Posted by Luke Ormand on August 3, 2013 at 12:11 PM
I have a 1TB interal HDD on my iMac and it has approximately 500gb of data on it. I have a 750gb seagate external HDD that I use for my Time Machine backup. I'm getting the following message when trying to backup:
"Time Machine Couldn't complete the backup to "Expansion Drive"
This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup disk requires 386.79 GB but only 242.49 GB are available
Time Machine needs work space on the backup disk, in addition to the space required to store backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files
The expansion drives has 507GB of data on it (matching my HDD). All old backups have been deleted.
How do I get around this? I guess the problem is that Time machine won't delete the last backup it has (507 GB) but the new backup requires 386 GB of space.
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
- Luke
Posted by Richard Ditch on August 3, 2013 at 2:52 PM
This hasn't happened to me yet, but I'm not trying to use TM to back up so much data.
Some suggestions:
1. buy a bigger external drive.
2. ask in an Apple support group where you are more likely to find others with experience in this.
3. use a different backup strategy.
To get to 500gb of data you must be including lots of raw images that don't change over time. Time Machine is great for keeping up with documents that change with frequent revisions and with the OS and apps that get occasional updates, but I don't see a lot of value in making Time Machine keep up with an ever expanding collection of raw files. They might be better dealt with duplicated on a couple external drives of their own or with a RAID.
Sometimes a backup requires "contiguous" space. If your drive has not been defragmented this might be a cause. I'm not a Mac guy, but at least on a PC it might be necessary to run defragmentation.
Luke...this is from the "Help'" section on my Mac:
If your Time Machine backup disk runs out of space
When you first set up Time Machine, it performs an initial backup of your entire computer. During subsequent backups, Time Machine finds and saves only new items and items that have changed, so the backups become smaller. Also, as your backup disk fills up, Time Machine deletes older backups to make room for new ones. You may be able to use Time Machine for a long time before running out of space on your backup disk.
If you do run out of space, the best thing to do is connect a new backup disk. After you connect the new disk, open Time Machine preferences, and then select it as your Time Machine backup disk.
If you connect a larger disk and wish to preserve your existing backup history, you can copy the Backups.backupdb folder from the old disk to the new one. Use Finder, and not Terminal or any other application, to copy the Backups.backupdb folder. (The folder is large and it may take a long time to copy.)
I had the same problem a couple of months ago, and just switched to a bigger drive with no problems. I have, however, done what Richard suggested....am keeping my raw files on separate drives....they just consume too much real estate!
Hope this helps! Sharon
Posted by Luke Ormand on August 5, 2013 at 5:05 PM
Thanks all - I told Time Machine not to backup the area that has the majority of my RAW files since that stuff was before I got lightroom. My lightroom catalog is still being backed up, so worst case scenario would be if I lost everything on my main HDD I would just have to re-delete the files from my "archived" images that I've purged over the years.
I get buying a new HDD - which I have done previously (the first one is in a fireproof safe not in my house) but this HDD has 250gb of free space left on it so I don't want to swap it just yet.
I think I figured out the problem - which is that I have everything backed up (all 500gb) but the new backup will exceed available room - so by ditching my archived RAW folder it was able to backup. I'll probably switch in the future to two HDD system - one for RAWS and one for everything else. Thanks for the help
For a key bit of software, Time Machine can be surprisingly erratic.
When you first backup using Time Machine, it backs up the entire designated hard drive(s), excluding the files it has been told to exclude. After that, TM backs up incrementally only those files that are added or changed (excluding some logs and other invisible files).
The problem is that sometimes TM "forgets" it has already done that initial full backup, and tried to start over. Usually it's the result of corruption in the preferences files for TM. Because there are existing backup files on the TM disk, there's no room.
Your only choice is to delete the existing back up files created by TM, then select a "new" backup in the TM configuration, using the same drive. You'll have to go through the pain of the full initial backup again. I'd be careful to backup the backup, before deleting it.
Hard disk storage is dirt cheap. I've seen reputable 3TB drives on Amazon for ~$120. I mirror my photo libraries to back up drives using SuperDuper, a very fast backup utility.
