wsgaw

Q: Time machine backups missing

Hello.

 

I have been using Time Machine for backing up a MBPr for several months and have successfully recovered individual files. This week Time Machine alerted me that it was starting a new backup. Today it alerted me it finished. I also noted in Time Machine preferences that the "Oldest backup" now says Today! The volume is not full - 5752GB of 2TB available.

 

Upon going into Time Machine, I do indeed only see the one backup, and typing "tmutil list backups" only shows the one.

 

What happened to two months of backups?

 

Macbook Pro Retina / 2.6Ghz Intel Core 7 / 8G

OSX 10.9.5

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Oct 10, 2014 5:39 AM

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Q: Time machine backups missing

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  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 10, 2014 6:32 AM in response to wsgaw
    Level 8 (49,534 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2014 6:32 AM in response to wsgaw

    What are you using for a backup device? A Time Capsule, or...?

  • by wsgaw,

    wsgaw wsgaw Oct 10, 2014 8:27 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 10, 2014 8:27 AM in response to John Galt

    Netgear Nighthawk WAP with a USB-attached drive.

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 10, 2014 9:56 AM in response to wsgaw
    Level 8 (49,534 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2014 9:56 AM in response to wsgaw

    You are not using a supported Time Machine configuration, and the Time Machine backups being created with that configuration should not be considered reliable.

     

     

    The exhaustive list of devices supported by Time Machine amounts to the following:

     

    AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard disk (any model)

    External USB hard disk drive connected to a Time Capsule (any model)

    External USB hard disk drive connected to an AirPort Extreme (current model only)

    A hard disk drive directly connected either to the source Mac, or a Mac on your local network.

     

    That is all.

     

    Use whatever backup device you want, but you should be aware that this site is full of reports of misery from hapless individuals who had been using third party NAS devices for Time Machine backups, only to find that they were incomplete, corrupted, or useless in the dire circumstances in which they were required. Apple won't care if you lose your data while using a Time Machine configuration specifically excluded from their technical support documents.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 10, 2014 11:21 AM in response to wsgaw
    Level 5 (7,659 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 10, 2014 11:21 AM in response to wsgaw

    Time Machine will purge old backups based on the free space on the backup disk.

     

    Have you made a lot of changes recently? If you added a lot of new files the older versions will be purged to make room for them.

    Simple things like tagging a lot of tracks in iTunes can cause them all to be re-backed up.

     

    Time Machine will warn you when this is happens if the option is enabled (System Preferences > Time Machine > options > 'Notify after old backups are deleted'). It also logs it to Console (open from /Applications/Utilities). See if there are any recent entries for pruning backups in the 'All messages' section.

     

    Since you are running on a NAS too it's possible for changes on the NAS to cause the Mac to think it requires a new backup. Check your hostname has not changed recently (Sharing section of System Prefs) & review any updates that have been applied to the NAS recently.

     

    See if the TM disk has another backup for your Mac.

    http://pondini.org/TM/17.html (see If your backups were made over a network).

  • by wsgaw,

    wsgaw wsgaw Oct 10, 2014 6:18 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 10, 2014 6:18 PM in response to John Galt

    John - I appreciate the response, but "unsupported"? Do you not think Netgear paid to license Time Machine protocols? I wouldn't think Netgear would specifically advertise this in their sales and support literature if they hadn't... and I read multiple third party reviews on the product .... but I guess I have seen stranger things. Do you think I should cease and desist this configuration?

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 10, 2014 6:38 PM in response to wsgaw
    Level 8 (49,534 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 10, 2014 6:38 PM in response to wsgaw

    wsgaw wrote:

     

    . Do you think I should cease and desist this configuration?

    Yes. If you require justification for that recommendation I'll supply it but what you are using will not work and cannot be made to work.

  • by wsgaw,

    wsgaw wsgaw Oct 10, 2014 7:06 PM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 10, 2014 7:06 PM in response to Drew Reece

    Drew - thanks for the response. No, I have not made a lot of changes. I am running VMware Fusion and have both Win7 and Win8 VMs, but no major changes there either. There are a ton of messages in "All Messages". Too many to decipher.

     

    It's just not worth my time to screw around with undocumented fixes to the supposedly simple Time Machine ... can you recommend a better tool to backup my Mac partition and the VMs?

  • by wsgaw,

    wsgaw wsgaw Oct 10, 2014 7:11 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 10, 2014 7:11 PM in response to John Galt

    John - thanks again for the response.

     

    This is my first Mac. I have had it and VMware Fusion for almost two years now. While I love the hardware, this surely has not been the simple user-friendly experience Apple promises.

     

    Can you recommend a backup solution (over Wifi) that is reliable? Is the Apple-branded Time Capsule the only solution?

