Why is my Time Machine Backup Taking More Space then my Hard Drive?

I have a Late-2009 MacBook model with a 250GB hard drive. My external drive is 1TB. I use it for Time Machine backups as well as other storage. My backups on that drive are a bit less then 900GB, which is 90% of that disk. My hard drive is only 250GB so how is it over 3 times as large? I would like to have more storage for other files. What would you recomend doing? Can I partition the external disk?

How time machine works is that it makes an initial back up and from there it scans your system for changes. When it finds a change it adds the changes on top of your current backup. So if you have a folder full of pictures then rename them or change them, etc it'll resave/archive the pictures ontop of what it already backed up. It doesn't keep a single "state" of backup. This allows you to "look back in time" and see if you can find something you might have accidentally changed or deleted or etc. Once the disk becomes full it will delete the oldest backups to keep archiving newer files.
I would suggest that you partition your external drive to a size that allows you to keep free the desired extra storage space you're looking to use. For example partition the drive to two 500GB partitions one for storage one for time machine.

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Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?

Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?

I am using an external drive in the exact way that you described. You just keep it plugged in to the computer when you want to access the movies and files. In order to put files on it, just go to finder open up the drive under devices and drag and drop files onto the drive. It is just like using a usb drive with a terabyte of space.

Why won't Time Machine recognize my seagate 2 TB external hard drive?

Hello,
I am trying to set up my Seagate External Hard Drive as my backup. When I click on Time Machine, then Set Up Time Machine, Choose Backup Disk, the list comes up blank. Even though my external hard drive is sitting on my desktop available for use. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.

And then I found this on the Seagate website:
Formatting your drive for a Mac
STEP 1: Open Disk Utility like this:
Click Finder.
Click Applications.
Click Utilities.
Click Disk Utility.
STEP 2: Select the drive you want to format. Be sure it’s the correct drive.STEP 3: Go to the Partition tab.STEP 4: Click on the Current Volume Scheme drop-down menu and select One (1) partition.STEP 5: Click Options. From the Partition Schemes provided:
Click on the GUID Partition Table radio button.
--OR--
Click on the Apple Partition Map radio button.
STEP 6: Click OK. Select other options as desired (e.g., Volume Name, Format, etc).
STEP 7: Click Apply. The Partition Disk screen opens.
STEP 8: Click Partition. At this point, the volume dismounts from the desktop and the drive is partitioned and formatted.
Note: When Volumes are created, Time Machine may open, asking if you would like to use the volume for backups. Click Cancel to proceed.
STEP 9: When finished, select the Disk Utility from the Apple Menu and choose Quit Disk Utility.
And it worked.
Thanks for all the help guys. I appreciate it.

What items do you delete from backup on time machine to make more space available

What items do you delete from back up on time machine to make more space?

There's no need to do that unless Time Machine has reported a Disk Full alert. In this case you can:
1. Delete older entries using the Time Machine application to free up sufficient space.
2. Get a new and larger Time Machine backup drive to replace the old one.
3. Erase the backup drive and start over.

Does backing up my hard drive to time machine gain me more space/speed on my iMac?

I have an iMac. here are the specs:
Hardware Overview:
Model Name:    iMac
Model Identifier:    iMac8,1
Processor Name:    Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:    2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors:    1
Total Number Of Cores:    2
L2 Cache:    6 MB
Memory:    4 GB
Bus Speed:    1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:    IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system):    1.30f1
Serial Number (system):    QP921090ZE4
Hardware UUID:    20AE2D9A-DB71-54DF-95F7-DAEFEE167723
I have a TON of art/photos on this computer. I'm wondering if backing my hard drive up with time machine gains me more space and processing speed-or if it only slows my computer down? is it better to house my files on a seperate drive from the drive i am using for backing up with time machine?

Just to add a little, Time Machine is not a storage drive. Backups on there are not in a form you can use as you would from your normal internal. If you delete your pics etc. after backup, they won't be backed up on subsequent runs, and will eventually be lost when the TM drive gets near full and starts deleting the oldest backups. Have a read of Pondini's TM articles; http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
To do what you want, you need another drive to which you can simply copy your pics etc and open from there while booted to your internal. (this is a basic storage drive)
The storage drive can then also be backed up to TM (provided the TM disc is big enough).

