Hardware :: Using Drobo For Time Machine Backups
Sep 30, 2009
Does anyone know if partitioning a Drobo is "necessary" if you're planning on using your Drobo as your Time Machine Volume. I called Data Robotics about this and they weren't even able to give me a straight answer. They did tell me that Apple recommends partitioning the Drobo if you're planning on using it as your Time Machine volume, but they weren't sure why this was recommended (strange that they wouldn't know, if you ask me).
Here is my current situation:
I recently purchased a Drobo (4-Bay; Firewire 800) and I plan on filling the Drobo with 4 1TB drives and using it exclusively for Time Machine backups. I have no need whatsoever for storing any additional data on my Drobo other than the data backed up by Time Machine (which would be one reason why someone might want to partition the Drobo... but this is not the case for me).
Here's the thing that makes me believe that it might be "necessary" to partition the Drobo. When I initially formatted the drives and setup my 4x 1TB drives as a single mounted volume (2.7TB of usable storage space), the Drobo Dashboard utility requires that you choose a specify a volume size by picking a size between 1-16TB, and they recommend choosing a volume size that will be large enough to store all of your files for the foreseeable future. See the image below (photo below was taken with my iPhone and uploaded to the web via the cool new DropBox app):
Seeing as how it's a 4-Bay Drive and thought I currently have 4 1TB drives in it, I can't imaging ever putting more than 4 2TB drives in it, and so I've specified a volume size of 8TB for my Drobo. Anyone who has ever used a Drobo knows that in the Finder, this volume is listed as having 8TB of usable storage space available, though in reality you actually have less than that (in my case as I stated earlier, my 4x 1TB drives provide for 2.7TB of usable storage space).
Perhaps the Drobo might need to be formatted so that once the Time Machine backups fill up the 2.7TB of space, that it doesn't inadvertently think that there are 8TB of space available and then it erroneously continues backing up (which would theoretically result in problems). This is just a theory as to why partitioning might be "necessary". Can anyone confirm or deny whether or not partitioning the Drobo volume is "required" if I plan on using the Drobo as my dedicated Time Machine volume?
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Sep 30, 2008
My Time Machine has been making the usual regular backups for a few months onto my Time Capsule. I just found that all the backups prior to about a week ago have vanished. It's not a disaster (I think) as I assume that the current backups reflect what's on my iMac (I haven't had to delete files from it yet).
Where did they go? Why did they go?
A possible connection: My TC is 500GB; my iMac 1TB. I recently put extra files for temporary use onto the iMac hard drive - Time Machine said (in effect) 'that's too much, try removing certain folders from the backup'. I excluded said folder and things seemed okay, but it would be at around the time I did that that my old backups have gone.
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Nov 4, 2009
Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem with the Time Machine. I bought a 500gb Time Capsule last July and it has been running perfectly until a few days agp. I noticed that all my backups were no where to be seen (when entering Time Machine on my MBP) and that it was doing a full backup.. The backup took the guts of 36 hours.
I've come home today to find that all backups are gone again and it is doing another full backup!!!Any ideas what is wrong here?
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Jun 17, 2012
I plan to 'clean up' my Time Machine/Time capsule completely, whereby I want to make it impossible for third parties to recover all or part of these old backups.After I have accompished this I want to start from scratch backing up my Mac.
Info:
iMac 27" i7, Mac OS X (10.6.6)
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Sep 4, 2014
I just switched from hdd to ssd and i want to resume my Timechine backups, but it says that I have incorrect date and time set in my mac.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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Jul 2, 2012
I have an iMac running the latest version of Lion (10.7.4) and which I have upgraded to a one terabyte hard drive and full memory capability. I back up to a My Book 2 terabyte external hard drive using Time Machine. My iMac is often very sticky, though I've done most of the diagnostics I know of and preferences etc. are seemingly all OK and fcuk -fs gives a positive result! The Mac is often hard to wake from sleep and in particular seems to spend a lot of time backing up very-very slowly, with the result that it frustratingly seems to be backing up most of the time with the consequent effects on using other programs. Also the whole thing seems to grind to a halt after a hard days work with quite a few applications open. I'm wondering what can be causing this and what I can do to overcome this very frustrating and debilitating problem?
