Partition is Empty in Finder but Not in Get Info or Disk Utility

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My Mac Pro running Yosemite 10.10 has three hard drives, the second of which now has 2 partitions. The smaller one (number 2) with a Capacity of 391GB shows empty in Finder, but shows Available is less at 234GB in both Get Info and Disk Utility.

The total drive size is 2TB and was partitioned today into a larger partition 1 for files and a smaller partition 2 for Time Machine. The files originally on the drive were moved off before partitioning then moved back to the larger partition 1 after the drive was partitioned.

Time Machine will not complete, it says the available space is 234GB and is not enough or words to that effect.

Can anyone explain how to fix this anomaly?

Thanks in advance,

Peter B.
 
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MacInWin

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Peter, If I understand you properly, the drive is divided 1.6 TB for data and 0.4TB (about 391 GB) for TM, right? But something is on the smaller partition that is hidden and takes up about 150GB, so you can't back up. How is the second partition formatted? If it's blank, have you tried just reformatting it to erase the hidden files?

I sure hope you aren't backing up from the larger partition to the smaller--that's not a good practice. Backups should be on a separate device, not just in a separate partition.
 
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Hi Jake,

I am using TM to back up my first drive to a second drive, and decided I did not want TM to keep filling up the second HD with backup files until it was full leaving no space for anything else.

A couple of minutes ago, I went back to Disk Utility and could see the space taken up by the non-existant files in the smaller partition so I took a chance and hit Format. That did it, it cleared out whatever was causing the problem...your guess is as good as mine, but I am sure there is a simple explanation for this.

It would be nice if one could simply select a maximum backup size in TM rather that letting it control me and running wild with the MT space on my drive. I have been keeping it turned off for the most part, just turning it on occasionally. But today I decided to do something about it so figured I could reign it in by limiting the partition size where it could save the back ups. I have excluded all drives except the the one where the op sys is installed and I have excluded the USERS folder. All my docs and pictures etc, and I nave tens of thousands are backed up on several other large drives.

Thanks very much.

Peter B.
 

bobtomay

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If you are excluding the users folder, why use TM at all?
 
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If you are excluding the users folder, why use TM at all?

I have added the USER folder back in TM but have excluded all the folders that contain files such as pictures, docs etc. These are backed up elsewhere. Now TM will backup user folders such as Library.

Also I did not need TM to create a huge backup file and take up all of the available 2TB of space on my second HD. TM recommends backing up to an HD that is twice the size of the drive being backed up. My op sys drive is a 2TB, so dedicating a 4TB drive for backup storage is a bit over the top, especially as my op sys folders and files only occupy a few dozen GB and are the only folders and files that I need TM to back up. Everything else is backed up separately.

My set up of drives is as follows:

All Desktops and Laptops and networked.
Mac Pro: Internal 2TB + 2TB + 4TB + External 4TB.
Dell Windows Desktop: Internal 1TB + 2TB + External 1TB + 1TB + 2TB
Windows Laptop 1: Internal 1TB
Windows Laptop 2: Internal 500GB
Windows Laptop 3: Internal 500GB

Several External 500GB Drives on shelf not networked and
A huge stack of Optical CD and DVD discs that go back to the early days of Optical drives.

As can be seen, I have no shortage of space for backing up my docs and pictures etc. I just need TM to handle my op sys related folders and files.

Thanks everyone for your very helpful posts.

Peter B.
 
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