Time Machine taking over my external HD

Is there a way to stop Time Machine from taking over my external HD? I have a 1T for video and photos and previously used Retrospect for the backups. It doesn't do it automatically with the iMac Intel Processor (older version of Retrospect) so I thought Time Machine would be the answer (instead of upgrading Retrospect). However, I am not willing to give up my entire HD to Time Machine - I only want my documents backed up and then the changes to files backed up with the previous backup deleted. Is there any way to do this? I've already excluded all the apps, etc. and still end up with huge backups. And according to the info about Time Machine, it's going to keep taking over the HD until it is full!!! The Retrospect backups for the past 3 months are 3G for the original backup of documents and the current backup.
In 24 hours with Time Machine I already have 75G and counting!!!
Or do I just need to get a 2nd external HD with less memory and dedicate it to Time Machine?

Or do I just need to get a 2nd external HD with less memory and dedicate it to Time Machine?
Well, OP is considering this option, and it one way to go TM-dedicated TM external. Really their options depend on how much free space is present on their Mac internal and current external. Disk Utility erase/ partition options will reformat, quite obviously, but even if they have just one external available it is usually possible to backup video and other stored files to say DVD media while they reorganize/ reformat their backup drive.
Another choice is to turn TM off.
Due to the magic of shareware there are now third-party utilities that allow you to alter the frequency of Time Machine Back up.
http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html

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Time Machine taking over a WEEK for initial backup

While several applications (Mac the Ripper, VLC, MPEG Streamclip, and QT Player Pro) were working simultaneously on a big chunk of video from a homemade DVD, my screen went dark with a message "You must shut down your computer." Took a couple of restarts to get things looking normal again -- except for Time Machine (running fine for well over a year), which subsequently couldn't complete any more backups.
After several tries to get TM working again and finding it very very slow, I tried to start clean:
a) checked and repaired my HD (used Applejack)
b) erased my external TM partition with Disk Utility
c) ejected external (Seagate 1.5 TB) drive, disconnected it, powered it off for a few minutes, then reconnected and re-powered it
d) deleted /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
e) opened TM Preferences, re-selected the drive, re-entered the usual exclusions
f) allowed backup to begin after 120-second countdown
I don't know how to start TM much cleaner than that.
The first message was, "No pre-backup thinning needed: 196.95 GB requested (including padding), 976.06 GB available." As expected, correct? Well, that was a week ago! Looking at the console messages, I have seen steady, but abysmally slow progress since 02:10 on 5 December:
Dec 5 23:19:22 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 21.2 MB of 164.1 GB, 360 of 1097465 items
Dec 10 01:04:19 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 156.6 MB of 164.1 GB, 1245 of 1097465 items
Dec 10 02:10:36 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 158.3 MB of 164.1 GB, 1258 of 1097465 items
Dec 10 03:14:37 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 161.3 MB of 164.1 GB, 1267 of 1097465 items
Dec 11 13:03:11 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 213.7 MB of 164.1 GB, 1542 of 1097465 items
Dec 11 14:03:11 Bobs-iMac com.apple.backupd[14385]: Copied 214.3 MB of 164.1 GB, 1550 of 1097465 items
It's progress, and I keep hoping that suddenly Time Machine will finish with a burst of accomplishment. But at this rate, it will be months before the first backup is completed.
Suggestions welcomed. (Start over? What will be different?)

Robert Leedom wrote:
3b. Verify internal HD. Check. (Used Applejack.)
4. Repair Disk Permissions on HD. Check. (Used Applejack.)
I'm not familiar with Applejack; I assume it uses the same "works" as Disk Utiltiy (the diskutil UNIX command)?
You listed 1-5; I assume you also checked or tried 9-14?
The Time Machine Buddy widget initially was giving me information, but for the last several days (even after uninstalling and reinstalling TMB), it's been blankly saying, "No Time Machine information found." I thought it was reading from the same place that Console gets info. (Is it?)
Mostly; it reads the current system.log and the prior archived & compressed one, system.log.0.bz2. Sometimes if either is very large and/or corrupted, it will hang or won't show anything.
> You might try installing the "combo" update...
<Gulp!>
I'd feel a lot better about trying that if I had a backup somewhere. As of now, I have NO backups.
It's always a good idea to keep "secondary" backups. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.
Since you don't have TM backups now, if it's large enough, you might be able to partition the TM drive and put a "bootable clone" on a separate partition, until you can get a second HD.
Question: Given that I'm already running 10.6.8, will the system let me try to "combo update" to 10.6.8?
Yes. The "combo" contains all the changes since 10.6.0, so is fairly likely to replace a damaged component of OSX.

Time Machine taking over 60+Gigs with NO change in data?

All of a sudden, yesterday, the free space on my ~500G USB backup drive dropped from 192 Gigs to 127 Gigs with no change in the amount of data on the drive. Time Machine seems to be the culprit, but there's no way for me to see what files, caches, or whatever are taking up that space. Does anyone have any ideas on what might cause such a significant use of disk space? Maybe something got corrupt, but how might I find out?
I'm using an iMac 20" 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo with 3G RAM. I've had Time Machine working fine since October 2007, so I don't want to "delete and start over". Any ideas or suggestions, or pointers to some useful information, would be most welcome!
Thanks, everyone!

