Too small Time Machine Backups

Hello everybody,
at first excuse my bad english. I try my best to explain my problem as exactly in english words as I can. I have my Time Capsule 1TB for quite a while and Time Machine did it’s backups on the TC well using the TC password to save the sparsebundle in the main directory.
Last week I set my TC to user accounts, copied the sparsebundle into the directory of my user account and configured TM to access the sparsebundle via my new user’s directory. I thought everything works fine, because Time Machine made it’s incremental backups as before. But I wondered, that the backups where done so quickly. So I checked with the external tool BackupLoupe the sizes of each backup and realized that Time Machine only backed up modified system files and applications (like VLC Player) from updates but not critical files like my projects for work. the hourly backups where only about a size of 4kb except when I updated OS X or the applications.
So I checked Time Machine settings. But the excluded folders where exactly the same as before moving to account driven backups.
Does anyone know this problem?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
There are a few things that might cause what you're seeing.
First, try a "full reset" of Time Machine, per #A4 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.
If that doesn't help, run a +*Verify Disk+* on your internal HD, per #A5 there.
If still no help, create (or duplicate) some "test" files in various places in your home folder, and another user's home folder (if you only have one, make another temporarily via System Preferences > Accounts), then run a Back Up Now. Use BackupLoupe to see which ones got saved. If some were saved, but not others, something is likely corrupted. Post back with full details, including which were and were not backed-up, and we may be able to figure out what's wrong.

Similar Messages

HT201250 Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller ext

Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?

50maz wrote:
Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in
Yes, it will do a full backup.
and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?
Only if you want to be able to go back in time to those previous Time Machine backups. When you plug in the new larger external drive, you will only be able to go back as far as the first day you plugged it in and ran the first Time Machine backup on it.

TIme Machine backup grows too large during backup process

I have been using Time Machine without a problem for several months, backing up my imac - 500GB drive with 350g used. Recently TM failed because the backups had finally filled the external drive - 500GB USB. Since I did not need the older backups, I reformatted the external drive to start from scratch. Now TM tries to do an initial full backup but the size keeps growing as it is backing up, eventually becoming too large for the external drive and TM fails. It will report, say, 200G to back up, then it reaches that point and the "Backing up XXXGB of XXXGB" just keeps getting larger. I have tried excluding more than 100GB of files to get the backup set very small, but it still grows during the backup process. I have deleted plist and cache files as some discussions have suggested, but the same issue occurs each time. What is going on???

Michael Birtel wrote:
Here is the log for the last failure. As you see it indicates there is enough room 345g needed, 464G available, but then it fails. I can watch the backup progress, it reaches 345G and then keeps growing till it give out of disk space error. I don't know what "Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD" implies, maybe this is a clue?
No. It's sort of a warning, indicating that TM isn't sure what's changed on your internal HD since the previous backup, usually as a result of an abnormal shutdown. But since you just erased your TM disk, it's perfectly normal.
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
2009-07-08 19:37:53.659 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Querying receipt database for system packages
2009-07-08 19:37:55.582 FindSystemFiles[254:713] Using system path cache.
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Backup content size: 309.5 GB excluded items size: 22.3 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 345.01 GB requested (including padding), 464.53 GB available
This is a completely normal start to a backup. Just after that last message is when the actual copying begins. Apparently whatever's happening, no messages are being sent to the log, so this may not be an easy one to figure out.
First, let's use Disk Utility to confirm that the disk really is set up properly.
First, select the second line for your internal HD (usually named "Macintosh HD"). Towards the bottom, the Format should be +Mac OS Extended (Journaled),+ although it might be +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+
Next, select the line for your TM partition (indented, with the name). Towards the bottom, the Format must be the same as your internal HD (above). If it isn't, you must erase the partition (not necessarily the whole drive) and reformat it with Disk Utility.
Sometimes when TM formats a drive for you automatically, it sets it to +Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).+ Do not use this unless your internal HD is also case-sensitive. All drives being backed-up, and your TM volume, should be the same. TM may do backups this way, but you could be in for major problems trying to restore to a mis-matched drive.
Last, select the top line of the TM drive (with the make and size). Towards the bottom, the *Partition Map Scheme* should be GUID (preferred) or +Apple Partition Map+ for an Intel Mac. It must be +Apple Partition Map+ for a PPC Mac.
If any of this is incorrect, that's likely the source of the problem. See item #5 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum for instructions, then try again.
If it's all correct, perhaps there's something else in your logs.
Use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
When it starts, click +Show Log List+ in the toolbar, then navigate in the sidebar that opens up to your system.log and select it. Navigate to the +Starting standard backup+ message that you noted above, then see what follows that might indicate some sort of error, failure, termination, exit, etc. (many of the messages there are info for developers, etc.). If in doubt post (a reasonable amount of) the log here.

