TM says external out of space?

[cfs123]

Hello Forum,

I have searched and have come up empty thus far so I came here to hopefully solve an issue.

I have a 20" intel imac with a 320gb hard drive. Attached to it I have a 500gb external hd. My external hd is partitioned in 2 sections. One for TM and one for other uses.

My TM partition has 2gb left on it out of the 250gb it is partitioned for. Also, as of now my imac currently has 280gb being used. The other day I tried to back-up with TM and it gave an error reading not enough space available. I know that it is suggested that one uses a hard drive for TM at least the size of the imacs HD but I was under the impression that this was not a necessity since TM doesn't do a gb=gb transfer like Carbon Copy Cloner.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance,

CFS123

 

[cfs123]

Anybody? i am still stuck on this.

 

[macbookairman]

Time Machine does a complete backup of all your files the first time. From then on, it only backs up new files, or files that have been changed since the last backup. If Time Machine is saying there isn't enough space, that probably means that since the last backup, you have accumulated at least 2GB's of new files or changed files. If you let it back up, it will simply delete the oldest backups till there is room for the newest one.

I hope that helps.

 

[Penn Jennings]

Hello Forum,

I have searched and have come up empty thus far so I came here to hopefully solve an issue.

I have a 20" intel imac with a 320gb hard drive. Attached to it I have a 500gb external hd. My external hd is partitioned in 2 sections. One for TM and one for other uses.

My TM partition has 2gb left on it out of the 250gb it is partitioned for. Also, as of now my imac currently has 280gb being used. The other day I tried to back-up with TM and it gave an error reading not enough space available. I know that it is suggested that one uses a hard drive for TM at least the size of the imacs HD but I was under the impression that this was not a necessity since TM doesn't do a gb=gb transfer like Carbon Copy Cloner.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks in advance,

CFS123

Are you saying that you are trying to backup a 320 (280 used) GB HD to a 250 GB partition?

Unless you configure TM to not backup systems files AND other data, I can't see why you would think that it should work.

I apologize if I'm not reading it right.

 

[cfs123]

Are you saying that you are trying to backup a 320 (280 used) GB HD to a 250 GB partition?

Unless you configure TM to not backup systems files AND other data, I can't see why you would think that it should work.

I apologize if I'm not reading it right.

Yup. That is what I am saying. My reasoning is because I was under the assumption that one time machine backup did not match GB for GB what was on ones HD. I guess you are saying I am wrong in this assumption. Am I correct?

 

[cfs123]

Time Machine does a complete backup of all your files the first time. From then on, it only backs up new files, or files that have been changed since the last backup. If Time Machine is saying there isn't enough space, that probably means that since the last backup, you have accumulated at least 2GB's of new files or changed files. If you let it back up, it will simply delete the oldest backups till there is room for the newest one.

I hope that helps.

Thank you for your explanation. But it doesn't let me back up at all. Maybe this is because of what Penn Jennings mentioned above.

 

[Cinematographer]

Yup. That is what I am saying. My reasoning is because I was under the assumption that one time machine backup did not match GB for GB what was on ones HD. I guess you are saying I am wrong in this assumption. Am I correct?

If you did assume that TM is compressing your data. Then yes: you're wrong.

In the TM preferences you can exclude certain (volumes and) folders from the backup. You can save space this way. You can even start a TM travel, right click on any folder and erase all instantiations of that folder in all your backups. This will probably save even more space. I'm always assuming you want to keep the older backups rather than the folders you're deleting this way.

 

[cfs123]

If you did assume that TM is compressing your data. Then yes: you're wrong.

Thanks. That was exactly my assumption. I assume this is why Apple "suggests" one at least has their TM at least the same GB as Their HD.

I'm always assuming you want to keep the older backups rather than the folders you're deleting this way.

Sorry, this was over my head. What do you mean by this.

Also, are there folders that take up space that, in your opinion, one can delete and do without.

Thanks. If these questions are to in-depth, no worries. Don't want to waste you time.

CFS123

 

[Penn Jennings]

Thanks. That was exactly my assumption. I assume this is why Apple "suggests" one at least has their TM at least the same GB as Their HD.






Sorry, this was over my head. What do you mean by this.

Also, are there folders that take up space that, in your opinion, one can delete and do without.

Thanks. If these questions are to in-depth, no worries. Don't want to waste you time.

CFS123

As far as I know, Time Machine doesn't do compression or Encryption. Although it should do encryption at a minimum. So there is no way to perform a full backup into an area that is smaller than the original.

You would HAVE to go into settings and exclude some fairly large areas to make it fit.