Why does TimeMachine use so much disk space?

I'm curious about this... after many horrible days with a completely unstable Leopard install, I bit the bullet and did another clean install. I also got myself a new LaCie 2big disk array specifically for TimeMachine.
Now, after yet another glorious Leopard OS hang/crash/cold reboot, TM is backing up some 50GB of data, 2 hours after the last backup, during which time at most a few e-mails, some html and gif data files, and maybe 5GB of copied music have changed.
The first backup made by TM was on 08 December.
Of my 450GB reserved for TM, I'll have about 150GB or so are still available after the current backup; meaning that *TimeMachine has used almost 300GB of disk space in 10 days* !
I have 120GB of data on my disks, however TM is set up to not back up any OS files, and to also exclude the Applications folder, the VMWare virtual disks, and all Cache files.
If I was to guess, I'd say TM is right now making a full backup of all the files, completely regardless of what it apparently has backed in its entirety up _several times_ before.
If that's true and the best Apple and their TimeMachine can come up with, then I'm sorry but I'll have to conclude that TimeMachine is utterly worthless -- unless one never ever has an unexpected system restart (in Leopard?! Keep dreaming...) or untold terabytes of disk space.
Is there a way I can find out what exactly has been and is being backed up, and when?
Leopard is one really disappointing OS so far, that's for sure.

Agreed. Time Machine is pretty, but it's a huge resource hog. Not only is it consuming drive space like it were an unlimited resource, but hourly backups (in which some files are being compressed, I think) eats away at CPU time. Unless you're zooming along on the latest and greatest machine while doing minimal work, you can definitely feel a performance lag when Time Machine is running.
My recommendation is to shut it off. Then, periodically CTRL-click on the Time Machine icon and choose Back Up Now. Hopefully Apple will soon upgrade the program to have actual features, other than switching it on and switching it off. Hourly backups seem excessive, even for the novice user.
Trilo

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Is this a drawback to a Unix based OS? I know there are a number of bells and whistles to OSX.
But it just seemed odd that with the old Mac OS I could go very low on disk space (yet have plenty of RAM free) and the mac would still boot up, and store files fine. I would not experiene slowdowns, nor other issues.
My Performa 6360 had a 6GB hard drive and it ran OS 9.1. There were times when free disk space would go below a gig. Yes I had problems, but the problems were extension conflicts, web browser issues, and other issues with the OS, not necessarily because of disk space.
Thanks,
John

John,
I found an authorized service center would charge me $80 to upgrade the hard drive of my Powerbook. An 100 GB laptop hard drive can be gotten for $150 from:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Toshiba/MK1032GAX/
and an 80 GB for $120:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Seagate/ST98823A/
So in reality we are only talking just over a couple hundred.
Of course a cheaper option would be to burn to CD or DVD the data you don't use frequently at least twice and take it off your system. To find out where files are, I've made this FAQ:
http://www.macmaps.com/safetodeleteormove.html
as well as this FAQ:
http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

Why does Safari use so much memory?

Below is a screenshot of the "Safari Web Content" process using 2.57GB of ram! When I took a screenshot yesterday at 1.7GB I thought that was a lot!
It seems Safari will use as much ram as can be thrown at it. I had a lot of windows and tabs open, but really doubt I had more than a few hundred megs of content loaded in those windows and tabs, never mind 2.6GB!
My experience with Macs and OS X would pretty much be perfect if it weren't for Safari. It brings my system down to a slow grind because the virtual memory/swap is always thrashing so badly.
Apple goes on about the "magical" performance updates they make to Safari - well guess what? They mean nothing when Safari has all your ram tied up and the swap file is thrashing like crazy.

Glad it's better now, Doc. I'm still wondering if you empty your Safari cache regularly.
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When you import photos it makes TWO copies of them into the iPhoto library package, one in "originals" and one in "modified" regardless of whether you edit them or not. Is there any way to get iphoto to leave your files alone and just index them?

1 - no - iPhoto does not ever make a modified if the photo had no modifications - you probably have auto rotate set on your camera and when the photo is rotated according to your instructions then a modified version is created - turn off auto rotate and no modified will be made until you edit the photo
2 - you can not change this - iPhoto always maintains your original so you always can revert to it and it uses the unmodified original as the starting point for all iPhoto edits so you are never more than one version away from the original - non destructive editing
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LN
LN

Why does rendering use so much space?

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If I would start running low before I could just access the files and delete some of the old render files, but I don't know how to access them how it's set up now. It's just a library.fcpbundle.
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Disconnect all wired peripherals except keyboard, mouse, and monitor, if applicable. Launch the usual set of applications you use when you notice the slowdown.
Step 1
Launch the Activity Monitor 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.
☞ If you’re running Mac OS X 10.7 or later, open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the page that opens.
Select the CPU tab. Select All Processes from the popup menu in the toolbar, if not already selected. Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for % User, % System, and % Idle at the bottom of the window.
Now select the System Memory tab. What values are shown in the bottom part of the window for Page outs and Swap used?
Step 2
Launch the Console application in the same way as above, and select “kernel.log” from the file list. Post the dozen or so most recent messages in the log – the text, please, not a screenshot. If there are repeats, please post only one example of each repeated message.

Extra user folder using too much disk space

I was having the low memory available error so I deleted all unused programs ( garage band etc) I moved pics on a flash drive then deleted them ( and emptied the trash) (but whats odd is I put 6+ GB on the flash drive but only recovered 2-3 GB ?)
anyway I was looking to see where all my space is and I found the users folder that has a lot of folders that look like archives of my disk, the newest one has my recent desktop and photos etc, why are these here? they take up to 14 to 35 GB each!
can I delete them?
they have all the pics and movies I thought I deleted ( as well as garage ban app)
so when I look at the info section they all say they where created on the same day- march 18th which is the day I stupidly re-named by home, I eventually put the old name back and copied the created archive back in home and I thought all was well. since then the only thing I have noticed is a slow start up ( after log in password. Is it looking for the folder that takes so long?
I have file vault turned on.
sorry this is long and confusing, I am new to this type of thing- I am off warranty also
here is pic of the user folders listed ( at the bottom that can't be seen is my home folder):
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii43/luckydogblue/other/screengrab.jpg

BDAqua, sort-of, when I realized what I did, I found the copy that was made when I changed it of my original home folder ( Sean) then, I renamed the (new) home back to Sean and moved the files from Sean into it, as I said it appeared to be back to normal ( that was March). I didn't name it Sean_new- is that my problem?
Then last week I noticed the available kb was zero ( I didn't notice if it was getting lower since March). I can't remember what else I might of done before it was fix back in march. it appears to be making copies of home at every log in that is new.
I know at least one of the duplicate user folders is that copy that was archived when I renamed home
here is pic of one of the new user folders from the get info:
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii43/luckydogblue/other/getinfosreengrab.jpg
I hope this helps, I am trying to be descriptive as possible.
Message was edited by: delphone
Message was edited by: delphone

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How about disk space for Applications?

molinasky wrote:
I am trying to partition a 640 GB hard drive for my 17" MacBook Pro. I created a partition of 30GB for the "System Start Up Disk", and after installing the original Tiger OSX software, and then doing the Leopard Upgrade Install, It says that I am out of disk space on that partition.
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
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The hatter wrote:
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Why does TimeMachine use so much disk space?

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