Not enough Room ?

i have a 250 gb external hd and i wanted to use time machine to back up my 200 gb MBP of which i've used approximately 140 gb but time machine kept giving me an error and saying there was not enough space. There is nothing else on that external drive...are the backups really that big?

mphubbar said:

i have a 250 gb external hd and i wanted to use time machine to back up my 200 gb MBP of which i've used approximately 140 gb but time machine kept giving me an error and saying there was not enough space. There is nothing else on that external drive...are the backups really that big?

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It depends on how often you make changes to really large files on your machine. Time Machine does regular (hourly) incremental backups to your files. If you often make changes or add very large files, those changes are cumulative on your backups. So, Time Machine will save each variation of those changes if you keep it turned on at all times.

right, but it did the initial run and then on the very next hourly run -i had made no changes to any files- it told it couldn't finish because there wasn't enough room?? thanks for the response...any additional thoughts?

mphubbar said:

right, but it did the initial run and then on the very next hourly run -i had made no changes to any files- it told it couldn't finish because there wasn't enough room?? thanks for the response...any additional thoughts?

Click to expand...

On your desktop, right-click on the Time Machine volume. Click Get Info. Record the Capacity and Available fields (as shown below) and report back please.

ok will do....will take me a couple of days as i am traveling and do not have my drive with me...thanks!