All of a sudden, yesterday, the free space on my ~500G USB backup drive dropped from 192 Gigs to 127 Gigs with no change in the amount of data on the drive. Time Machine seems to be the culprit, but there's no way for me to see what files, caches, or whatever are taking up that space. Does anyone have any ideas on what might cause such a significant use of disk space? Maybe something got corrupt, but how might I find out?
I'm using an iMac 20" 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo with 3G RAM. I've had Time Machine working fine since October 2007, so I don't want to "delete and start over". Any ideas or suggestions, or pointers to some useful information, would be most welcome!
Thanks, everyone!

Re Time Machine I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything. will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

Re Time Machine
I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
Also
as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
OSX 10.75
can I back them up separately?
or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

How can I remove all Time Machine data from an external HD, while retaining the other folders/files on the disk?

I recently replaced my old Macbook Pro with a new Macbook Pro Retina.
The original MBP had Time Machine set up on an external HD, and I also had some manually saved/backed up files (stuff that didn't need incremental backups; very old stuff) on the disk as well, in folders. This worked fine and well for the life of the original MBP.
When I set up the MBPr, I did not elect to transfer everything over from a Time Machine disk, as I wanted a Fresh Install; I chose to just re-download/install the apps I needed from the App Store. Much cleaner, more stable. I updated to Yosemite immediately so, it gave me more of a clean install.
The problem is, Time Machine now won't read any Time Machine backups from that disk. Migration assistant can pull data from it, but it's a bit wonky. It was easier to just manually copy over what I needed.
Now, I just want to "reset", and completely remove the old Time Machine data from the external hard drive, since it is completely useless to me now (I can't access it on this computer, and it's taking up space). I want to remove the Time Machine data, as if it were never there, but keep my other folders/files that are on the disk (so, a format is not feasible).
I will then set the disk up as a new, fresh Time Machine disk for the new MBPr.
What is the proper method for removing Time Machine data from an external disk (which doesn't seem to be associated with this machine anyway)? I know a simple rm -rf will cause problems.
Thanks for any help provided.

See the yellow box in #12 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Hallo ,why is it that when I delete a photo ,which is backed up by time machine and western digital external hard drive , that I am able to restore the photo okay but not the titles and descriptions . I have a Macbook 4.1, mac osx 10.5.8 . Iphoto 7.1.5 ,

QUESTION.
Hallo , my question is ;whenever I delete a photo and restore it through Time machine and Western digital external hard drive , I am able to restore the photo but not the titles and descriptions . Western Digital inform me that it isn't their external hard drive problem and suggest that it is an Apple software problem ?
I am using a Macbook 4.1 , with Mac OSX 10.5.8 . I photo 7.1.5 , last modifie4d 01/05/2010 -universal . Should I be upgrading Iphoto ?
I hope that someone is able to help in this matter , as i have to restore 12000 photos !
Thanking you in anticipation.
Alan from Wigton

Hallo Kieth ,
I am not quite ready to restore the full iphoto library , as I have days of work re - imputting titles,descriptions and enhancement . I hope that your suggestion works , as I use my Macbook basically to work with digital photography. Through time , I will need to delete my library to recover more disc space and I would hate to have to spend more time re - imputting titles and descriptions all over again .
Thanks for your interest and advice.
regards - Alan

HT201250 How can I migrate a Time Machine backup from an external hard drive to a new TimeCapsuls?

I just got a 2TB Time Capsule. I want to migrate my time machine backups on an external hard drive to the new Time Capsule. I have about 430Gb of files to back up; I don't want to wait 7-8 days for the backup, unless I have to. I am using OS 10.7.5 (forget which cat that is). I have mounted the TC drive as 10.0.1.1; I tried to drag and drop from old to "data" on TC, but I get the error "The volume is the wrong format for a backup." Any ideas how I can move my old files to the new, and bypass creating a brand new backup file?
Thanks.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

I've mistakenly deleted Time Machine backups from my external HDD. How do I fix this?!

I manually deleted several Time Machine backups from my external HDD. Whenever I attempt to empty trash, it states (error code -22) has occurred. How do I fix my predicament?
I understand (now) that I should never do this and ONLY delete from the Time Machine app itself but I did not assume this would be so complex by taking a blind stab at it. How do I either a) place the Time Machine backups where the originated (Put Back is not an option when right-clicked) or b) successfully delete these so I can clear my bin.
I am running Mac OS 10.10 on a 13" MacBook Air (mid-2013) w/ 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. My external drive is a 5400 RPM WD USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.

Try Trash won't empty deleted time machine backups

Time machine backup to new external hard drive

I owned a external harddrive that crashed recently. I used this harddrive to keep Time Machine backups from 3 different computers.
Fortunately a friend was able to retrive the files that where on the harddrive
Now I have a folder called Backups.backupdb. containing all the backups Time Machine made over 3 years on one off my computers.
I bought a new external harddrive with the idea to put this folder onto the new harddrive and continue using Time Machine.
When I try to copy the folder Backups.backupdb to the new external harddrive I get an error there is not enough space on the new disk.
The original folder has a size of 210 GB, when I use OmniDiskSweeper to check the size of the folder it indicates the folder has a size over 700 GB.
(I understand Time Machine uses aliases to refer to files.)
How can I solve this problem? And will I ever be able to view my old Time Machine files as I was used to in Time Machine?
Thanks in advance.

