplicate a Disk+ facility in Disk Utility, or a 3rd-party app like SuperDuper! Otherwise TM won't recognize it. And is it formatted properly?
and set TM preferences to use the FireWire drive. Once that was seemed to be OK, I erased the internal TM volume.
How did you erase it? Did you erase the entire disk via Disk Utility?
Problem is this: if the FireWire TM drive is turned off, Time Machine insists on trying to use the previous drive (the internal)--it resets to the internal drive in the preference pane (there isn't enough room on the internal at this point, so backup simply fails). I turn the FireWire drive back on, choose it in the preference pane, and it backs up normally--until the external drive is not mounted.
How can I get TM to simply do nothing until the proper backup drive is available?
If everything above was done correctly, you might get it's attention by turning TM off, selecting the "none" drive, note any exclusions in Other, and quitting System Preferences.
Then delete the file: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist (NOT in your home folder).
Then go back to TM Preferences, re-select the correct drive, re-enter any exclusions.
Are you turning the F/W drive off while your Mac is running? If so, why, and are you stopping TM and ejecting the drive first?

Time Machine stopped backing up now

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

Rob,
This might give you some ideas as to why it's filling up so fast.
*_Incremental Backups Seem Too Large!_*
Open the Time Machine Prefs on the Mac in question. How much space does it report you have "Available"? When a backup is initiated how much space does it report you need?
Now, consider the following, it might give you some ideas:
Time Machine performs backups at the file level. If a single bit in a large file is changed, the WHOLE file is backed up again. This is a problem for programs that save data to monolithic virtual disk files that are modified frequently. These include Parallels, VMware Fusion, Aperture vaults, or the databases that Entourage and Thunderbird create. These should be excluded from backup using the Time Machine Preference Exclusion list. You will, however, need to backup these files manually to another external disk.
If you do a lot of movie editing, unless these files are excluded, expect Time Machine to treat revised versions of a single movie as entirely new files.
If you frequently download software or video files that you only expect to keep for a short time, consider excluding the folder these are stored in from Time Machine backups.
If you have recently created a new disk image or burned a DVD, Time Machine will target these files for backup unless they are deleted or excluded from backup.
*Events-Based Backups*
Time Machine does not compare file-for-file to see if changes have been made. If it had to rescan every file on your drive before each backup, it would not be able to perform backups as often as it does. Rather, it relies on a process called FSEvents. This is a system log that records changes that occur with all the directories on your Mac. Moving / copying / deleting / & saving files and folders creates events that are recorded in this log. At the beginning of each backup, Time Machine simply looks at this log to determine what has changed since the last backup. [http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14]
Installing new software, upgrading existing software, or updating Mac OS X system software can create major changes in the structure of your directories. Every one of these changes is recorded by the OS as an event. Time Machine will backup every file that has an event associated with it since the installation.
Files or folders that are simply moved or renamed are counted as NEW files or folders. If you rename any file or folder, Time Machine will back up the ENTIRE file or folder again no matter how big or small it is.
George Schreyer describes this behavior: “If you should want to do some massive rearrangement of your disk, Time Machine will interpret the rearranged files as new files and back them up again in their new locations. Just renaming a folder will cause this to happen. This is OK if you've got lots of room on your backup disk. Eventually, Time Machine will thin those backups and the space consumed will be recovered. However, if you really want recover the space in the backup volume immediately, you can. To do this, bring a Finder window to the front and then click the Time Machine icon on the dock. This will activate the Time Machine user interface. Navigate back in time to where the old stuff exists and select it. Then pull down the "action" menu (the gear thing) and select "delete all backups" and the older stuff vanishes.” (http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/backups.html)
*TechTool Pro Directory Protection*
This disk utility feature creates backup copies of your system directories. Obviously these directories are changing all the time. So, depending on how it is configured, these backup files will be changing as well which is interpreted by Time Machine as new data to backup. Excluding the folder these backups are stored in will eliminate this effect.
*Backups WAY Too Large*
If an initial full backup or a subsequent incremental backup is tens or hundreds of Gigs larger than expected, check to see that all unwanted external hard disks are still excluded from Time Machine backups. Time Machine will attempt to backup any hard disk attached to your Mac, including secondary internal drives, that have not been added to Time Machines Exclusion list.
This includes the Time Machine backup drive ITSELF. Normally, Time Machine is set to exclude its’ own backup disk by default. But on rare occasions it can forget. When your backup begins, Time Machine mounts the backup on your desktop. (For Time Capsule/AirDisk users it appears as a white drive icon labeled something like “Backup of (your computer)”.) If, while it is mounted, it does not show up in the Time Machine Preferences “Do not back up” list, then Time Machine will attempt to back ITSELF up. If it is not listed while the drive is mounted, then you need to add it to the list.
*Recovering Backup Space*
If you have discovered that large unwanted files have been backed up, you can use the Time Machine “time travel” interface to recovered some of that space.
Launch Time Machine from the Dock icon.
Initially, you are presented with a window that represents “Today (Now)”. DO NOT make changes to file while you see “Today (Now)” at the bottom of the screen.
Click on the window just behind “Today (Now)”. This represents the last successful backup and should display the date and time of this backup at the bottom of the screen.
Now, navigate to where the unwanted file resides.
Highlight the file and click the Actions menu (Gear icon) from the toolbar.
Select “Delete all backups of <this file>”.
*FileVault / Boot Camp / iDisk Syncing*
Note: Leopard has changed the way it deals with FileVault disk images, so it is not necessary to exclude your Home folder if you have FileVault activated. Additionally, Time Machine ignores Boot Camp partitions as the manner in which they are formatted is incompatible. Finally, if you have your iDisk Synced to your desktop, it is not necessary to exclude the disk image file it creates as that has been changed to a sparsebundle as well in Leopard.
If none of the above seem to apply to your case, then you may need to attempt to compress the disk image in question. We'll consider that if the above fails to explain your circumstance.
Let us know if this was helpful.
Cheers!