Time machine backups take way too long

Greetings,
Having trouble with Time Machine backups taking way too long. (No, it's not the first backup after some momentous event, as 90% of what I read about slow backups mentions; it's _every_ backup.)
20" iMac purchased Oct 2008. OS 10.6.8. 500 GB internal hard drive. 3 TB external backup drive. Was tested at the local "Genius" Bar, but they found nothing wrong with it. The best they could do is to recommend a restore from Time Machine, and if that didn't work, start clean and reload the OS and then copy my stuff back. I don't think so. I actually did a full Time Machine restore for a different reason, and it didn't help (except that I gained a few GB of disk space!).
My Time Machine backups now take about 39 minutes to complete. I have a 500 GB internal drive and this problem happens regardless of which external drive I use. (I have 3: 2 WD hard drives and one [noisy!] G-drive.) My current backup drive is a 3 TB WD drive with 2 TB of free space.
These are small incremental backups, typically about 35 MB. It doesn't take half an hour to copy 35 MB!
All phases take a long time, but the most irritating one is where TM appears to get stuck for a long time at the beginning and end of the copying phase. For example, at one point it will say something along the lines of Backing Up 7 KB of 34.4 MB. And it'll be like that for minutes on end. Later it will say something like 35 MB of 35 MB and hang there for minutes on end. During these periods the write I/O rate will go up and down, and CPU usage will often be very high (with backupd using 90 - 100%, in addition to highly elevated System CPU usage). In one particular backup the I/O write rate for one part of it looked like a heartbeat on an EKG! I should have taken a screenshot.
At the beginning during the Calculating Changes phase, backupd is using between 90 and 100% CPU.
There is also high CPU usage during the next phase, Preparing. And the number of items being prepared is in the thousands.
It always goes in two rounds because it finds that the root directory (/) has been modified.
I've Googled and searched Mac forums and found nothing useful. I started with a new .plist file and nothing's changed.
Can anyone help? Thanks!
I wrote the above Jun 28. Yeah, finally getting around to posting it. Since then it's gotten worse. I now do a manual backup once a day and it takes almost an hour. I tried re-indexing Spotlight. No good.
Can anyone help? Again, this is not a "first backup." It is _every_ backup.
Thanks!
AEF

Thanks for your efforts. Here are my answers, comments, and further info:
I believe I have repaired permissions on my drive as part of my troubleshooting. And I'm sure I checked SMART status, which came up with a thumbs up, so to speak. I'm trying again. I don't see any useful messages in any logs on the console. I'm looking at "All Messages" and there is so far nothing useful. Oh, I think you must mean repair as in "Repair Disk," not "Repair Disk Permissions." I believe the "genius" at the Apple store did that or something just as good. The machine checked out fine according to them.
Checked SMART status just now: passed. Ran Quick Drive Test: also passed.
Oh, I installed "Time Machine Buddy". Occasionally, and only occasionally, I get a "deep traversal needed message" like this (I copied this from .Backup.log):
Running preflight for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
        Scanning nodes needing deep traversal
        Node requires deep traversal: /Users/alanfeldman/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Database/apdb reason:contains changes|must scan subdirs|fsevent|missed reservation|
        Calculating size of changes
        Should copy 2919 items (27.8 MB) representing 7116 blocks of size 4096. 546805181 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
Time elapsed: 1 minute, 39.000 seconds
But the vast majority of the time I do NOT get this message. But if there's something wrong with this apdb file, what can I do to fix it?
Note that there is usually, if not always, a lot of CPU activity or I/O (disk) activity, but not a lot getting done.

