Time Machine backup disk full - what are my options?

[chudson1981]

Message to delete oldest backup on TM when full not appearing

I'm trying to figure out why my computer is not giving me a notification/option to delete the oldest backup on my 500 GB TM. All it keeps messaging me is latest back up failed & TM is full, but I'm not seeing this alternative to option to delete older back ups. Could someone point me to the answer or a direction to find one? Thanks for any assistance.

 

[WetcoastBob]

I installed SL on Oct 4th and started TM for the first time. I just found out that TM deleted ALL the backups from October! I also did not receive notice that this happened!!

 

[nano2nd]

Time Machine on Software RAID

Here's an interesting spin on this Time Machine issue.

I was constantly frustrated with the limitation of Time Machine to a single USB connected disk in my home setup, especially as my main "Mac HD" drive contains all my photos and music (currently running to around 500GB used).

My original Time Machine drive was a 500GB in a USB connected SATA Quickport dock. Like this one.

Rather than just replace the single drive with one of a larger capacity, using Disk Utility, I created a RAID 0 striped pair using two 500GB drives, both connected via USB (via a Belkin hub) to create a single 1TB volume. Theoretically, you could do this with as many drives as you have available to create a monster Time Machine drive.

If you're moving from an existing TM disk to a RAIDed volume like this, you can use SuperDuper! to migrate the data over.

Caveat: RAID 0 is pretty risky - if one drive fails, you lose all the data.

 

[Pondini]

I'm trying to figure out why my computer is not giving me a notification/option to delete the oldest backup on my 500 GB TM. All it keeps messaging me is latest back up failed & TM is full, but I'm not seeing this alternative to option to delete older back ups. Could someone point me to the answer or a direction to find one? Thanks for any assistance.

Try un-checking the Warn when old backups are deleted box in TM Preferences > Options.

Then TM should delete them for you, automatically, when it needs room for new ones.

 

[AnimalMother]

Here's an interesting spin on this Time Machine issue.

...snip...

Rather than just replace the single drive with one of a larger capacity, using Disk Utility, I created a RAID 0 striped pair using two 500GB drives, both connected via USB (via a Belkin hub) to create a single 1TB volume. Theoretically, you could do this with as many drives as you have available to create a monster Time Machine drive.

...snip...

Caveat: RAID 0 is pretty risky - if one drive fails, you lose all the data.

quick question for you or others that might know. I have been doing something similar for some time now with a USB 500GB drive and a FW400 1TB drive. I used Disk Utility to create one large 1.5TB volume (I don't remember the setting I used but it is not striped or mirrored). I am out of space on the internal drive (iMac 1TB with a lot of HD movies and photos of the kids) and will move some HD movies to the FW 1TB drive and add a new USB backup drive (2TB) or drives (perhaps two X 1.5TB - 3TB for the same price as one 2TB drive). I'm not interested in a network storage solution.

Here is my question... if the (2) 1.5TB drives are combined into one volume and Snow Leopard crashes, can I load a new copy of Snow Leopard and access the existing Time Machine backup? Or since this is basically a type of software RAID am I hosed and can't get to the data?

Matt

 

[PhotoConnect]

An option to consider ...

I've had the same problem. My 750GB Time Machine backup drive filled up after 18 months. Here's what I did, and why:

1 I checked what folders were excluded from time machine. I excluded the whole OSX drive because I have all my data on a separate internal drive. I also excluded any media that I could recover from my CD and DVD collection. As I also have a Spotify subscription account my itunes library is effectively redundant now. My base backup is now 190GB.
2 Stopped Time Machine running through Time Machine settings.
3 Checked my Data disk was fully working with no errors using the Disk Utility.
4 Erased the Time Machine backup disk using the Disk Utility.
5 Re-selected the Time Machine backup disk using Time Machine set up.
6 Time Machine backup will start in 90 seconds after this.

I know this is a drastic solution but this was my reasoning:
- It gives me a new base-line time machine backup. I can't remember where a file was a month ago, so having 18 months of incremental backups is a waste of time for me.
- I've had to recover the whole of a disk in the past so I know that Time Machine can do this well when set up in a standard configuration. Partially deleting Time Machine incremental backup folders seems very dangerous to me. The same goes for having multiple USB backup disks - I'd be looking at a SAN storage/backup solution with guaranteed support and compatibility.
- Time Machine is not a complete backup solution. Important stuff like family photos and movies should be backed up to DVDs and stored in a fire safe / away from the home. It's not the end of the world if other stuff is lost.
- Why spend a load more money on bigger backup disks. Is the data really worth the cost of storing it twice.

 

[Pondini]

I've had the same problem. My 750GB Time Machine backup drive filled up after 18 months. Here's what I did, and why:

I know this is a drastic solution but this was my reasoning:
- It gives me a new base-line time machine backup. I can't remember where a file was a month ago, so having 18 months of incremental backups is a waste of time for me.

Why not just let TM delete the oldest backup(s) when it needs room for new ones?

