Time Machine underestimating backup size?

Lately it seems that Time Machine has been underestimating the size of each backup. What it originally says to be a 10 MB backup turns out to be several GB. As it's backing up, Time Machine will say "X out of 10MB backed up" or something along those lines, but when X reaches 10MB, X continues to grow and so does the original estimate of 10MB. It might then say "13MB of 13MB backed up" and it will continue on this way until it has backed up so much underestimated data that Time Machine tells me it can't finish the backup because it doesn't have enough space on the backup drive. (Time Machine should've deleted some backups beforehand to make space for the new backup, but it didn't know to because it had underestimated the amount of space necessary for the backup.)
I have already wiped the backup drive and deleted all the Time Machine preference files, only to still face the same problem. I'm backing up my internal 1TB drive (only 300 GB used) and my 500GB external drive (400GB used) to another 1TB external drive, so having enough space on the backup drive shouldn't be the problem, right? BTW, I'm running Snow Leopard. Any help is appreciated!

OK, I've solved it on my machine, but I'm not sure if It will work for you as it sounds like you may have already tried what I did. Plus you're in a different OS. Anyway, this is exactly what I did, I'm not sure if all the steps are necessary, but its worth a shot.
1.Turn off time machine.
2. Unplug all of your external drives (except the one you are backing up onto).
3. Reformat the drive you intend to back up onto.
4. Go into your time machine preferences and click options.
5. Add all but one of your folders to the list of things to exclude from the backups - make sure the folder dosent contain very much, I picked one with about 1.5 gig of stuff. Its ok if its a subfolder.
6. Turn on time machine and tell it to make a backup. It could take as long as an hour for it to do this but it'll get there, dont be discoured if it sits there calculating for ages. When it finally starts to backup it will do the thing where it continues adding to the amount but it won't go on forever. Mine stopped about about 4 gig.
7. Reopen the time machine preferences and deselect some of the folders in the exceptions list. Try and do this in small blocks.
8. Tell time machine to perform another backup. It shouldn't take nearly as long as it did the first time.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you have backed up the whole drive.
By the time I finsihed the 384 gig of data I was backing up was only taking up about 400 gig of space.
Also I'd really appreciate it if someone would explain to me why the **** what I did worked. Just in case I get a simliar problem again in the future.

Similar Messages

Time Machine same backup size every time

Anyone have any idea why Time Machine would backup the same amount every time? Every hour mine backs up 1.8 GB, unless I've added more than that to my hd.
I only back up the internal drive on my macbook to a 500 GB Time Capsule via wifi (802.11n only, 5GHz). Not that I figured it would make a difference, but it still does it if backed up via ethernet.
I've also noticed that as soon as it completes the backup, it will backup all over again - and not because an hour has passed. I'm not sure if it does this every time (but I think i does), or if it does it more than twice when it happens.
Thanks in advance!

See if the following might give you some ideas as to why...
*_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.
Let us know if this resolved your issue.
Cheers!

Time machine Mail backup size

Hi everybody,
I don't understand why my Time Machine backups are around 1Go every time. Not every hour, but every 2 or 3 backups.
So my TM HD gets quickly full all the time.
I've used BackupLoupe, and I've realized that the problem comes from Mail.
It backs up around 750 Mo all the time.
Mail is set with an imap gmail account.
I've read the same issue here, but the post is archived :
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2205780?threadID=2205780
I've not read the size issue has been solved, so If someone can tell me how.
Thanks a lot,

From the Mail menu bar, select
Mail ▹ Preferences ▹ Accounts
Select the problem IMAP account, then the Advanced tab in its settings. From the menu labeled
Keep copies of messages for offline viewing
select
Don't keep copies of any messages
If you're not sure which account is involved, take this step in each one.
Another option is to exclude the hidden folder that contains the messages from your backups. You can do that in the Time Machine preference pane.

Time Machine Picture Library size is 2GB smaller in backup than computer disc.

Time Machine Picture Library size is 2GB smaller in backup than computer disc using Cmd I (Eye, not EL—don't we all love sans serif fonts as default) for both info.
Ah, this is readable at faster reading speeds.
Now ( oops the return key killed the font setting).
Now, we'll use run-on paragraphs. OK? ¶ On topic: I need more space to install a newer iOS on my iPhone. ¶ Someone at Apple Store Genius Bar advised deleting the album of pictures originally copied from my computer when I had vast memory space since it is already on the computer. Got 1GB About to say Available was still too low for the new iOS install. ¶ Another Apple Store Genius Bar advised making a good backup using TimeMachine on my computer and deleting all the pictures from my iPhone by the painful method of selecting each collection. ¶ So I thought I'd check how successful the backup was. Cmd I (doesn't look like El, yea!) on the Picture Library was 38 GB on my back up disc and 40 GB on my computer disc. ¶ Desktop folder is 87.1 MB (87,091,206 bytes) in both. How do I get the other 2 GB on the backup?