Time machine backup too large

i had a weird quirky thing happen to my computer. It crashed and when I restarted, all my login items and programs were asking me for my licenses and registration nos. as if i had just installed them. Plus all their settings went back to default. Recovering all my registration information would have taken an act of god, as my appshelf data was corrupted too. After many different recovery attempts, I scrapped it all, did one final Time Machine backup, and restored my computer from a date I knew was working (about 3 weeks earlier), using the system disk. My Time Machie backups went back nearly a year. When I was up and running, I then went in to Time Macine and brought over piecemeal new files that had been added since three weeks ago.
A couple days later, I attempted to get something from an old Time Machine backup, but now the bakups did not extend back as far, but they only went to the date I restored from 3 weeks earlier. I thought that was weird, but continued on. Later, it was only going back a couple days. Having a "working system" I thought nothing of it..but now it is telling me July 25 is the oldet backup, taking up 230.84 GB of 499.76, and any successive backup fails. Instead of incrementally backing up, Time Machie is now attemptng to do a full bnackup, requiring 250 GB, but only 230 are available. Does asnyone know it's not just backing up the changes, but attempting to backup the whole thing??

Sometimes, this error is legitimate. The user may not realize that they need to exclude additional hard disks that TM may be seeing. This is done in the “Options…” window of the Time Machine Preferences.
Nevertheless, many times this error just doesn’t make sense, stating that not enough free space exists for a backup that is clearly smaller. (“The backup requires 45.9 GB but only 182.6 GB are available”)
The answer and fix may have been discovered by a poster in the macosxhints forums: (http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-84284.html)
Essentially, while Time Machine DOES delete old backups from the sparsebundle, it DOES NOT free up the space occupied by those old backups. Eventually, "all previous backups were deleted and no space was gained. . . . What appears to be going on here is that the sparsebundle isn't self-shrinking - unused bands aren't being automagically discarded."
The solution is to compact the TM backup sparsebundle in Terminal using:
hdiutil compact yoursparsebundlefilename.
He concludes, "I gained 30+gb of space on the backup volume by compacting that sparsebundle. And now TM runs just fine, since it has plenty of space."
Obviously, this is a bug in TM. It does not appear to effect everyone, and only seems to appear under certain curcumstances.
Let us know if this works for you.

Time Machine backup created on Mac with a large hard disk. What happens when restore to MacBook Air with small SSD drive?

What if a Time Machine backup was created on a Mac with a large hard disk, e.g. 500GB iMac - and I buy a new MacBook Air with a small SSD hard disk e.g 128GB. What happens when I need to use the larger Time Machine file to set up the new MacBook Air? What happens to all those files that can't fit on the smaller SSD drive?

It is not the HD size, but rather the size of the data it contains. If you right-click your 500GB drive and select "Get Info" you can see how much is actually being used.
Naturally if you are using more space than the new drive has, then you have to make some choices about what you want to keep and what you want to keep archived.
I don't know what options are available but you may simply have to do a manual restore of files you want, in groups.

Used Time Machine Backup Today- Now This backup is too large for the backup

Hey Everyone!
Some advice please,
My Hard Drive recently crashed. Fortunately, I've been using Time Machine. Apple Store gave me a new Hard Drive (for free), and I came home and restored to Time Machine. I am very impressed, and have lost no data or applications.
So now I have a problem. I can no longer back my hard drive, presumably because there were so many changes to the software today. I am getting This backup is too large for the backup volume. What is the easiest way to delete my old time machine backup and start from scratch with my computer in its current state? Everything seems to be working smoothly, so I don't see any reason to keep my old backups. Any suggestions? Is there any logical reason why I would keep the old backup?
Message was edited by: David Selevan