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.2)
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May 23, 2012
I've backup my Macbook Air Using time machine before reformat it to have window partition.However, after installing OS Lion 10.7.4, how do I restore back all my application and data on my last backup from time machine?
Info:MacBook Air
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Jan 27, 2009
I bought a 500gb Time Capsule last July and it has been running perfectly until a few days agp. I noticed that all my backups were no where to be seen (when entering Time Machine on my MBP) and that it was doing a full backup.. The backup took the guts of 36 hours. I've come home today to find that all backups are gone again and it is doing another full backup.
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Jun 28, 2009
My Time Machine has been making the usual regular backups for a few months onto my Time Capsule. I just found that all the backups prior to about a week ago have vanished. It's not a disaster (I think) as I assume that the current backups reflect what's on my iMac (I haven't had to delete files from it yet). Where did they go? Why did they go? A possible connection: My TC is 500GB; my iMac 1TB. I recently put extra files for temporary use onto the iMac hard drive - Time Machine said (in effect) 'that's too much, try removing certain folders from the backup'. I excluded said folder and things seemed okay, but it would be at around the time I did that that my old backups have gone. What do you guys think? Have I messed up and how do I avoid a repetition?
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Aug 12, 2010
Is it suppose to back up your whole HDD everytime? I thought the first time it was suppose to then after just stuff that was added to the Mac since the last backup?
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Oct 31, 2007
I'm lost in trying to delete the backup directories created by Time Machine. I've moved disks around on my network and TIme Machine doesn't seem to remember that it's backed up a given system to a given disk previously, after moving the disk to a different server. So I'm content to start over and I went to /Volumes/Backupdisk/Backups.backupdb and tried 'sudo rm -rf *' to get rid of the existing backups in preparation to start over. It wouldn't let me remove them getting the error 'Operation not permitted'. I note that 'ls -l' shows a lot of rwxr-xr-x@ with the @ sign at the end and I'm assuming that this is a hard link, but I don't know. I'm also thinking this is why rm won't work - multiple hard links?
I really don't want to re-format the disk. BTW I am currently trying to use Time Machine to delete all the file but that is taking FOR EVER and I'm not sure its actually doing anything. Its been about 30 minutes and there's been not reported increase in disk space. Its like its still preparing to delete.
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Jan 16, 2010
I started using Time Machine on Jan. 9th with an initial backup onto my LaCie Firewire drive (MBP 17inch SSD with three partitions). That backup was about 55GB. I am using the 'regular' settings on Time Machine - the LaCie Drive is the only item on the exclusion list (I guess Time Machine put it there itself). Since then TM does its thing every hour. When I enter TM I see all those backups. However, there's a big difference between the 'NOW' and all the backups, even the one just an hour ago. E.g., the download folder has now 47 items, whereas the backups all show 35 (the number of the initial backup). The Entourage database has also grown, but any backup shows the size of the initial backup.
I verified this by restoring a database and opening it in Entourage and sure enough the last message shows a date of Jan. 9th. TimeTracker shows many backups since the initial backup with 0 bytes or some smallish number of KB - only a few are in the MB range (total is around 150MB since Jan. 9th). Bottom line, TM does not really backup incrementally. Has anybody experienced this malfunction? What would be the solution to this problem? Any tweaks, settings to change? I'm using a Firewire 800>400 cable (9-pin to 6-pin, 24K gold-plated connectors) from SIIG - could this be the cause? But why would the initial backup work just fine plus all the others allegedly being performed?
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Oct 20, 2010
Why isn't TM deleting my old back-ups to make room for the new ones? I have 25 GB space left in my TM partition and 35 GB is needed for a new back-up but it keeps telling me it is failing to do the back-up for lack of space.
