10.5.1: Time Machine Reports Full?

My Time Machine drive is the same size as my internal drive (250 MB), and I have excluded a number of folders. Even so, I understand that TM should continue to do backups as long as space allows, and then seamlessly start purging the oldest backups. This morning I saw a notification that TM required 6.8 GB to do a backup, and only 260 MB was available. So, . . what's up with TM seamlessly managing the space on the TM drive? For lack of a better idea, I just deleted the oldest directory structure on the drive. I can't wait until SuperDuper! 2.1.5 comes out.

YOu can check what's occupying the space on your TM drive.

For cloning no need of waiting till superduper comes out. You have two more options... first the native "dd" command and second Carbon Copy Clone...

I have a 140GB Time Machine partition, of which 35GB is still free, covering my 120GB Macbook's hard drive. I haven't excluded any folders, so Time Machine is essentially backing up everything.

My point is that what you're experiencing clearly isn't normal. I wish I could help you out, but I don't know much about Time Machine.

Maybe drives equal to or smaller than your internal one can't be used for Time Machine properly. I know Apple always said get one 2x or larger then your internal one. Who knows this might be a flaw in the system. As TM is clearly designed for externals larger then the internal to be backed up.

smartyMAC said:

YOu can check what's occupying the space on your TM drive.

For cloning no need of waiting till superduper comes out. You have two more options... first the native "dd" command and second Carbon Copy Clone...

Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes, I did browse the TM backups, and via finder deleted somethings that I don't need to be part of the backup (from a week ago, for example). It prompts you with something like "Do you want to delete these files from all backups?". Doing that freed space as well. I have tried CCC in the past, and it appears to work, but I don't get that same "yes, this is exactly what I want" feeling from the UI, that I do from SuperDuper! Both of your mentioned alternatives should work fine though. Thanks again.

Mark

Kash said:

I have a 140GB Time Machine partition, of which 35GB is still free, covering my 120GB Macbook's hard drive. I haven't excluded any folders, so Time Machine is essentially backing up everything.

My point is that what you're experiencing clearly isn't normal. I wish I could help you out, but I don't know much about Time Machine.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I appreciate the comment. In my case, I've got about half of my internal 250GB drive free. So, backing up my entire system, would (it seems) take 125GB. Now, incremental daily, weekly changes, etc will take more space, of course. But, I'd think that in my case, even a 160GB drive should serve as a TM drive. Naturally, the number of daily/weeklies would be far fewer, but IMO, it should still be smart enough to just start rolling off the oldest stuff without any intervention on my part. Since my external and internal are the same size, I should have room for a copy of my entire drive, and then just as much space remains (125 GB) for daily/weekly incrementals. Yeah, I'm thinking it's not normal. I'd also like to see Apple provide more options in TM preferences. For example: "Keep a full backup and only ____ add'l weekly/daily backups". Or, "Always leave ________GB free space". As it is now it's pretty much "on" or "off", and "which drive".

Mark

I believe there is a forum post about changing the frequency of the backups or the intervals you want to keep, say instead of hourly backups you only keep daily or weekly backups. This would help cull a lot of the older stuff. I think it's a Terminal command. I'll search around for it and if I do, I'll post it here or link to it

Kash said:

I believe there is a forum post about changing the frequency of the backups or the intervals you want to keep, say instead of hourly backups you only keep daily or weekly backups. This would help cull a lot of the older stuff. I think it's a Terminal command. I'll search around for it and if I do, I'll post it here or link to it

Click to expand...

Thanks! I'll hunt around as well. That sounds good!