OS X :: Time Machine Not Working / Backup Is Too Large For The Backup Volume
May 23, 2009
Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads: "This backup is too large for the backup volume."
Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp. The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs.
Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF?
This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder.
I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!!
Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely???
Some quick screenshots:
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Oct 26, 2008
I am getting the following error from Time Machine when doing my first backup. The startup disk being backed up, and the TM disk are both the same size.
Macintosh HD: 465.44 (total); 393.99 (free); 71.45 (free)
Time Machine: 465.44 (total); 465.29 (free)
The Time Machine error is: Quote:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 472.7 GB but only 465.3 GB are available." why would this be? Other disks are excluded from the backup, and Time Machine is telling me that it needs more space than it actually needs. What should I do?
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Jan 27, 2009
Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads: "This backup is too large for the backup volume." Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp. The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs. Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF? This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder. I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!! Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely?
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Feb 10, 2012
my TM wil not back up! It states that this backup is too large for the backup disk. The back up disk requires 573.50 GB but only 225.23 GB are available. The TM needs work space on the backup disk, in addition to the space required to store backups. Upen TM perferences to select a LARGER backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding file.
Okay I;m sorry but obvioulsy I dont get this. I've never called Apple for help! I have every product they sell practically including Protection Plans I never used and no one will help me with this. My MAC is starting to have black or white screens and i can hear it running but it will not do anything so i have to reboot it, it screws up Enturage and then I have to rebuild that ( 5 times this year) anyway... I would like to back everything up- can I delete everything on the Time Capsule or Time Machine; god I dont even know what it is called Im so MAD... help if you can please. I'm going to have to take this to the genius people at the store and probably buy another computer but like before they will not save my files.
Info:
Mac OS X (10.7.3), time cap or Time Machine
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Feb 7, 2008
I've been having a problem with Time Machine lately (OS 10.5.1). My computer is set up as follows:
Internal iMac HD
Firewire external HD (music)
USB external HD (Time Machine)
I have Time Machine back up the internal and firewire (music) drives. The initial backup takes up appx. 290GB of my 500GB TM drive. Subsequent backups function as normal, until a restart.
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Jan 13, 2010
I am using Time Machine with my external drive. And since my external hard disk does not have too much capacity, from the time machine options I excluded some folders like movies, music etc. So in time machine preferences it seems it needs 42gb for backup. And it was working like this, backing up 42gb and everyday just backing up changes like 100mb. So in hard drive more or less 50gb was used..70gb free. Until last week.
Suddenly it appeared an error like this "This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 128 GB but only 97 GB are available". I do not have any idea how this can happen since my backup size seems like 42gb still in options. How it can require 128GB suddenly? Also how can I have 97GB available? I had 70GB last week? I tried to include everything in backup options and exclude again but it does not work. Still I see there 42gb needed for backup but when I connect the drive I am still getting the same error!
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Mar 12, 2010
Is there any way to find and delete large "unwanted" files from a Time Machine backup on a Time Capsule? Lets say you have some big ISO-files you want to remove but don't know at what date they were backed up.I tried to mount the Time Machine backup image and locate big files with GrandPerspective but it didn't really work.
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Apr 17, 2012
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?
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Nov 15, 2007
Time Machine has been running fine for a week now. Suddenly, today, I get this error message:
The Machine Error
The backup volume is read only.
To select a different volume, open System Preferences and choose Time Machine.
I didn't change anything to make it read-only, and it's far from full.
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Feb 20, 2009
I just got my Mac back from a repair at the Apple Store. I was very excited to have everything back. However, Time Machine cannot back up! The error given is that the backup volume "cannot be found."
I've tried rebooting, remounting the drive and doing checks on it. Everything checks out. I can even write and read to and from the backup volume just fine via Finder. The only issue is that Time Machine can't. What's the problem? How do I fix it?
Attached is a screenshot of my Finder window next to the Time Machine Sys Prefs window.
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Mar 4, 2009
I have been backing up my computers to an external HD with Time Machine for some time, but I just bought a 1Tb Time Capsule today. Is there a way to move/copy my existing TM backups to the new drive (in the Time Capsule), rather than starting a whole new backup, so that I can preserve my existing TM 'history'? I could just start a new backup, but it would only back up the 'current state', and I would lose all the prior data.