Thanks Barry!
I called Apple (had to anyway for a new OS Leopard DVD) and he had me go into Disk Utility and choose Erase Disk (as you suggested). I didn't have to do any formatting.
The next step was to go into System Preferences and select Change Disk and set it to None. After that, he had me choose Change Disk again, and select the USB drive, and click Use For Backup.
Now it's backing up the new version of my computer. Problem solved. Thank you.
After having to get an brand new Hard Drive today, I highly recommend that everyone purchase some kind of external hard drive and run Time Machine regularly. Although the backups get large, I've never experienced such a pleasant experience getting my files back after a hard drive failure. This is awesome technology. I can't believe 95% of my applications still worked.
David

Time Machine backup smaller than source

Hi everybody -
I just did my Time Machine backup, and I've noticed that the content on the backup is about 5 GB smaller than the content on my MBP's source. (And yes, this deficit is taking into account the items I have already excluded from backup.)
In fact, when I open up Time Machine options, and I see the list of excluded items, the "approximate size of backup" says 240GB, but the actual size of the backup is 235GB. Any idea what's going on here? Assuming that everything is working as it should, I'm not terribly concerned about this discrepancy, but if it's indicative of something not working properly, I want to get it taken care of, should I experience a need to restore to a previous backup at some point.
Ideas? Thanks!

Try a new post in the 10.6 Time Machine forum.
DALE

Time machine backup too big for empty disk??

So I restart my MacBook Pro a few minutes after completing a full Time Machine backup. When it restarts it goes through the grey startup screen, then gets stuck on the blue screen just before the desktop normally appears. This happens whenever I startup. I am still able to hit the power button and get the Restart/Shut Down dialog, so I restart using my Snow Leopard boot disk, run Disk Utility, repair permissions, and repair disk, but the problem still remains. I decide to Restore from Time Machine Backup, so I erase my disk (80 GB, had only 200 MB free), go to the Restore screen and connect my backup disk. Now the weird part -- it says my latest backup is too big for the disk, even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free. All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless. Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.

dgordon412 wrote:
(80 GB, had only 200 MB free)
That's likely corrupted your system. You should have a minimum of 10% - 15% free at all times. That's almost certainly why it wouldn't restart.
even though i just erased everything, and 74.2 GB show as free.
There must be something else on the drive; if you erase it, it should have just under 80 GB free. Is there another partition?
Did you erase with a Leopard Install disc or a Snow Leopard disc? If you used a Leopard disc, that might explain showing only 74.2 GB free (it counts differently).
If so, use your +Snow Leopard+ install disc to do a complete reformat, and try to restore the backup. A Leopard disc cannot restore a Snow Leopard backup. Even the Snow Leopard disc may not work, as it's just too full and/or your system was damaged by getting too full.
All my previous backups seem to fit fine, but apparently the last time Time Machine backed up more from my disk than can fit on my disk! It seems having a hard disk close to full is enough to render a backup effectively useless.
Having an OSX drive that full will make your Mac extremely sluggish, cause data corruption and/or loss, apps to crash, etc.
Guess I'll have to restore from a previous backup, then manually copy the newer files. Just wanted to alert others to this insane problem, so it doesn't happen to them.
If you can get your Mac running, you need to make several GBs of space immediately.
If all else fails, reformat the internal HD and install OSX from your Snow Leopard Install disc, then use +Setup Assistant+ after the Welcome video to transfer +*most, but not all+* of your stuff from the backup. Omit the contents of one or more large sub-folders in a home folder (such as Photos, Music, or Movies).
See #19 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for details.

Time Machine: Backup is too large and I have space on my Time Capsule !

Hi Everybody,
I am using Time Machine with my 1T Time Capsule. Everything was running nice till I get message telling that backup could not complete because there was an error copying backup files. I searched for solutions, erased TM disk, reset TM, and reset TC too. Now I have 937g available on TC, I tried to backup 63g but a message came out telling that backup is too large !
Any ideas please !?