Time Machine Picture Library size is 2GB smaller in backup than computer disc using Cmd I (Eye, not EL—don't we all love sans serif fonts as default) for both info.
Ah, this is readable at faster reading speeds.
Now ( oops the return key killed the font setting).
Now, we'll use run-on paragraphs. OK? ¶ On topic: I need more space to install a newer iOS on my iPhone. ¶ Someone at Apple Store Genius Bar advised deleting the album of pictures originally copied from my computer when I had vast memory space since it is already on the computer. Got 1GB About to say Available was still too low for the new iOS install. ¶ Another Apple Store Genius Bar advised making a good backup using TimeMachine on my computer and deleting all the pictures from my iPhone by the painful method of selecting each collection. ¶ So I thought I'd check how successful the backup was. Cmd I (doesn't look like El, yea!) on the Picture Library was 38 GB on my back up disc and 40 GB on my computer disc. ¶ Desktop folder is 87.1 MB (87,091,206 bytes) in both. How do I get the other 2 GB on the backup?

HT201250 I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

I have two external hard drives. One is my Time Machine backup drive. The other I use for external storage of files (documents, photos, movies, etc). Can I set Time Machine to backup BOTH my Mac hard drive and my other external hard drive?

Yes you can make multiple backups on one hard drive, for example if you’ve 1TB hard drive installed in your PC and you’ve two Mac Machines with 500GB drive each then you just make two backup images with size of 500GB each.
http://www.halfspot.com/use-your-pc-hard-drive-for-time-machine-backup/

Time Machine:The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. .....

Hi,
I upgraded to Mountain Lion when it was released and yesterday I began getting this notice from Time Machine:
"The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. Time Machine will try to make more space available by removing expired backups during the next scheduled backup."
I have a one terra external hard drive with exclusively Time Machine. It says it has 3.4 gigabytes available, but isn't deleting old backups and making room for new, like before. I tried the "encrypting" solution, but it still keeps on giving me this message. Should I erase and format? If so, what option should I chose to format?
My Hard Drive has 240 gigabytes, so 1Tb should be more than enough.
Thank you!
Gloria

SuperDuper and Time Machine are two completely different backup utilities. If you want something like what SuperDuper does then don't use Time Machine. You have many other options that won't use up all the space on your backup drive:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Do the following to erase your drive:
Erase a Drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Time Machine hourly backup seems a tad large

Hi all
Occasionally, my hourly Time Machine incremental backups to my Time Capsule seem a tad large. One hour the backup is a sensible size, then an hour later, when I've been doing very little on my machine, the backup is massive (as in, several gigabytes).
Not only that, but the backup seems to grow in size as its happening. the pictures below should help illustrate.
The backup is listed as being 719MB, only an hour after a more modest backup. Time Machine seems to be claiming that is has transferred all of the required backup:
!http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4988/picture2gih.png!
But then, only two minutes later, see how the situation has changed:
!http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3739/picture3m.png!
And the situation continues:
!http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9339/picture5.png!
Any ideas? This issue happens intermittently (although it is happening now... that last image was taken a few minutes ago and the backup was still going - up to 3.1GB - before I told it to stop).
I'm not certain if Time Machine is actually transferring this amount of data to the Time Capsule or not.
Cheers.

Hi,
I had the same problem today as well. The last backup was done this morning at 2 a.m. When I turned my PowerBook G4 on again this afternoon, the backup size continually grew, just like on your machine, Rob. I aborted the backup a couple of times, deleted the inProgress file, but it always got bigger and bigger. After downloading Time Machine Buddy and Time Tracker, I just let Time Machnine "do it's thing". Luckily, I had enough free space on my WD MyBook 500 GB I use for the backups, because it stopped only at 24.8 GBs, after initially displaying 61,3 MB in the menu bar, and requesting 1.05 GB according to Time Machine Buddy.
Time Machine Buddy protocol:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.05 GB requested (including padding), 32.74 GB available
Copied 139261 files (24.8 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.16 GB requested (including padding), 7.36 GB available
Copied 7042 files (2.0 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb/Claas Olthoffs PowerBook/2009-03-05-202501: 7.36 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb/Claas Olthoffs PowerBook/2009-03-05-192342: 7.37 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb/Claas Olthoffs PowerBook/2009-03-05-123736: 7.37 GB now available
Deleted backup /Volumes/My Book/Backups.backupdb/Claas Olthoffs PowerBook/2009-03-05-113526: 7.38 GB now available
Post-back up thinning complete: 4 expired backups removed
Backup completed successfully.
So I took a look at Time Tracker to see what was backed up. I was suprised to see, that the biggest chunk was my Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support folder. This folder is 23,9 GB in size, mainly because it contains Final Cut Studio media and templates. Time Machine backed it up completey. This seems weired, because none of the files I looked at in this folder were changed during the last couple of months, if not the last year, since I installed them. I don't know why Time Machine would backup all of those unchanged files.
For the sake of completeness, the external drives contains other, non-backup, files as well.
I hope this gives you some more information to work with Pondini.
Greetings,
Claas

