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Time Machine Backup too large?

A

Apogee

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2008
47
0
I am currently trying to backup the contents of my Macbook Pro to a Time Machine drive. With my 500gb TM drive, I figured I should have more than enough to backup my 250gb hard drive, but it turns out that I need 596gb to do it. How is that possible?!

I currently have file vault switched on, could it be the cause?
 
Yes. FileVault and Time Machine currently don't get along very well. All Time Machine can do when it backs up a FileVaulted computer is back up the sparse image FileVault creates, which means that space available for backups will run out VERY quickly, as you have experienced.

For now, if you have important files that you want to keep safe yet have Time Machine back up other stuff normally, put these files inside an encrypted disk image. You can make one of these from Disk Utility - just select New (Blank) Image from the file menu, choose the encryption method and size you want, then add files to the image. Once done, make sure to unmount the image. This locks it.
 
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