Rather than do that, which means starting over from scratch, losing all your edits, organisation and so on, why not simply use iPhoto Library Manager to revert the Library to the older version? Easier, less destructive.
The instructions on that are here
If you really want to start over: you can access the Originals folder simply by going to your Pictures Folder and finding the iPhoto Library there. Right (or Control-) Click on the icon and select 'Show Package Contents'. A finder window will open with the Library exposed.

Quick question about using Time Machine on iMac FireWire external

I have been backing up my MacBook using Time Machine via a USB external hard drive that is connected to my iMac. Now when I look at the Time Machine setting in my MacBook is says that the MacBook NEEDS to be plugged in in order for the next backup to occur. This is no issue for me, but I am wondering if this has always been the case. It may have been something that I overlooked, but I do not remember seeing that message when using Time Machine over my network on my MacBook before.

Yes, that's correct. TM will not backup a laptop while it's operating only on battery unless you upgrade to 10.5.3. This latest version provides a TM option to run backups when the computer is on battery power.
It's inadvisable to run a backup while on battery power because if the battery goes dead your backup could become corrupted. At the very least files may not get backed up as expected.

HT3231 Is it better to migrate to a new MacBook Pro using FireWire, from Time Machine, or over ethernet?

Hello,
Is it better to migrate to a new MacBook Pro (non Retina display) using FireWire, from Time Machine, or over ethernet? The older Mac is a MacBook (Intel, 2007 vintage). The Time Machine backup is to a Western Digital external drive with FireWire & USB ports.
Thanks!
Chips

Thanks for the helpful reply.
After posting, I read & researched further. We're going to be limited by the hardware – the MacBook & external drive both have FireWire 400, & we don't have a 400 to 800 cable or adapter. So we'll connect by ethernet, & be patient that it make take some time.
I have to assume that Migration Assistant will be just as comprehensive regardless of the connection method / protocol.
Best!

Time Machine has locked my external drive. HELP

Time Machine hosed me again. After several unsuccessful attempts to backup on my PowerMac G5 dual 2.33 Ghz, I was able to complete my first full backup to an external 2 gig DROBO (USB 2.0 interface). It took 20 hours to do 180 gigs.
Now I have just discovered that Time Machine has made that external drive READ-ONLY! I cannot write to the drive and neither can Time Machine.
Does anybody know what is up and how to fix this short of using root UNIX shell which terrifies me. I just want to take it off and cut my losses, but the drive also has a ton of music on it that iTunes uses.

Okay Jeffery, I think I've found the solution, especially if you are seeing the "Unknown" user in your Get Info window's Sharing & Permissions setting for your drobo.
I had written earlier about my work-around for getting my drobo to work right after getting the "read-only" error from Time Machine. But unfortunately it was a temporary and temperamental fix. There were times then I had to eject the disk and launch Disk Utility to run a repair on the disk which would take more than half an hour on my drobo. But all the while my permissions had this "Unknown" user. Well I decided to "Go UNIX" and see if I could fix this problem once and for all.
I opened up Terminal and typed "*ls -la /Volumes*". This gives me a directory listing of my mounted drive volumes. I noticed that all of my drives, internal, external, USB and FireWire, all had "root" as the user and "admin" as the group, _EXCEPT for my drobo!_ So I forced it to conform by changing it manually by typing "*sudo chown root:admin /Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/*".
sudo = temporarily enables root mode by asking for your password before executing.
chown = changes ownership to...
root:admin = "root" is the user and "admin" is the group.
*/Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/* = My drobo drive is named "*Drobo Backup HD*", but UNIX sees spaces as command separators, so you have to use the "\ " to signify spaces within a name.
After doing this over a week ago, _I have not had any other problems_ with using my drobo as a backup drive. It has never come up with the "read-only" error in Time Machine, the Sharing & Permissions setting do not have any "Unknown" users or groups, I don't even need to wait for my drobo before logging in like I did in the past. I just boot my Mac and everything with my drobo and Time Machine just works... No problems!
It seems to be permanently fixed for me, so if you are willing to try this solution, I'm sure it would work for you. If UNIX terrifies you too much, and you do not trust yourself editing the commands above, let me know the name of your drobo drive on your desktop and I will post a message with the EXACT UNIX commands customized for just for you, so all you have to do is copy and paste them into your Terminal window to do it. But like I said, I've done this over a week ago and I not had one single problem.

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

I got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does someone has a fix???

i got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does anybody has a fix???

Does your external hard drive have it's own power supply? It should.
Is your external hard drive formatted with the NTFS file system? It won't work.
It needs to be formatted either with Mac OS Extended or FAT32.
(There are drivers available to add NTFS support to OS X but their quality is unknown, especially the "free" ones.)

Time Machine taking over my external HD

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