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Nov 11, 2010
i got a new hard drive and i am trying to copy time machine backups. I am using disk utility and it is taking days......it tehre any other way to move them besides using disk utility restore function? i tried to drag and drop didnt work.
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Feb 4, 2009
So I just replaced my drive with an SSD. I'll post a topic about that later, but for now I want to limit this discussion to the migration from drive to drive. I should have just gone with the cloning approach from the beginning, but I was curious to try out a time machine recovery. So before performing the upgrade, I made sure that my Time Machine Drive had the most recent backups of everything. I swapped the drives and installed Leopard from the install DVD. When it prompted me to recover from time machine, I started the recovery. Everything finished successfully. When I rebooted the computer, some thing seemed a bit weird. My mouse sensitivity was different and my "stack" was showing the icons, instead of the folder like it usually does. I realized that I was no longer on 10.5.6. I was on 10.5.0, obviously. So I performed all the software updates. I restarted and there were a few more software updates. Updated those too. Okay now surely, I was good to go.
I was able to make my "stack" back into a folder and I could fix my mouse sensitivity (I think the reason why it went wonky was due to the addition of the trackpad pref pane in 10.5.6 and the lack of it in 10.5.0). Safari booted up fine. Then I clicked on Firefox. The icon bounced once, but no app. Weird... I figured maybe there was some sort of permissions error. I deleted firefox and reinstalled it. Same issue... Then I tried to start up Entourage. I got an error about not having proper permissions. I googled the issue and it looks like other people have had errors with Time Machine backups and Entourage..................
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Feb 9, 2009
I have just deleted some folders from Time Machine (by clicking on the gears and then clicking "delete all backups of ..... "), but I didn't get the hard drive space back on the Time Capsule.
I deleted about 50GB but Time Capsule reports having the same amount of space available as before the deletion.
Is this usual? How do I get the space back?
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Feb 15, 2009
I noticed today that Time Machine was taking an awful long time to do a backup, but I didn't think much of it until an alert popped up that said it was 150GB short of space. There's no change I gone near 150GB of changes to anything today, since the last hourly backup.I looked at the Time Machine HD, and there is only one folder left inside the backup.backupdb/Mac Pro/ folder, and in Time Machine there is only 'Today' left in the time bar thing. So it seems months of valuable backups have just vanished for no good reason!Is there any way to find out what Time Machine is trying to backup, and why?And I assume there's not much hope of restoring my lost backups?
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May 15, 2009
My imac hard drive broke and I have managed to get about 90% of stuff I need back on the new hard drive.
I was using time machine for back ups. I have a freecom 160gb external hard drive.
I only seem to have one partial back up available which says its in progress.
All my other back ups have gone.
The external HD however is showing 26.8 gb of 153.4 gb available.
I assume all my previous data is on there but how do I get to it ?
I really now only want to rescue some excel files , pictures and movies. as I have loaded all stuff back onto my new internal HD.
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Jun 2, 2009
I got home from work today to see a message about needing 232.79GB to backup but only having ~100GB.Firstly that makes no sense because I "only" have 200GB of files on my hard drive (although obviously the backup would need more), but more importantly there is no way they have all changed since yesterday.I opened the time machine backup and noticed it had deleted every single backup apart from one from last night.From late last night (don't know how far back it goes, console.app doesn't show much further back) until the time when I got home.Has anyone got any idea why it has done this, there is no reason for it that i can work out and now I'm a bit worried it is going to start screwing up backups in the future.
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Jun 29, 2009
keyboard was gone. anyway, I turned it off and I'm waiting for it to dry. I don't know the real amount of the damages. I know that maybe I will have to bury it, but I have another problem. Computers store enormous amount of important information nowadays... like, for instance, my thesis, very useful in a few months when I'm taking my degree in engineering :-) I have some backups but... the most recent of them were taken by time machine. so I have two questions:
1. In the worst situation, in which I have to buy a completely new macbook because mine drowned in my 5 o'clock coffee... :-) will I be able to get my thesis from my time machine backups? I mean, the HD won't be the same, will it be possible?