Time Machine stopped backing up certain files

Hi, I am running OS X Server 10.5.4. (Yes, upgrade is planned)
Time Machine has been running fine, backing up everything, etc.
However, at some point, Time Machine stopped backing up certain files regularly. The affected files are all Frontier databases (frontierkernel.org). They are 'open' files, and I wonder if this is the cause. However, I know that they used to be backed up regularly, without problems. So, maybe Time Machine was updated in 10.5.4 to change this behavior?
If I quit Frontier and then reopen it, Time Machine will back up the files. So, this tells me that TM can back up open files... sometimes. But, if I let the machine run for days, TM often skips these files, even though they have been updated on disk.
I've checked and these files are not set to be excluded from TM.
Any ideas? Thanks.

Bill Dennen wrote:
Waiting for index to be ready (-911 < 0)
Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.</div>
These aren't the cause, but might indicate a problem with, or communicating with, your TM drive. Try the things in #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
Everything else looks normal (assuming the files in question are on the 06-0834 drive).
Since the same files are backed-up sometimes but not others, it's probably also not something corrupted (usually, corruption will cause the backup to fail, but rarely a whole folder won't get backed-up).
So we're back to your original suspicion that they weren't backed-up because they were open. Normally, an open file will be backed-up. In the case of large databases, that's often a problem, as the entire database is backed-up if only a single small change is made, often taking up a lot of time and disk space. There are a many threads here about that.
There does appear to be an extended attribute that will prevent TM from backing up a file. XCODE seems to set that on it's "build" folders, for example. Perhaps the Frontier package sets it while the files are open, and removes it when they're closed? If so, maybe there's an option somewhere to disable that?
Can you check with the Sourceforge folks about that?
Otherwise, sorry, but I'm out of ideas.

Time Machine stops backing up external disk

I have 907 GB of backups on my WD 1 TB backup disk. Further backups blocked. Tried unsuccessfully to erase disk with utility. Support item MAC OS X 10.5 ("Time Machine stops backing up on external disk") gave instructions for partitioning the back up disk: "Partition failed could not unmount disk" Ran disk utility again. Verified and ran repair to backup disk. Response is that partition is okay. Have heard that Mountain Lion can cause backup problems. Anybody help please?

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Time Machine not backing up all documents

I have a 13-inch Macbook Pro Retina display, on which I run OSX 10.9.5. I use Time Machine to back up on an external Thunderbolt drive. I have not excluded anything from my back up through the Time Machine options. Nonetheless, Time Machine arbitrary fails to back up some 30% of my files, as I discovered when I tried recently to restore my system and files. Entire folders were missing from my desktop, one of them with 40 gigabytes of files. Other folders were incomplete. A few applications were missing as well, and, oddly, almost all my utilities, including Terminal and Console. (Luckily I had backed up elsewhere using the apparently more reliable program Super Duper.) Can anyone tell me what might be going on?

Start D10 with in the 1st linked article.
Time Machine Troubleshooting
Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

Time Machine - suddenly back up's fail...

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