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

I am trying to use Time Machine to back-up to an external hard drive and I get the following message.Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder. Does anyone know what I should do?

Hello Drake, I suspect one or more of the Drives needs repairing, but...
Have you looked through Pondini's extensive TM help site?
http://Pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Can't imaging something not being covered there.

HT3275 When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this?

When I press "select backup location" in the Time Machine section of System Preferences, my external hard drive doesn't appear as an option. How do I change this? My external hard drive is a FreeAgent GoFlex Drive.

Hi, what Format is the external Drive?
They usually come PC Formatted for Fat32/MSdos, or NTFS... is there anything on it now?
How to format your disks...
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/partitioning_tiger.html
(To Install OSX on an IntelMac the Drive it needs the GUID Partitioning scheme mentioned at the bottom.)
Thanks to Pondini, Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks...
http://Pondini.org/OSX/DU.html

I cannot load Maverick on my iMac HD. It reports that my HD is used for Time Machine backups and will not load to that drive. I do not use this drive for backups. Help.

I cannot load Maverick on my iMac HD. It reports that my HD is used for Time Machine backups and will not load to that drive. I do not use this drive for backups. I use an external 1 TB WD My Book for backups as well as Super Duper Backups. Can anyone offer advice. Thanks.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You have got the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive. This is the folder used by Time Machine to save backups to, and the OS X Mavericks installer thought that your hard drive is being used to store Time Machine backups
To fix this, open a Finder window, select the Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type:
Then, delete "Backups.backupdb" and empty the Trash. Finally, open the Mavericks installer from the Applications folder and follow the steps

How to stop Time Machine backing up on a specific external hard drive?

I work on a iMac 2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, with Mac OS X 10.6.8. I use two external hard drives that are the exact same model, 2 TB WD My Book 1110 Media: one is intended for back-up, the other for storing video editing files. They're both connected through USB 2.0.
I set the "back-up" hard drive as back-up disk for Time Machine, through the Time Machine preferences. Now, everytime I connect the "video" hard drive, Time Machine recognizes it as a back-up disk, and starts backing up on it. I could delete the "Backups.backupdb" file that Time Machine had created by connecting the "video" hard drive to another Mac and moving it to the Trash, but as soon as I reconnect the "video" hard drive to my iMac, Time Machine backs up on it again.
Is there a way to "de-select" a hard drive from Time Machine's list of back-up disks?
Note: I should mention another thing that might indicate a conflict. When both hard drives "back-up" and "video" are connected to my iMac, if I open Final Cut Pro X, I can only see my "back-up" hard drive. To access the files I am working on, I need to eject the "back-up" hard drive, and suddenly the "video" drive appears.
If you have any idea of how to solve this conflict... I am a bit lost.
Thank you!

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.
Give them unique volume names using Disk Utility.
Then set Time Machine back up to that unique volume name.
For example, I regularly use 4 external drives (though they're not all the same model).
The descriptions quickly tell me which drives I have connected to my MacBook when open Finder:
My Time Machine backup volume is named 'Time Machine 1TB'.
My iPhoto backup volume is named 'iPhoto Backup 320GB'
My iTunes backup volume is named 'iTunes Backup 120GB'
and the last is 'Windows 7 Backup 250Gb' but since it's a Windows volume, it is formatted NTFS.
This likely means that you will have to erase and repartition one of your drives to name it.
You MIGHT be able to rename it using Finder, right-clicking on the volume, and selecting Rename (current volume name).
WARNING: I can't be certain of what just renaming it that way could screw up in the way of permissions and file links.
Within Disk Utility, it seems it is absolutely not possible to change a volume name without clicking the Partition tab, and that involves erasing.
Given the choice, I'd probably choose to rename (erase and repartition) the Time Machine drive. A current backup or two on Time Machine, and I'm good. I don't really need to go 'way back' to recover files, because I really don't ever erase anything. I just keep buying bigger drives!
And I still burn the 'absolutely critical, priceless, can't ever be without this stuff' files to DVD or CD at least monthly or quarterly, in case one of my TM or backup drives fails at the same time as my primary hard drive. Call me paranoid, but I worked in Information Technology for many years: Murphy was an optimist!
Message was edited by: kostby