Hi
The backup failed too !
These are the messages from the console:
Apr 2 11:53:12 hussain-almarshoods-macbook kernel[0]:
Apr 2 11:53:42: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 2 11:54:10 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Stopping backup.
Apr 2 11:54:10 hussain-almarshoods-macbook kernel[0]:
Apr 2 11:54:27: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Apr 2 11:54:27 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2010/2010-03-272/IMG0687.JPG to (null)
Apr 2 11:54:31 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Copied 168977 files (58.2 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Apr 2 11:54:31 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Apr 2 11:54:37 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Backup failed with error: 11
Apr 2 11:54:40 hussain-almarshoods-macbook [0x0-0x11011].com.tomtom.HOMERunnerApp[135]: Notifying device changed
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook [0x0-0x11011].com.tomtom.HOMERunnerApp[135]: Notifying device changed
Apr 2 11:54:42 hussain-almarshoods-macbook com.apple.backupd[413]: Ejected Time Machine network volume.
These are from TM buddy:
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Hussain%[email protected]/Hussainz
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Hussain%[email protected]/Hussainz
Disk image /Volumes/Hussainz-1/Hussain Almarshood’s MacBook.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Backup content size: 67.9 GB excluded items size: 3.8 GB for volume Macintosh HD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 76.92 GB requested (including padding), 874.08 GB available
Copied 3.6 GB of 64.1 GB, 152 of 620764 items
Copied 7.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 31990 of 620764 items
Copied 9.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 143329 of 620764 items
Copied 13.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 151861 of 620764 items
Copied 17.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 153066 of 620764 items
Copied 20.9 GB of 64.1 GB, 154141 of 620764 items
Copied 25.0 GB of 64.1 GB, 154854 of 620764 items
Copied 29.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 155711 of 620764 items
Copied 33.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 156613 of 620764 items
Copied 38.0 GB of 64.1 GB, 157522 of 620764 items
Copied 42.2 GB of 64.1 GB, 159199 of 620764 items
Copied 46.3 GB of 64.1 GB, 160927 of 620764 items
Copied 50.7 GB of 64.1 GB, 161025 of 620764 items
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Data/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0128.jpg to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0112.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0115.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0123.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0125.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0136.JPG to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Users/s9am8/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Modified/2010/2010-03-273/IMG0137.JPG to (null)
Copied 54.6 GB of 64.1 GB, 168977 of 620764 items
This is the TM message:
http://img.skitch.com/20100402-mmjqp1ecca6f1mukn1aggp4uw6.jpg
I this the problem is that there are still some corrupted(damaged) photos in the iPhoto library? Is that right?
Do I have to verify the internal HD ? or find a way to delete the iPhotos files "which I do not want them thou"?
OR you have other method?
Thanks

Time Machine backup too large for backup disk

My Mac hard drive is 750GB (25GB free).
My LaCie external dedicated backup hard drive is 1TB (342GB free).
I am now getting the error "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup" "This backup is too large for the backup disk"
I thought once my initial backup of 750GB happened, it would be incremental backups from then on (with old changes betting deleted as space was needed for new changes).
Is this not the case? Do I need a much larger backup drive or something?
Thanks much for any help.

It's true but Time Machine has also to make complete backups again in case you want to restore your Mac with a more recent Time Machine backup.
Clearly the external drive you have doesn't have enough storage to back up your Mac. As you have about 725 GB of used space, I recommend you to get at least a 3 or 4 TB external drive to make backups, and even with this, don't think you will have more than four backups. Another thing you can do is to remove folders from the backup in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options

Can you restore from Time Machine backup to a smaller drive?

My 2008 Air's original hard-drive just died. I have a recent Time Machine backup. Since the laptop isn't under warranty, I am looking at buying a replacement hard-drive on my own (either SSD or 'standard'). My question is, if I was using ~70Gigs (and had a Time Machine backup to that effect) and place a 64G hard-drive into the laptop and attempt to do a Time Machine restore... what will happen? Will I be able to pick and choose what to leave out? Or will the entire restore fail? Thank you.

As long as there is sufficient space on a drive you can restore to any drive. However, be sure the drive is properly partitioned and formatted. In your case you can not fully restore 70 GBs to a 64 GB SSD, but you can restore the operating system and some of your data. That means you cannot do a full restore but will need to pick and choose after you install OS X.
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
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. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Time Machine backup on new Mac - but too big?

