Time Machine Not Backing Up Everything?!

[Mr. Monsieur]

Hey folks!

Thanks for checking out my post...
I needed some extra HD space, so I deleted the 1.5TB hard drive I've been using as my TM backup and thought I'd partition it and re-run TM in the partition.
I erased the drive and created two partitions: 1TB and 500GB. I transferred 250GB of files to the 500GB partition and then set-up the 1TB partition to be used as the TM backup. I ran TM and it told me that it had backed up 264GB...the problem is that my internal HD has 478GB of data on it...so...something's not being backed up.
My only thought at this point is to erase the HD again, re-partition it, and run TM first...and then transfer the data to the other partition.
Any thoughts before I begin this process again would be much appreciated!

 

[MacForScience]

Hey folks!

Thanks for checking out my post...
I needed some extra HD space, so I deleted the 1.5TB hard drive I've been using as my TM backup and thought I'd partition it and re-run TM in the partition.
I erased the drive and created two partitions: 1TB and 500GB. I transferred 250GB of files to the 500GB partition and then set-up the 1TB partition to be used as the TM backup. I ran TM and it told me that it had backed up 264GB...the problem is that my internal HD has 478GB of data on it...so...something's not being backed up.
My only thought at this point is to erase the HD again, re-partition it, and run TM first...and then transfer the data to the other partition.
Any thoughts before I begin this process again would be much appreciated!

Did you check your exclusions list for time machine? You do also realize that putting data on your backup drive that is not backed up data makes no sense. Because the point of a backup is to have the data in two places (not two partitions). Just a thought. My guess is that your issue may have something to do with the fact that time machine doesn't like backing up data on the same drive as the time machine volume (for the reason mentioned above).

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

Did you check your exclusions list for time machine? You do also realize that putting data on your backup drive that is not backed up data makes no sense. Because the point of a backup is to have the data in two places (not two partitions). Just a thought. My guess is that your issue may have something to do with the fact that time machine doesn't like backing up data on the same drive as the time machine volume (for the reason mentioned above).

Thanks...yeah, I checked my exclusions list (there are none) and yes, I do realize that. The data on the backup is from another external hard drive...
I think I'm going to just erase the drive and start from scratch...this time I'll run TM before I dump data into the other partition...
Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[sup3r1or]

as far as I read on Apples website time machine does backup but not everything. It should backup all the data but not all the permissions. Why dont you try CarbonCopy Cloner?

 

[Lincoln 6 Echo]

How about 'Write-Only' folders?

Anyone know if Time Machine backs-up 'Write-Only' folders?

(I don't mean to hijack a thread but I think Mr. Monsieur received a conclusion, and I didn't want to start a seperate thread.)

 

[Hal Itosis]

Here is a list of "standard exclusions"...

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Blue"]defaults read /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions[/COLOR]
{
    ContentsExcluded =     (
        "/Volumes",
        "/Network",
        "/automount",
        "/.vol",
        "/tmp",
        "/cores",
        "/private/tmp",
        "/private/Network",
        "/private/tftpboot",
        "/private/var/automount",
        "/private/var/folders",
        "/private/var/run",
        "/private/var/tmp",
        "/private/var/vm",
        "/private/var/db/dhcpclient",
        "/private/var/db/fseventsd",
        "/Library/Caches",
        "/Library/Logs",
        "/System/Library/Caches",
        "/System/Library/Extensions/Caches"
    );
    FileContentsExcluded =     (
        "/private/var/log",
        "/private/var/spool/cups",
        "/private/var/spool/fax",
        "/private/var/spool/uucp"
    );
    PathsExcluded =     (
        "/.Spotlight-V100",
        "/.Trashes",
        "/.fseventsd",
        "/.hotfiles.btree",
        "/Backups.backupdb",
        "/Desktop DB",
        "/Desktop DF",
        "/Network/Servers",
        "/Previous Systems",
        "/Users/Shared/SC Info",
        "/Users/Guest",
        "/dev",
        "/home",
        "/net",
        "/private/var/db/Spotlight",
        "/private/var/db/Spotlight-V100"
    );
    UserPathsExcluded =     (
        "Library/Application Support/SyncServices/data.version",
        "Library/Caches",
        "Library/Logs",
        "Library/Mail/Envelope Index",
        "Library/Mail/AvailableFeeds",
        "Library/Mirrors",
        "Library/PubSub/Database",
        "Library/PubSub/Downloads",
        "Library/PubSub/Feeds",
        "Library/Safari/Icons.db",
        "Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db",
        "Library/Safari/HistoryIndex.sk"
    );
}
[/SIZE]

Also, certain select files may be given a special extended attribute...

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Blue"]ls -lhn@ ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music\ Library.xml[/COLOR]
-rw-r--r--@ 1 501  501    25M Sep 11 00:03 /Users/halito/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml	
	com.apple.FinderInfo	      32B
	com.apple.metadata:[COLOR="Red"]com_apple_backup_excludeItem[/COLOR]	      61B
[/SIZE]

 

[Mr. Monsieur]

(I don't mean to hijack a thread but I think Mr. Monsieur received a conclusion, and I didn't want to start a seperate thread.)

I'm afraid that I haven't yet received a satisfactory answer...I'm still open to thoughts! Otherwise, I suppose I'll just do what I suggested above...