Time Machine wont backup

I bought an external hard drive and put files from my old computer on it before I bought my iMac. Now I want to use it for backing up my iMac but Time Machine wont backup to it without erasing the contents. Is there a way around this? Or will I have to buy a new EHD? Or is there a way to backup to cyberspace?
Thanks

jmhoskin wrote:
I bought an external hard drive and put files from my old computer on it before I bought my iMac. Now I want to use it for backing up my iMac but Time Machine wont backup to it without erasing the contents. Is there a way around this? Or will I have to buy a new EHD? Or is there a way to backup to cyberspace?
The drive is probably set up with the MBR (Master Boot Record) partition map, that Windoze uses. To use it for TM you must completely reformat it, which will erase it. If you have enough space (or can borrow another external temporarily), you can copy the data off, reformat it, then copy the data back.
TM works best with it's own, exclusive space, so you should partition the drive anyway. If you're going to use the other data with a PC, make the other partition MS-DOS (FAT).
For formatting instructions, see item #5 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
Also see #1 of the FAQ Tip for size considerations.

Time Machine vs Backup

I plan on reformatting my computer and would love to know if I should use Time Machine or Backup. I want to keep some of the programs and data from the computer, but not all of it. Which one will allow me to select data to "bring back"?
Thanks for your help!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
You do not want to use Backup for large amounts of data. It's fine for it's original purpose: to get relatively-small amounts of data off-site to iDisk, automatically, but don't use it for anything more.
Time Machine will back-up your entire system by default. The first backup is, of course, lengthy, but thereafter it will back-up only new and changed items hourly. This gives you an excellent chance to recover things that were deleted or changed in error, or somehow corrupted. But whether you use Time Machine or some other app, use something or you can lose some or all of your data in an instant.
But the question here is, are you doing this only to get rid of some apps and files? If so, that's not the best approach. Unlike Windoze, a periodic reload is usually not needed on Macs.
Unless your internal HD is over 85% full, your best bet may be to get an external drive thats at least twice the size of the data on your Mac and let TM do a full backup. Then start identifying and deleting the things you don't want. If you delete something you shouldn't, you can easily get it back from Time Machine (for a while).
Most applications on Macs can just be deleted. Some need uninstallers. Apps will be where you put them, hopefully in your Applications folder. Most data will be in +<your home folder>/Library/Application Support,+ usually in a file or folder containing the name of the app or maker.
Unless you're very tight on space, you could make a folder named +Apps to be Deleted+ or something similar, at the top level of your home folder, and move them and their data files there, rather than delete them immediately. You could even create a sub-folder for those apps that have data files, and put both the apps and files inside them. Once you're sure they're not needed, delete them.
Doing it the other way is much riskier; if you omit things you actually need, all sorts of things may go wrong, unpredictably.
For info on Time Machine, you might want to review this Time Machine Tutorial
and this: Time Machine Features
and perhaps the Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of the Time Machine forum.

Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created

Iet up my new time capsule day and it's working great. Now that I've got everything sorted out, I'm ready to do the initial time machine back up on it. I went into preferences, changed the backup location to my TC and clicked 'back up now'. Very quickly I get a message that the backup failed: "Time Machine Error - The backup disk image could not be created".
I've searched the apple support area but haven't been able to figure this one out. Can anyone help, please? This is an initial backup. (FYI, it worked great on my old external drive.)
Many thanks

I had the same problem. I installed my Time Capsule, fired up Time Machine and got an error that said "The backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 436.8 GB but only 182.2GB are available."
Coincidently, these are the same sizes as the space used and the space available on my iMac's drive.
I looked in /Volumes and saw that the sparsebundle was being created on the local disk and not on the main disk. Trying to backup again gave me the "Time Machine error: backup disk image could not be created." message.
I poked around the forums, and found a post about the machine name setting in sharing. I decided to give it a look, and lo and behold, I did not have a machine name. So I gave my box a name, kicked off Time Machine again, and it worked.