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Nov 23, 2008
Any clues to this error... I've been getting it fairly frequently as of late. Probably every few days.
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume.
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Jan 1, 2009
I've spent a good deal of time over three days trying to do something that I think is both doable and shouldn't be all that hard. I have a 750gb external HD attached to a Mini, and I'd like to use that drive to do TM backups for the Mini, as well as three MacBooks.
But I can't seem to get access to the backup drive from the laptops to either get going in the first place, or to remain available for TM. I get "volume can't be mounted" errors, "image can't be mounted errors", etc. I find that I can't ever eject the backup drive from the Mini (always told an application is using it...even if I've just booted up the Mini). And with one of the MacBooks, even a direct FW connection to the drive doesn't result in the drive showing up in Finder.
Isn't this a pretty straightforward thing to do? Is there a step by step somewhere that might help me figure out what I'm doing wrong, or what I need to fix? Should I reformat the drive again and start over (there are no important backups on it yet)? By the way, the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
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Mar 14, 2009
I'm having trouble backing up with Time Machine. Here's the setup:
1. Three, 1TB external hard drives in a concatenated software RAID. This means that they are treated as one large drive. There is no mirroring, no increased data rate, blah blah blah. It's just three hard drives in the place of one. I am aware that this means my backup is three times as likely to fail with the hardware, but that's OK.
2. These three are connected to a USB hub.
3. This hub is connected to a G5 tower. The G5 tower can back up to the concatenated drives (I'll call them just a RAID from here on), and also all additional external hard drives that I connect to the G5 tower have been backing up to the RAID no problem. This is great.
Here's the problem:
I'm trying to get two more computers to back up to the RAID wirelessly. I read a lot online about how this didn't used to be a supported feature (backing up to an external hard drive over a network with time machine), but that Apple has recently upgraded Time Machine to support this functionality.
The first computer I started with to try to backup over the network was a Macbook Pro, trying to get it to backup to this RAID. It can see the RAID over the network, mount it, copy files to it/read it, but CANNOT time machine backup to it. I select the network RAID as the backup device, hit "back up now," then get this message:
"The external volume cannot be mounted."
This is really bizzare, considering that it is mounted, and that I can copy to it. Just for your information, I have an airport extreme wireless network that has been working beautifully, no Keychain access issues, no 3rd party firewall, nothing. I've run through Applecare on this issue: the MacBook Pro has never done ANY time machine backup on the RAID, not even a partial one, so there's no dangling sparse bundle or backup folder or anything like that. All network permissions check out, etc. I've tried repairing the RAID with disk utility, as well as repairing permissions (although I have not done either of these things to the MacBookPro).
The latest thing I tried was plugging the RAID directly into the Macbook Pro. Here's where I got the first clue (at least I think so)...Plugged DIRECTLY into the MacBook Pro, the RAID will mount, but the MacBook Pro WILL NOT backup to the RAID. It gives me the same message: the selected volume cannot be mounted. Again, this is strange considering that, just like when I am viewing the RAID over the network, plugged directly into the MacBook Pro the RAID will mount, I can read it, copy files to it, etc.
I have considered plugging the RAID into the Airport extreme directly, but first of all this would mean much slower transfer speeds with the G5 tower, which is a big issue considering the files I am backing up every day, and two, since it seems that the RAID won't be recognized by the MacBook Pro even when plugged in directly, I'm thinking that this is a more fundamental issue.
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Jun 19, 2012
if i am running my new lion OS on drive #1 and i have a Raid1 array on drive #3 and #4 with all my DATA - can i back this up using Time Machine? i would like to place my OS's on a single drive and have my DATA in a raid array but if this means that i lose the ability to retain a Time Machine backup of my data i will simply upgrade to Lion and keep the data on this drive so it can continue to get backed up in time.
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Dec 11, 2009
I have looked into this a lot already. It is to much that Time Machine backs up every single hour! It would be nice to set it to something like 3 or 5 hours. I have tried a 3rd party app to do this, but... If my computer was off or asleep when it was supposed to back up, it would get an error. It would not just do the backup when i turned it on or when it came out of sleep like stock Time Machine does. I have also seen a way to change the time incraments in the Terminal.(I am very good with it, not a noob) I have tried this and it screws up time machine completely. Maybe it does not work with the newest OS X. By the way... I have a 2010 MacBook Pro, got it 2 months ago.