     

    If you wouldn't mind supplying the justification mentioned above, I would appreciate it as I am curious.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Oct 10, 2014 8:52 PM in response to wsgaw
    Level 5 (7,659 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 10, 2014 8:52 PM in response to wsgaw

    VM's will use a 'massive chunk of disk' as storage, normally in a disk image. I'm not familiar with VMWare but they generally use GB's of storage for the virtual disk. The trouble is when Time Machine backs it up it copies the entire thing even when a tiny chunk has changed when you boot up the VM. I wonder if that is why so much data has rotated out of the backups. Look into the various disk image formats, there may be one that backs up in smaller chunks.

    Console has the filter at the top of the window if you ever need to use the logs.

     

    For backups I use Carbon Copy Cloner, it's scheduling is reliable for me. I used to use SuperDuper! but the scheduling fails when it needs to mount a disk as a non-admin user. Also take a look at Chronosync, it's more of a 'sync folder X' tool, but it may be more suitable for your network storage.

    http://bombich.com/

    http://shirt-pocket.com/

    http://econtechnologies.com/

     

    CCC will 'archive' older copies if you need some history, but it does purge like Time Machine when disk space is limited. It is good for making bootable copies & taking the recovery partition too.

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 11, 2014 5:17 AM in response to wsgaw
    Level 8 (49,534 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 11, 2014 5:17 AM in response to wsgaw

    Can you recommend a backup solution (over Wifi) that is reliable?

     

    Yes, but if you want to use Time Machine your options are limited to the ones I indicated earlier. Otherwise, I suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner ($39.99). It is supposed to work over a network, however, I have never used it in that configuration and personally cannot attest to its reliability. I do use it to create locally mounted "clones". Recent versions of it have been reliable in that configuration. Less recent versions had occasional problems, so I learned not to depend on it or any one backup method for that matter.

     

    If you want to use Time Machine, it has always been 100% reliable for me when used in accordance with Apple's recommendations here:

     

    OS X Mavericks: Disks you can use with Time Machine

     

    Also,

     

    AirPort base stations: Time Machine hard drive compatibility

     

    Its last paragraph is no longer completely accurate, having been superseded by the information in the following document's last paragraph:

     

    AirPort base stations: About USB disks

     

    Apple publishes a specification for Time Machine servers that anyone can implement, if they so choose.

     

    Do you not think Netgear paid to license Time Machine protocols?

     

    I do not. There are no fees to implement a Time Machine - compliant NAS.

  • by wsgaw,

    wsgaw wsgaw Oct 11, 2014 6:48 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 11, 2014 6:48 AM in response to John Galt

    Thanks for the response John.

     

    Regarding the link "Disks you can use with Time Machine", it does state the disk can be on a network. The Netgear Nighthawk does support AFP, the disk is formatted as Mac OS Extended, and I am able to mount the disk from the Mac. So according to this, it should work, shouldn't it?

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 11, 2014 4:07 PM in response to wsgaw
    Level 8 (49,534 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 11, 2014 4:07 PM in response to wsgaw

    The Netgear Nighthawk does support AFP,


    Despite what Netgear may claim, your personal experience demonstrates that it is not working.

     

    The most likely problem is that in lieu of AFP, NAS device makers often implement a version of Netatalk that never worked well to begin with and may never have worked with Time Machine. Yes the disk can be on a network, but for all practical purposes the network device to which the Time Machine backup device is connected must be running OS X.

     

    If Netgear insists their device is compliant with Time Machine's published requirements, I encourage you to contact them and inform them of your results.


    Several outcomes are possible:


    • Netgear has you conduct various time-consuming diagnostics culminating in the suggestion for a firmware update.
      • The firmware update, assuming it exists, may or may not fix the problem. Let's assume that it does. Six months or a year from now you determine all your Time Machine backups have been corrupted, are unreliable, and all you will have accomplished is to delude yourself into thinking you had a viable backup strategy when in fact you did not.
      • You contact Netgear again, and install another recently released firmware update.
      • Repeat the above until your warranty expires, never once having created a viable backup.
    • Netgear insists the problem lies with your Mac, that it has a virus, etc, and tell you it's not their problem and you should contact Apple.
      • You contact Apple:
        • If you are fortunate, Apple will listen attentively and immediately inform you your proposed configuration will not work, which I already did.
        • If you are less fortunate, Apple will have you perform various diagnostics, SMC reset, NVRAM reset, reinstall OS X, etc, none of which will fix the problem. You schedule a Genius Bar appointment. The resident Genius will find nothing wrong with your Mac, but they will erase it, reinstall OS X, and tell you everything is fixed. Your proposed Netgear Time Machine application still won't work, and you will have wasted considerable time and possibly data that you thought was backed up when it was not.
    • Without admitting their marketing department has erred in claiming Time Machine compatibility, Netgear offers to accept a return and cheerfully refunds your purchase price. Realizing your data integrity is more important than wasting your time helping Netgear fix their lousy product, you wisely choose to implement a supported Time Machine configuration.

     

    Of the above options, the last outcome is the most favorable and least time-consuming.