Time Machine: 500GB -> 500GB?

[Mr. Monsieur]

Hey folks!

So...I'm trying to do a TM backup for my 500GB HD to a 500GB external HD. The external is completely empty and the internal has 52GB free. TM refuses to backup, however, saying that it has 522GB of info to backup (?!), so the 500GB external drive is not sufficient...
Can anyone explain this to me?

Thanks in advance!

 

[I3eXa]

you probably need to reformat your TM drive and start over. Even though you delete stuff off a drive it sometimes is still 'there'.

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

?

Pardon my ignorance (I know I've done this before!), but how will I go about reformatting? Do I delete the partition and re-partition? Do I reformat the partition (if so, how?)
Thanks again!

 

[I3eXa]

as long as there isn't anything on the drive that you need just connect it and run Disk Utility. select the drive,and click on the erase tab and select the type you want....Mac os case sensitive, mac os extended journaled (thats what I use)....

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

as long as there isn't anything on the drive that you need just connect it and run Disk Utility. select the drive,and click on the erase tab and select the type you want....Mac os case sensitive, mac os extended journaled (thats what I use)....

OK...so I did this...it's still telling me there's 528GB of data on my 500GB drive! Any other thoughts?

 

[I3eXa]

hmm...how old is the drive??? Wonder if its table is corrupt and giving the system false information.

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

This is the drive:

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-UltraM...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1259387148&sr=1-22

I've had it for about a year and a half. I upgraded from a MacBook (320GB) to a MacBook Pro (500GB) recently, so I deleted the backup drive (it took about 7 hours for a single pass!) just to make sure that the old TM backup didn't interfere with the new TM backup (the MacBook had Leopard on it)...
If I don't have any luck, I guess I'll just move some of my data onto a separate HD for the time being...

 

[mysterytramp]

Are you running Snow Leopard? This could be an artifact with the change in calculating hard drive sizes. (That's just one of about a dozen threads on the topic.)

You might have to prune your internal disk. Are there files that are no longer necessary? Can you back them up to CDs or DVDs and feel adequately secure? Are there extra, unneeded users?

You might also have to choose folders on your internal hard drive that you can tell Time Machine to exclude. For example, you might not need to backup your Applications folder, since most/all of your apps are available on line or you have the install disks.

This will have the effect of "freeing up" space on your backup disk.

But be careful ... Make sure you know where applications store data. Almost always, software creates a file that you save in your Documents folder. Sometimes, the data gets stored in the "Application Support" folders. Sometimes in the application itself.

mt

 

[razorme]

Hey folks!

So...I'm trying to do a TM backup for my 500GB HD to a 500GB external HD. The external is completely empty and the internal has 52GB free. TM refuses to backup, however, saying that it has 522GB of info to backup (?!), so the 500GB external drive is not sufficient...
Can anyone explain this to me?

Thanks in advance!

Try excluding a folder with ~50GB or so for your first backup. Once it is done, you might be able to add it in, as I have noticed the backups take less space than the source (whether it is excluding system files, or compressing, I'm not sure).

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

Thanks!

Thanks folks!

I went ahead and moved some of my data onto another external drive and everything seems to be working all right now...