Time Machine not backing up

Trigger42 · Sep 21, 2013

I have two external 1TB hard drives, Seagate and Hitachi, that match the size of my late 2012 iMac. I have set up time machine to stagger to these two external hard drives.

Initially this seemed to work but now time machine is only backing up to the Seagate
and says the Hitachi is full. There is plenty of space available on the Hitachi but it keeps saying it is full. My feeling is the setup is not right, but no-one can help me with this.

Apple's solution is to wipe this hard drive and start again. My solution isn't that. I've had two hard drive failures back to back on my iMac and am currently waiting for my 2nd replacement computer. Wiping data is not something I should be doing now, even though I do have a second one, I just feel very unlucky at the moment and that I should not take any chances.

Any advice welcome!

michelangelo · Sep 21, 2013

Trigger42 said:
I have two external 1TB hard drives, Seagate and Hitachi, that match the size of my late 2012 iMac. I have set up time machine to stagger to these two external hard drives.

Initially this seemed to work but now time machine is only backing up to the Seagate
and says the Hitachi is full. There is plenty of space available on the Hitachi but it keeps saying it is full. My feeling is the setup is not right, but no-one can help me with this.

Apple's solution is to wipe this hard drive and start again. My solution isn't that. I've had two hard drive failures back to back on my iMac and am currently waiting for my 2nd replacement computer. Wiping data is not something I should be doing now, even though I do have a second one, I just feel very unlucky at the moment and that I should not take any chances.

Any advice welcome!

I am a time machine addict, but not the wizard you need. Are you happy with your present machine (the one which replaced your late 2012 iMac) ? Don't you need huge space for old data ? Could you separate the old data if any from the current data ? Would you mind then buying a time capsule and backing up the new mac's current data (if you are satisfied as to its status) over there ?

That would leave you with the task of finding ways to back-up or permanently save the old data if any. Arranging your disks with redundancy could possibly meet your requirements.

For current data, the Time Capsule's size seems truly gigantic to me (and mine is just a 1/2 To).

Not sure I understood your underlying need and hope maybe this could help. Sorry if it does not.

Trigger42 · Sep 21, 2013

Thanks for responding. No, I am currently waiting for a second replacement iMac as this one has a faulty hard drive. No need to buy time capsule (and I've seen shocking reviews about it!) as I have two external hard drives that are well.
I've just taken the external hard drive that is supposedly 'full' into apple and they can see no problem with it, the partition is fine etc, and plenty of space. It has done one back up on this computer so it is not an issue of it thinking it is a new computer.
The only thing Apple suggested is wiping it- which I wont do at the moment until I have a decent iMac.They are stumped as to why time machine isn't doing its job on this drive.....

osxx · Sep 21, 2013

I may be missing something here but you have 2 different drives for Time Machine and you stagger them
which is what I do one at work one at home so you should have the same content on both right so there should not be a problem erasing the problem drive and starting over.
The other question you mention partition if this is on the external drive for TM it could cause issues it has been recommended that what ever drive you use for TM only contain TM backups others may disagree.

Trigger42 · Sep 21, 2013

Thanks.
They are now a week different as one is failing to update.
I'd rather not wipe anything at the moment. I know I have one back up, but I'd rather not delete anything at this stage and rely on one back up until I have a decent iMac. This iMac has a damaged hard drive and could fail before I get my next machine as my first one did. I've had SSD, then RAM failure and now SSD failure again on two different machines, the second of which is only one week old (the first only 5 months).
Once I get a new machine, it will be a different story. I was hoping there was a setting I could change or something on TM.

osxx · Sep 21, 2013

Have you tried Disk Utility to repair the problem drive?

Time Machine not backing up

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