Hi,
I am the current owner of a Macbook and i use 160GB of my harddrive. I am contemplating on buying a Macbook Air 11" with 128GB "HD", but I am hesitant, since I don't know how the computer would handle having to start up from a Time Machine-back up made from my Macbook, that would of course be larger than the Macbook Air has capacity for.
Is it even possible?

firemandan900 wrote:
I just had to replace my 13" Macbook Pro through warranty. When I first turned it on I selected to restore the computer from my time machine backup and after several hours it finished successfully with the exception of Ilife which on the restore had to be updated before it would open the restored databases. The other issue I am having is that timemachine is no longer working. I would prefer to have timemachine backup to the existing archive structure it created on the old machine but right now it just says it can not find the volume. Is there a way to keep using the existing backup
If there's room, TM can start a new set of backups for the new Mac on the same disk or Time Capsule. But it will make a new, full backup of the new Mac, so if your TM disk/partition isn't at well over twice the size of the data it's backing-up, your best bet will be to erase the drive with Disk Utility and let TM start over.
There's a downside to that, though. TM on the new Mac won't delete the oldest backups from the old Mac when it needs room for new backups.
Instead, it will delete the oldest backups from the new Mac, leaving the old backups "stranded." Without erasing the TM disk/partition, you'll have to delete the old backups one at a time, via the TM interface, which is quite tedious and time consuming. See the instructions in item #12 of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.
or do I need to delate the archives and start a new archive?
That's probably your best option.

Initial Time Machine backup 60 GB smaller than HD content?

Hello,
I've just performed an initial backup with TIme Machine on an external HD. The result is that TM's backup's size is 360 GB, but my internal HD that has 420 GB of data...
I had no problems during the backup, no warning messages. I don't understand, so I'm not very confortable pursuing with this backup.
The only explanation could be that I've a lot of duplicates on my iMac (2x big iTunes library with same files...) at the moment: does TM save only one copy of same files that are in different directories of the source HD?
Thanks :)

You can verify your Time Machine backup.
Launch the Terminal 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, press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the page that opens.
Drag or copy – do not type – the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
sudo tmutil compare
You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up.
The command will take at least a few minutes to run. Eventually some lines of output will appear below what you entered.
Each line that begins with a plus sign (“+”) represents a file that has been added to the source volume since the last snapshot was taken. These files have not been backed up yet.
Each line that begins with an exclamation point (“!”) represents a file that has changed on the source volume. These files have been backed up, but not in their present state.
Each line that begins with a minus sign (“-“) represents a file that has been removed from the source volume.
Files that you’ve excluded from backup, or that are excluded automatically, are ignored.
At the end of the output, you’ll get some lines like the following:
Added:
Removed:
Changed:
These lines show the total amount of data added, removed, or changed on the source(s) since the last snapshot.

Time Machine Backup of iPhoto Library 5 gigabytes smaller!?!?

Thankfully I've not yet had to rely on my time machine backup. I just delved into the "latest" folder within my backup and find that my iphoto library is 5 gigabytes less in there than on my HD.
Shouldn't the latest folder be the...ya know....latest? How is it shaving 5gig off the library size?
I've pulled that library out of the backup to my HD and opened it. Nothing appears to be missing but it is reporting 5gig less. I'm freaked out and about to not use Time Machine as my backup.
Anyone know what's going on here?
Cheers,
John

I think that helps...let me be a bit more specific.
I'm using a USB 2.0 HD attached directly to my Mac. I've backed up my iMac to this drive using time machine.
I was planning on wiping the machine and thought I'd just check that my 5 years of photos are backedup properly. Rather than opening TM I navigated via the finder to my backup drive and opened the "latest" folder and the dug down through the file structure to my iphoto library. It was here that I noticed the filesize to be 5 gig less.
I thought perhaps it was misreading it and dragged the iphoto library from the USB HD copying it to my desktop. It consistently reads 5gig less, than my regular iPhoto Library.
Opening the two libraries in iTunes they appear the same....of course I haven't paged through all 16,000 some odd photos....
Is this what you understood me to be saying, Barry?
Cheers!
John

Too small Time Machine Backups

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