Time machine with 10.5 Server (+thrashing external hard drive)

I run MacOS server to provide support for a small group of collaborators -- mainly via SVN and Wikis, as well as a static website that is publicly accessible, all running off a Mac Mini.
I want to use Time Machine to keep a backup, so I can quickly get up and running if anything goes wrong.
However, when Time Machine is switched on, it seems to spend an inordinate amount of time thrashing the external hard drive (a 1GB in a separate enclosure, connected via Firewire). Looking at top shows du using ~70% of one of the cores on the Mini, and the thrashing lasts for 20 or 30 minutes at a time, even though very little has changed on the server (the wikis get updated at most once a day, and the website gets visit a 10s of times in 24 hours).
Turning off time machine silences du (and the somewhat noisy hard drive)
Any suggestions (or tips for using Time Machine to back up a server in general -- once I get this sorted I plan to test that I can actually recover the server from the backup and install on a new machine)

Turns out that the thrashing was due to Sharepoint; but it was only an issue when time machine was running (so far as I can see). Am still checking that the problem does not come back, but will mark this as solved.

If I deleted a file on my Mac would Time Machine delete its copy on my external hard drive when backing up?

I just finished backing everything up onto my new 2T WD My Book Essential because my Macbook Pro is absolutely full of Photoshop files. I want to delete them from my Mac (since they're backed up) but I'm too scared Time Machine will delete them from my external hard drive.
Thanks in advance.

Move the images over to an external drive that is connected to your Mac by USB or FireWire.
Then....Time Machine will backup both your Mac..and..the hard drive automatically.
Can you elaborate on this?
I have a 128GB McAir (mid 2011 model) with a 2GB TC for backup. I need another external hard drive to save pictures and home HD videos. I wanted to partition the TC but learned that is not recommended. So now I’m looking to get two external hard drives to store priceless files and back it up.
Your comment makes me think I only need one external hard drive and use the 2GB TC as backup. A good option since 2GB is an overkill for a 128GB notebook.
Can you please share the steps? Plug in a HDD to McAir and run Time Machine? Is that it?
Thanks.

I have just installed a 2TB time capsule on my iMac i7, it see my second 1TB hard drive but the 256 SSD doesn't come up in the list of hard drives I can back up. How can I enable the time machine to see my first SSD 256gb hard drive?

I have just installed a 2TB time capsule on my iMac i7, it see my second 1TB hard drive but the 256 SSD doesn't come up in the list of hard drives I can back up. How can I enable the time machine to see my first SSD 256gb hard drive?

iLife is preinstalled on all the Macs. If you purchased iLife in the App Store or your computer came without DVDs, open App Store > Purchases and download the applications. If your Mac came with discs, insert the Applications DVD and install iLife applications

I upgraded to Maverick and now Time Machine will not connect to the external hard drive to back up files. The external hard drive is a Western Digital "My Book Live" 2 TB. How do I solve problem?

I upgraded to Maverick and now Time Machine will not connect to the external hard drive to back up files. The external hard drive is a Western Digital "My Book Live" 2 TB. How do I solve problem?

I also had problem accessing my WD MyBookLive after upgrading to Maverick.
To resolve the problem, I used Connect To Server (Cmd K) to specify the IP address.
Then I enter a user id and password I created in the MyBookLive.
You can also verify that you have admin access to the MyBookLive using Safari or Chrome.
Just enter the MyBookLive IP address as the URL.

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I have the new 2011 macbook pro, with lion preinstalled. I want to change the harddrive. I have backed up everything on time machine. when i put my new blank hard drive in will the lion screen startup.How do i get the lion dmg when i am already using lion

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NicholasLiban -
When you use the Lion restore as described, it does a fresh install on the hard drive that you can select at the beginning of the process. This provides a complete install of the very latest version of Lion, including the recovery partition. The drive that you choose for the installation destination winds up like what you would have on a brand new computer from Apple.
- Randy

Why is my Time Machine Backup Taking More Space then my Hard Drive?

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