Time Machine Not Enough Space

[gugy]

Hi,
After I updated to El Captain, I keep getting this error message "Time Machine Not Enough Space".
I have a 2TB hard drive and while it says there is 23GB left TM won't back up. I always understood old files would be deleted to give space to newer ones but I can't figure out why this is happening.
I went to TM preferences and could not figure out. It's been already 14 days without any TM backup.
I appreciate any help.

 

[Evren Carven]

It's hard to figure out why this happen. My suggestion:
1.Get a new backup drive and keep the current one as-is. This is the most safe way.
2.But you'll probably be fine removing some backed up stuff manually. Go to TM backup volume and you can find the 'Backups.backupdb' folder for TM.(Be sure you need not it anymore before you delete)

 

[maflynn]

How much is your backup drive, and how much is your main drive?

I believe TM will perform a full backup because, the upgrade represents a sizable change to a lot of files. I'm not sure why Time Machine doesn't think it has sufficient space. Perhaps its thinking its a new backup, and it won't delete the old ones because its not the same machine (did the machine name change?)

 

[gugy]

How much is your backup drive, and how much is your main drive?

I believe TM will perform a full backup because, the upgrade represents a sizable change to a lot of files. I'm not sure why Time Machine doesn't think it has sufficient space. Perhaps its thinking its a new backup, and it won't delete the old ones because its not the same machine (did the machine name change?)

Thanks,
My TM drive is 2TB and I am backing up 5 drives out of it. Total from these 5 drives is 1.5TB. Yes, I know it is close but even when I disable one of the drives (500GB) TM won't allow.

 

[maflynn]

You could try starting over, and reformat the TM backup, though I don't think I'd want to lose my old backups.

See of this link has any useful info: http://pondini.org/TM/Works.html

 

[george_i]

The issue is caused by a miscalculation of the disk’s free space. Please try following and you should be OK.

1. In the Time Machine Preferences put the slider to OFF.
2. Open the backup disk and drag to the Trash Can the folder “Latest”.
3. Go to /Macintosh HD /Library/Preferences and drag to the Trash Can the file com.Apple.TimeMachine.plist.
4. Restart the machine.
5. From the pop-up select "Use" the disk.