Time machine gives wrong size in lion 10.7.4

The hard drive has a total size of 250 gb but time machine gives wrong size of 750 gb??

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.
☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the page that opens.
Select "system.log" from the file list. Enter "backupd" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. Post the messages from the last backup, beginning with "Starting standard backup."
Post the log text, please, not a screenshot. If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Do not post many repetitions of the same message.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.

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.

Confused about how Time Machine merges backups

Okay, I understand how TM works and that it merges many daily backups into one days worth by the next day. I've been doing some experimenting with creating a file on my desktop, backing up with TM, and then deleting it and emptying bin. I try to access this file the next day with Time Machine but it is if it never existed. Time machine shows no sign of it. It's there when I have access to the hour by hour updates. But by the next day, when everything from the previous day merged, it's gone. Am I missing the point of Time Machine? Wasn't it created for situations when you delete a file accidentally and want to bring it back sometime in the near future? What am I missing here? Thanks for your help!

mikemac22,
The last hourly backup in a given day is kept as the "daily" backup. The last daily backup in a given week is kept as the "weekly" backup, and these are kept as long as possible.
Time Machine is mainly intended to be a backup and recovery tool. Yes, if you mistakenly delete a file, it can be retrieved. However, the importance of a file is based on the length of time it remains on your "source." I doubt Apple set out to make it this way, but rather made the decision to go with this paradigm as opposed to the alternative.
You see, there is an inherent trade-off in any backup solution that works as Time Machine does. It probably would have been easy to make Time Machine "consolidate" backups, but then disk space would be consumed at a much faster rate. At some point, some decision must be made concerning the question, "when can a file be deleted from the backup?" In the case of Time Machine, as it is, a file becomes important enough to keep when it has remained on the "source" for at least one week. If it is kept for a shorter duration, and not restored, it will be deleted at some point.
On the other end of the spectrum, files that exist only in the backup will be deleted entirely when the oldest remaining backup that contains them is deleted. This "thinning" must be done in order to make room for new backups. If this action was not taken, Time Machine would just keep filling up drives, and quickly.
Time Machine is not an "archive" utility, in any sense of the term. It is not intended to maintain multiple versions of a given file for your convenience. What it is intended to do is to allow for the (almost) immediate recovery of your entire installation- user files, applications, and all- in the event you must format (erase) your source, replace your internal hard drive, or even swap computers completely. As a bonus, it will allow you to choose from several (perhaps many, depending on the size of the backup volume) backups going back in time when you do have to resort to a "Restore."
Another bonus, of course, is the ability to restore individual files that you might mistakenly delete.
Scott

Can I use Time Machine to backup ONLY an external drive?

I am having problems with the internal HD on my iMac and Disk Utility is telling me I need to reformat the drive and restore from backup. Only problem is that my 3TB Lacie Thunderbolt drive I was using for Time Machine recently failed (think it may have happened during an electrical storm brownout). Yep, I know, ***** to be me
The issues with the internal HD are preventing the iMac from booting and I would prefer not to have to purchase various repair software to find one that really works such as Disk Warrior or similar ((despite it getting very good reviews). I suspect it make be HFS corruption but no way to really tell that I am aware of.
I have setup an external drive with Yosemite and booted from that so now my old internal drive is seen as an "external drive".
I am using Disk Utility to make an image copy to a new 3TB external drive I purchased. Writing the DMG is going to take some time.
What I would like to do is to set up Time Machine to backup to a separate external 3TB hard drive (the second one I purchased) and have TM create a backup of ONLY the old internal drive - not the new system as well as the old internal unit.
Is this possible and if so can anyone advise how to do this. Does not seem I can exclude the system drive I am now booted from so that it is not backed up. (This makes sense that TM would be designed this way given its primary purpose is to backup a system).
If TM cannot be configured in this way, is there another option I can use?
Thanks
Andrew

Thanks for that advice. I have heard of it but a friend who does IT support at a University nearby suggested using Disk Utility to save an image - hence this is currently underway at present. Once this is finished I will try Carbon Copy Cloner.
I have another friend who has an older version of CCC - do you know if an old version will work ok or if only the latest supports Yosemite?
Also once I have the clone completed from CCC, is the process then to reformat the old internal drive and then clone from the CCC external drive back to the internal and then reboot and trust all is well?
Appreciate your help Csound1.
Regards
Andrew

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

Time Machine underestimating backup size?

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