Does anyone know a solid 3rd party app, that will work seamlessly. Or has anyone changed the time in Terminal and are currently using something different than 1 hour. There is a lot of examples online, but I would like the codeing that you literally used.
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Aug 4, 2009
i have got an Apple minimac 80gb 10.5.7 with leopard and i bought a small drive of i think it is 116gb and time machine seemed to work ok,but i kept getting msg saying full,i did an erase on small drive and in finder i can see a drive called untitled,but if i click on time machine there are no backup dates?
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Jun 12, 2012
I'm using 10.5.8 and Time Machine on a time capsule which should have enough space. I've unchecked the "ask before deleting" option in Time Machine but no dice. I suspect that the problem stems from when I copied my iTunes folder into my public folder so that I can share among user accounts. It's not a copy of the folder but rather I moved it. Still, I think that time machine is trying to hold onto two copies.
Info:
iMac (24-inch Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.5.8)
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Mar 9, 2012
My new hard disk has used up some of it's capacity on unsuccesful back up attempts.
Info:
MacBook Pro
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Sep 6, 2014
I'm in the midst of moving from a 2011 imac to a 2014 - I have/had 3 TM backups 1) before the 2011 crashed and was repaired - 2) from the interim 2014 imac that I restored and updated for the new computer and 3) a "carbon copy clone" of my current drive because the apple tech made me wipe the drive and start over and it failed.
My computer will be here next week and I wanted to prepare. However since the restore of the repaired 2011 NO TIME MACHINE will back up on ALL 3 drives the same error happened. It would start fine and say it needed 17-22 hours to "create new" or "inherit" and would start fine and then freeze somewhere around 15-20GB????? I left it more than 6-7 hours and the freeze remained.
Need a TM expert...... this HAS to be a Mavericks OSX issue and I do not want to wipe another drive.
Info:
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), iOS 7.1.2
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May 1, 2008
I was a PC user who recently moved to mac. I have a macbook (intel 2.2GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD). When I was using PC, I backed up all my data to a network storage device (Buffalo LinkStation 250 GB connected to a 802.11g netgear router which is supplied by Sky) using a program called SmartSync Pro, which worked very well. Although I can connect to and mount the Share folder on this drive when the macbook is connected to the network, Time Machine will not back up to it. It wouldnt even recognise the disk on the network.
So I went onto the trusty internet, and found that you can get time machine to recognise the Share folder. (This was obtained from: http://blog.imulus.com/george/software/using-leopard-time-machine-to-backup-of-a-network/)See my comment on their page at the bottom, number 66.
It recommended entering the following in to the Terminal: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Before attempting backup I have to go into "Network" and select the Share folder by double clicking on it. This seems to mount the volume. After this, it can be seen in Time Machine as a potential backup destination.
However, this method does not work for me. Time Machine "prepares" for a while, then gives the following message: Time Machine error. The backup disk image could not be created.
More internet searching took me to macosxhints which suggests creating something called a sparsebundle image on my local system. (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137) Have not tried this yet as I thought it would be prudent to seek some help first.
Apple have deliberately disabled the ability for Time Machine to back up to network attached storage, (except of course to their proprietory Time Capsule):
Is this because time machine requires a network faster than 802.11g?
Is this because a time machine backup to a network attached storage device is unreliable and the data is corrupted?
I dont want to shell out more cash for a time capsule. I would prefer not to have to hardwire to an external drive (which I will also have to go out and buy). Any thoughts?
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Mar 20, 2012
I just purchased a Seagate 3 TB USB 2.0/3.0 external drive to use as my time machine backup drive. I have a MacBook Pro that was purchased about 3-4 years ago. The MacBook Pro has a 120 GB hard drive and is currently running MAC OSx 10.6.8. I also have another WD 1 TB FireWire external drive that I use to store all of my media files.
After I followed the instructions for installing the new Seagate drive for use with the MAC OSx, I initiated a time machine backup. It very quickly determined that it needed to back up almost 900,000 files totaling just about 400 GB. It started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. In a little less than an hour it reach 53 GB and remained there for an additional two hours before I decided to stop the backup.
Once I got the backup stopped, I deleted the backup and decided to look at my energy saving settings. I noticed that the "Put drives to sleep whenever possible" check box was checked, so I unchecked that option and restarted the MAC. I then initiated the time machine backup again. Like the first time it quickly determined that it needed to backup the same amount of data as before and started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. Before going to bed at around 11 PM last night it was at about 60 GB so I thought I was out of the woods (having gotten further than the 53 GB earlier). When I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM it was sitting at 69 GB.
