Time Machine problem.

macbusmacbus
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Hi,



I bought a Rugged 500gb external hard drive last year to use in conjunction with 'Time Machine'. Now, the MacBook Pro I have has a 350gb internal drive, so I think simple!! My external drive is larger than my internal drive so I won't need to buy 1tb Ext dreive, which I had intended to do this christmas. When I went to back up my 'Time Machine' last night, it's telling me I haven't enough space on my ext drive. It's nearly full!!!!, 488gb to be exact. Is there a way around this in the settings as I'm thinking there must be a huge amount of duplicates on the external hd and this is why it's happening?



Please someone, enlighten me to my current plight.



Thanks in advance,

Barry.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    Time Machine does incremental backups-- that is, it makes several backups over time as your files change so that you can go back and recover older files. This means that depending on how how much your hard disk changes and how long you've been using time machine, it can require a much much larger volume than the volume that you're backing up.



    The Wikipedia article has a pretty good description of how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Ma...%28software%29



    If you want to clean it up and save some space, open up the Time Machine volume in Finder and delete some of the oldest backups.



    NOTE: You WILL lose that data forever... you're deleting the backup of it. Just keep that in mind and choose wisely what backups you're getting rid of.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    It's just telling you that the HDD is getting full... you don't actually HAVE to do ANYthing. Time Machine will automatically delete the OLDEST backup info to create room to do the current backup... and so on and so on as necessary.

    You'll always have a full backup of your system as it was at the LATEST backup. You only loose the oldest data (stuff you deleted, or that was changed, months or years ago) as the disk fills up.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    Ah, I haven't got to the point where TM has had to free up space so I didn't know it handled it.
  • Reply 4 of 7
    rokcet scientistrokcet scientist Posts: 962member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post


    It's just telling you that the HDD is getting full... you don't actually HAVE to do ANYthing. Time Machine will automatically delete the OLDEST backup info to create room to do the current backup... and so on and so on as necessary.

    You'll always have a full backup of your system as it was at the LATEST backup. You only loose the oldest data (stuff you deleted, or that was changed, months or years ago) as the disk fills up.



    What if the external HD that houses the backup files also contains say 50 GB of e.g. MP3s, JPGs, or videos (because you didn't want all that to eat up all your internal HD's real estate)? Will TM overwrite those too as HD space gets tight? And, if so, will it overwrite those before overwriting the oldest backup files? I.o.w.: are TM's backup files on an external HD somehow prioritized relative to non-backup files on that same HD?
  • Reply 5 of 7
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rokcet Scientist View Post


    What if the external HD that houses the backup files also contains say 50 GB of e.g. MP3s, JPGs, or videos (because you didn't want all that to eat up all your internal HD's real estate)? Will TM overwrite those too as HD space gets tight? And, if so, will it overwrite those before overwriting the oldest backup files? I.o.w.: are TM's backup files on an external HD somehow prioritized relative to non-backup files on that same HD?



    No. Time Machine won't touch Non-TM files on the same HDD.

    TM creates a disk image (think of it as a virtual self-contained drive on the real drive... if that makes sense.) Time machine only writes and deletes files within that disk-image. It can expand it into empty space on the real HDD as needed, but cannot delete or overwrite other files you put onto the "real" HDD.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    macbusmacbus Posts: 15member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post


    No. Time Machine won't touch Non-TM files on the same HDD.

    TM creates a disk image (think of it as a virtual self-contained drive on the real drive... if that makes sense.) Time machine only writes and deletes files within that disk-image. It can expand it into empty space on the real HDD as needed, but cannot delete or overwrite other files you put onto the "real" HDD.



    Ahhh...it makes sense now. Thanks for all the replies guys and KOSH, thanks again.



    Regards,

    Barry.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    rokcet scientistrokcet scientist Posts: 962member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot View Post


    No. Time Machine won't touch Non-TM files on the same HDD.

    TM creates a disk image (think of it as a virtual self-contained drive on the real drive... if that makes sense.) Time machine only writes and deletes files within that disk-image. It can expand it into empty space on the real HDD as needed, but cannot delete or overwrite other files you put onto the "real" HDD.



    Cheers, your majesty.
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