2. Now, I'm working on my Linux system... I see it can access the time machine HD... but I can't understand how it is organised. Is it possible to get my thesis (LyX file) with my Linux system? I guess it is not... but I ask it anyway.
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Aug 25, 2009
I have a 1TB external drive hooked up via Firewire 800 to my PMG5 and I just got a new 2TB external drive hooked up via Firewire 400. I am trying to transfer the old backup to the new drive (around 800GB) and after 2 attempts, each lasting around 15 hours, nothing happens. It just stays stuck on the transfer screen "preparing copy to" and states like 350,000 files and just pends there. Finder is not crashed either. First time, I thought it was maybe because i had Time Machine still backup so the 2nd time, I turned it off and still the same. You see it scan and get to the 350k files and then it just sits there. Can I not just Copy, Paste the backup from one drive to another?
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Sep 2, 2009
I have a mid-2007 MBP 17" that I upgraded to SL. I've noticed that time machine seems to go every 20-25 minutes or so, instead of every hour. I checked the .plist in launchdaemons, and it's set to 3600 seconds. (I could be crazy, but it also seems that my screen is shutting off too fast, but I haven't timed it so I might be imagining it).
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Jan 9, 2010
Time Machine has always been working correctly but I no longer can make it work. I noticed no backup was available, only "Now" is in the time axis. So, I erased the entire disk and tried to set it up again, but still it doesn't work. 30GBs has been stored, but nothing is in the time axis except "Now". Any idea why it is not backing up?
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Jan 17, 2010
I'm planning on buying an Airport Extreme and hook an external drive to it so it can do TM backups wirelessly. Will Time Machine allow the external drive to handle two separate Time Machine backups (my MBP and my wife's MBP) or will Time Machine only allow the drive to do one of them?
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May 14, 2010
I am temporarily using an older mac (os x 10.4 - it isn't an intel mac so installing os x 10.6 isn't possible I believe). However, I want to restore some of my time machine backups to this computer. When I try to copy the files and remove my backup disk the files won't work.
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Feb 29, 2012
I have a WD 500GB harddrive which has worked wonders for time machine, but I've noticed and canceled that the past 2 days when I've tried to "back up"
it starts to calculate the files then starts deleting old back ups, Either I've never noticed this before or this is abnormal?
Just thinking that to do time machine you need old back ups so it doesn't appear right to me.
Info:
Mac Pro, time machine
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Jun 23, 2014
I regularly back up my system ( every couple of weeks! ) and data to an external 2TB drive however I only really need a copy of recent state of system and data. Will it be good practice to enter time machine and go back to the old back ups and delete so that only recent backs up are maintained on drive. This would also free up space on my external drive? I just want to ensure deleting old back ups does not harm the integrity of the data.
Also i wanted to ascertain if it is possible to use time machine drive in another mac and simply drag and drop files from the latest back up onto this other computer?
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Sep 12, 2010
After having my 1TB G-Tech G-Drive Q desktop external h.d. crap out on me for a second or third time, this time for good, I give up on G-Tech. (I also had a faulty 500GB G-Tech portable which had to be replaced.)For many reasons, my iMac's Time Machine backups have to be stored on an external hard drive rather than on our Time Capsule. Two or three times in the past year or so, the external h.d. has become corrupted or something and has had to be reformatted, losing all the previous backups and starting all over again. This time, since the external h.d. is toast, I have no backups at all.
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Oct 30, 2010
I have a Mini (OSX 10.6.4) and a 1TB external drive that I use for TM. When I connect the drive two backups are made. They are the same size and contain the same number of files. Why two backups are made?
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Jan 5, 2011
Ok, so I have been running on a MacBook for over 2 years, now I want to be able to restore everything from my MacBook Time Machine Backup to my Mac Mini?
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