I am really frustrated at this point and don't know why the time machine back up would be failing on a brand new hard drive. PS - I was previously using a Seagate 1.5 TB USB drive as my time machine backup and never had any issues with it. I decided to use the 1.5 TB drive for a different purpose, which is why I have the new 3 TB drive to use as a backup. And I still have the full backup on the 1.5 TB drive just in case anything were to go awry.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Apr 30, 2012
I have a external HD which has always worked fine under snow leopard. Since upgrading to lion I keep getting the following message The identity of the backup disk has changed since the previous backup.The disk may have been replaced or erased, or someone may be trying to trick your computer into backing up to the wrong disk. And after this the drive disappears from the desktop appearing agian only after restart. What can I do do rectify this? Delete and re-intialise the drive?
Info:
MacProQuad2.6 4gbRam, Mac OS X (10.4.8)
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Jan 9, 2010
Just wanted to check if he problem was unique to my MBA (Rev B, HDD) or you notice it too ;
My Time Machine backup takes up to 6 hours to do a backup of about 30GB. And each backup size is 31.5GB everytime !!
I have the following Config - 80 GB for OSX (53GB Free) and 40 GB (10GB Free) for Win 7 on Bootcamp. Sometimes I wonder if TM making a backup of Win 7 also everytime. (Does it mean - In a way its good, that means I should be able to restore the entire hard disk from TM including Applications, Win 7 , bootcamp and all the programmes installed in Win 7 in case I have a problem ?)
But the speed should still be fast... 6 hours to do a 32GB backup is torturous specially because then I have to leave the machine alone and cannot use it.
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Mar 9, 2012
Is there a way to make a backup of your Time Machine backup on a 2nd hard drive? I want to be doubly sure that my data is backed up!Right now I get an error saying that the second hard drive isn't authorized to copy my Time Machine data from the original hard drive I have set up as my Time Machine.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Jul 17, 2009
I have been trying to backup my computer for the longest time. It has been stuck on (53.4MB of 62.5MB) for about 45 minutes now. Any ideas? It is on an ethernet connection.
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Aug 5, 2009
It just says "Preparing Backup..." It stays like this forever until I stop it and I tried re-connecting the hard drive. Why won't this work? I tried re-starting...
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Jan 11, 2011
I just replaced the stock 160GB HD in my unibody macbook with a WD Blue Scorpio 640GB HD. I used Super Duper to clone the old drive to the new one, approximately 115 GB.
Now Time Machine wants to backup the full 115GB to my Time Capsule, which kinda sucks because it's going to be a redundent backup that's gonna take up over a 10th of my TC's space. Is there any way to avoid this and still use Time Machine?
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May 3, 2009
I have a 1tb external for time machine back up and have about 750 gb of stuff to back up. I was under the impression that when time machine backs up my stuff it will automatically delete the oldest backup to create room for the newer backup.
My problem is that i did a back up a couple weeks ago and then today i go to back up and it tells me back up failed only 718gb available for 740gb of stuff to back up
anyone have this problem? how can i fix it?
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Jun 30, 2014
There are 3 macs:
A: an old macbook (the white one)
B: a modern macbook pro (retina)
C: another modern macbook pro (TBD)
I am giving away B now; I expect to get C in 2 months time; I keep A with me all the time.
The goal is to migrate all of the data from B to C. I have Time Machine backups of B.
Since the transition is a long time (2 months), I need to keep working on my data during this period. For this I will use A. This will generate new files, modify old ones, ...
Since A's HDD is much smaller than B's backup, I can move only part of them.
By the way, I have totally erased A and used migration assistant to restore part of my old data from B. So, when I use A now, I do it with my same account as in B (and the same I will use in C).
How do I manage my backups in such a way that, when I will get C, I can safely move all of the data I had in B plus all of the changes and modifications that I have done during the 2 month transition?
Can I just continue to use Time Machine (on A) to update the old backups? I am afraid that some mess could be created because the computers are different (before the backups were taken on B, while now on A), even the present data are different (because now A only contains a subset of the original B data, which I do NOT want to lose), the good point is that the user is the same.
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