And you don't save much space by excluding your system folders; but you will lose the things there, such as sysemwide preferences, some configuration, etc., data, and things put in the /Library folder by some 3rd-party apps.

 

[odotan]

the opposite problem

Hi, I seem to have the opposite problem of what most of you are experiencing. Namely, I've been using TM for some weeks when the drive was full and it automatically deleted the first backup. I did check the "warn when old backups are deleted", and in fact TM did warn, but sadly only *after* it had already deleted my first backup. Ridiculous behavior, in my opinion, to give a warning when it's too late to do anything about it.

In any case, I need help retrieving this first backup, which contained very important (crucial even) data. I cannot afford to lose this data, and I need a way to "undelete" these files.

I've looked up undelete utilities, but most of them just found jibberishy files and file fragments. I've also not been using the HD since in order to maximize the possibility of undeleting files (so that they are not over-written).

Does anybody know of such an undelete utility, or a way for me to tell time machine to please give me back that backup ?

 

[mysterytramp]

Does anybody know of such an undelete utility, or a way for me to tell time machine to please give me back that backup ?

Before looking for undelete software, have you scanned TM to see if the old file you need is available? Even if TM deleted an old backup, it's quite possible that old files still appear in "newer" backups.

mt

 

[dcocharro]

I just got a message that my Time Machine external backup disk is full. I have another external drive I can use, but buying drives every few months is going to get expensive.

I was wondering what others are doing in this situation.

Is anybody archiving the Time Machine backup? If so, what software are you using and where are you storing your backup?

What kind of backup plans are you using with Time Machine?

Thanks

Hi All!
I had the same problems and found this on the web:
http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2008/03/deleting-files-from-a-time-mac.html

http://blog.adamnash.com/2008/03/02/how-to-delete-individual-backups-from-apple-time-machine/

best regards

 

[starkiller66]

in the system preferences then in time machine then in options then press the plus button and you can exclude items from the backup which will save you tons of space on your disk

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MacBook 2nd gen 2gb ram 200gb hdd iPod 4 32gb 1tb backup disc

 

[duncyboy]

in the system preferences then in time machine then in options then press the plus button and you can exclude items from the backup which will save you tons of space on your disk

Seconded. I exclude my Downloads folder and the folder I use for streaming/copying files to my PS3 for starters. Saves me tons of room on my back-up drive.

 

[SABOND21]

Question

Does anyone know - is it possible to make just one backup with Time Machine and in the future always replace it? (Because for me there is no point to make 100 backups - I want to use my HD for other files too)

 

[talmy]

Use a disk cloning program like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. If you want to use your external drive for other things as well then partition the drive first since the clone needs to have it's own partition (it will be erased every time you back up.

 

[vincebio]

Does anyone know - is it possible to make just one backup with Time Machine and in the future always replace it? (Because for me there is no point to make 100 backups - I want to use my HD for other files too)

perhaps you dont realise that even if TM has 100 backups on your drive, if you only changed 1 file on each of those, then the size of the 100 backups would be very small...

it only backups up changes to the folders you dont have listed in your exclusion list.

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for anyone having storage issues with the backup sizes, i use an app called Back In Time 2..

ive just started using it, and even though i 'thought' i had excluded all the folders that i didnt need/want backed up, this app showed me exactly what folders were taking us the most space on my backups..

immense..

 

[niksimpsons]

Guys I have one more option just clicked in my mind . Why not we are using "clone" for the same purpose. Set Backup of time machine to external drive and when it is about to fill make clone (in compressed) of this external drive and save it to another external drive. This way you can archive your old data and there will be always room for new data in the drive.

May be I am thinking in wrong manner neither I ever tried this but I think it could work.

 

[talmy]

Set Backup of time machine to external drive and when it is about to fill make clone (in compressed) of this external drive and save it to another external drive. This way you can archive your old data and there will be always room for new data in the drive.

May be I am thinking in wrong manner neither I ever tried this but I think it could work.

It would work. I've cloned TimeMachine drives before.

However I look at this a bit differently. The files that get deleted from the TimeMachine volume, those "falling off of the end," are those that had been deleted presumably a long time ago. For instance, if your drive holds the past year of backups, these would be files that were deleted (or had been revised) at least a year ago. What chance is there that you would want a version that old or a file you decided you didn't want a year ago?

Now if you are deleting old files to make room on the system, that's another issue. What's missing in these discussions about backups is the need for something else, archival storage. When I'm finished with files that I might possibly want to see again 5-10 years in the future, I bundle them up and move them to an archive drive. This gets them off of my system. The archive drive is cloned since I always want more than one backup.

Now I don't care if my TimeMachine drive fills up. I know that files that I care about that "fall off the end" have been archived.

 

[Bob Biggs]

why don't you just start deleting some of the really old backups. TM is supposed to do that for you but i know some people don't get that to work. that's what i would do if you know your ok getting rid of some of the old stuff

[doublepost=1512065292][/doublepost]I tried this and the deleted backups stuck in trash and would not empty. Error message files in use.
Had to go through a lengthy process of using utility to try to erase the time machine. The trash files were only there when time machine was connected.