Posted by Mark Seaver on August 7, 2013 at 11:48 AM
As somewhat of an aside, I know multiple hard core users who much prefer SuperDuper to Time Machine.
Posted by Richard Ditch on August 7, 2013 at 7:44 PM
As somewhat of an aside, I know multiple hard core users who much prefer SuperDuper to Time Machine.
Actually, the hard core users don't go with just one approach; rather they use Time Machine as well as a clone from SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Time Machine allows a single file to be recovered in a previous version, back through all the Time Machine versions saved, while a clone of the system and all files allows the Mac to be booted and run directly from the external drive if there is a serious problem. I've recovered from small scale and large scale muck-ups with both.
Posted by Luke Ormand on August 10, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Jim pretty much hit the nail on the head. Thanks for all the help guys
Discussion
8 replies"Time Machine Couldn't complete the backup to "Expansion Drive"
This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup disk requires 386.79 GB but only 242.49 GB are available
Time Machine needs work space on the backup disk, in addition to the space required to store backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files
The expansion drives has 507GB of data on it (matching my HDD). All old backups have been deleted.
How do I get around this? I guess the problem is that Time machine won't delete the last backup it has (507 GB) but the new backup requires 386 GB of space.
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
- Luke
Some suggestions:
1. buy a bigger external drive.
2. ask in an Apple support group where you are more likely to find others with experience in this.
3. use a different backup strategy.
To get to 500gb of data you must be including lots of raw images that don't change over time. Time Machine is great for keeping up with documents that change with frequent revisions and with the OS and apps that get occasional updates, but I don't see a lot of value in making Time Machine keep up with an ever expanding collection of raw files. They might be better dealt with duplicated on a couple external drives of their own or with a RAID.
If your Time Machine backup disk runs out of space
When you first set up Time Machine, it performs an initial backup of your entire computer. During subsequent backups, Time Machine finds and saves only new items and items that have changed, so the backups become smaller. Also, as your backup disk fills up, Time Machine deletes older backups to make room for new ones. You may be able to use Time Machine for a long time before running out of space on your backup disk.
If you do run out of space, the best thing to do is connect a new backup disk. After you connect the new disk, open Time Machine preferences, and then select it as your Time Machine backup disk.
If you connect a larger disk and wish to preserve your existing backup history, you can copy the Backups.backupdb folder from the old disk to the new one. Use Finder, and not Terminal or any other application, to copy the Backups.backupdb folder. (The folder is large and it may take a long time to copy.)
I had the same problem a couple of months ago, and just switched to a bigger drive with no problems. I have, however, done what Richard suggested....am keeping my raw files on separate drives....they just consume too much real estate!
Hope this helps! Sharon
I get buying a new HDD - which I have done previously (the first one is in a fireproof safe not in my house) but this HDD has 250gb of free space left on it so I don't want to swap it just yet.
I think I figured out the problem - which is that I have everything backed up (all 500gb) but the new backup will exceed available room - so by ditching my archived RAW folder it was able to backup. I'll probably switch in the future to two HDD system - one for RAWS and one for everything else. Thanks for the help
- Luke
For a key bit of software, Time Machine can be surprisingly erratic.
When you first backup using Time Machine, it backs up the entire designated hard drive(s), excluding the files it has been told to exclude. After that, TM backs up incrementally only those files that are added or changed (excluding some logs and other invisible files).
The problem is that sometimes TM "forgets" it has already done that initial full backup, and tried to start over. Usually it's the result of corruption in the preferences files for TM. Because there are existing backup files on the TM disk, there's no room.
Your only choice is to delete the existing back up files created by TM, then select a "new" backup in the TM configuration, using the same drive. You'll have to go through the pain of the full initial backup again. I'd be careful to backup the backup, before deleting it.
Hard disk storage is dirt cheap. I've seen reputable 3TB drives on Amazon for ~$120. I mirror my photo libraries to back up drives using SuperDuper, a very fast backup utility.
Actually, the hard core users don't go with just one approach; rather they use Time Machine as well as a clone from SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Time Machine allows a single file to be recovered in a previous version, back through all the Time Machine versions saved, while a clone of the system and all files allows the Mac to be booted and run directly from the external drive if there is a serious problem. I've recovered from small scale and large scale muck-ups with both.