Time Machine backup not a large as amount of space used on harddrive

Question

Time Machine backup not a large as amount of space used on harddrive

I just bought a new iMAC and Time Capsule and completed my first backup. In Disk Utility it shows that there is 151 GB of space used on the hard drive. The space used on the Time Capsule is 131 GB. I searched this topic and can't find it addressed before. Did Time Capsule not back up all the Hard Drive?

Thanks,

Carl

PowerBook G4, iMAC G5, Intel iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.6), iPod G4, iSight, Time Capsule , Canon Pixma MX860

Posted on Jul 7, 2009 9:44 AM

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Answer 1

PT

Level 7

20,894 points

Jul 7, 2009 9:51 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

In the Time Machine preferences, in the options settings, you can exclude different files and folders by adding them to the Do Not Backup list. For example you might exclude the Applications folder.
Do you have anything listed in that list of exclusions?
Patrick

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Answer 2

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jul 7, 2009 9:53 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

yes, TM should have backed up everything unless you excluded some files. go to system preferences->TM->options. is there anything on the TM exclusion list?

also, TM excludes certain temporary files from backups by default. that includes among other things Trash, various log files and swap files. but normally they don't amount to 20GB, especially on a new computer. you can try finding out what's taking space on your main hard drive using one of the methods in this post
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8188595&#8188595
this might tell you more of what's going on.

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Answer 3

Jul 7, 2009 11:08 AM in response to V.K.

PT and VK

Thank you for your prompt response. I looked in Time Machine and there are no exclusions. At the bottom of that window it says 152 GB which is what my iMAC hard drive show. What does that mean? I downloaded WhatSize and measured my computer. I didn't see anything that looked wrong. My movies, music, and pictures takes up most of the space. There is one item I don't understand which is that my music size in iTunes is about 53 GB. In Whatsize the size is 68 GB. Why the difference?

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Answer 4

PT

Level 7

20,894 points

Jul 7, 2009 11:32 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

If you mean while IN iTunes that iTunes itself is reporting 53GB, then the most likely issue is that you have removed roughly 15GB of music over time from your library but didn't actually delete them from the hard drive. So you may have a LOT of media files sitting in the iTunes Music folder itself, but not actually part of the iTunes library database.
Patrick

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Answer 5

KRSW

Level 1

0 points

Jul 7, 2009 12:02 PM in response to Carl Sutherland

I'm away from my TM drive, but I know when I recently bought a MBP 15" and used Leopard's Migration option from a TM backup, my ~/Music/iTunes/Podcasts folder was not transferred over automatically. Not sure if this folder is backed up in TM or not, but suspicious of it.

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Answer 6

Jul 16, 2009 10:02 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

I have the same issue. I'm going to have to send my MacBook Pro in for a logic board replacement ( 😟 ) and backed my computer up using Time Machine for the first time yesterday. While I've used 70.08GB on the Macintosh HD, the Time Machine Backup Drive only says 62.39GB used. I'd really like to get this figured out so I can send my computer off before school starts.

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Answer 7

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 16, 2009 5:17 PM in response to Robert Hansen3

Robert Hansen3 wrote:
I have the same issue. I'm going to have to send my MacBook Pro in for a logic board replacement ( 😟 ) and backed my computer up using Time Machine for the first time yesterday. While I've used 70.08GB on the Macintosh HD, the Time Machine Backup Drive only says 62.39GB used. I'd really like to get this figured out so I can send my computer off before school starts.

First, have you checked your TM Preferences > Options for exclusions?

How much is in your Trash? (TM does not back it up)

As V.K. posted earlier, Time Machine does automatically exclude some things that aren't needed for you to restore your system. Two that might explain your "missing" 7 GB are your logs and swapfiles. From a Finder window's menubar, select Go > Go to Folder, then type /var/ in the prompt and click Go.

If the display is not already in List mode, select View > As List.

Then select View > Show View Options and click the +Calculate all sizes+ box.

Look at the sizes of the Log and vm folders. If the total of the two is anywhere near your 7 gb, that's what TM did not back up. If they're big, but not that big, it's possible they were near that large when the backup was done, but are now smaller.

The vm folder contains your swap files. Being very large might be an indication of some sort of application problem, not enough memory, or other performance problems.

The Log folder, of course, contains various logs. These being very large is not normal, either, and may indicate a hardware problem, OSX problem, or difficulty with an app that you've downloaded or tried to remove. See which log files are large in size and/or numerous, and report back.

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Answer 8

Jul 17, 2009 7:46 AM in response to Pondini

Okay thanks. I did that and the total of the /var/ folder came out to around 2.9GB. Nowhere near the 7GB that are missing. I should also mention that my initial backup took around 8 hours to complete over USB 2.0. That seems like an extremely long time to me. Maybe there was some kind of error that caused both the long transfer time and the missing data?

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Answer 9

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 17, 2009 8:16 AM in response to Robert Hansen3

Robert Hansen3 wrote:
Okay thanks. I did that and the total of the /var/ folder came out to around 2.9GB. Nowhere near the 7GB that are missing.

As posted earlier, you don't know how big it was at the time of the backup, nor what you may have had in the trash.

Did you check TM Preferences > Options for exclusions?

Have you done an Archive and Install, and not deleted the +Previous System+ folder(s) at the top level of your internal HD?

I should also mention that my initial backup took around 8 hours to complete over USB 2.0. That seems like an extremely long time to me.

That's long, but not extremely long. It depends on the speed of both internal and external drives, how full they are, what other loads are on your system, etc. And your first backup's "preparing" phase is rather lengthy, too, before anything starts being copied. Yours could have been in the area of an hour or so.

Maybe there was some kind of error that caused both the long transfer time and the missing data?

There are things that can slow a backup down, but if there are items it can't copy, it will send messages to your logs and fail, as it should, so you know there's a problem.

If you're still concerned, Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget.

It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Navigate to that backup and it's messages.

You can copy these messages by selecting them via dragging your mouse over them (be sure to get them all, as they may overflow the small window), then pressing CMD-C. This copies them to your "clipboard," so you can post them here (via CMD-V). (Occasionally, the widget won't let you copy while a backup is running.)

Note that the widget may only let you look back a few days. If you need to look back farther, you'll need the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder) to look at your older system logs (named +system.log.1.bz2, system.log.2.bz2,+ etc). Click +Show Log List+ in the toolbar, then navigate to the desired logs in the sidebar that opens up.

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Answer 10

Jul 17, 2009 9:21 AM in response to PT

PT

I don't think I've deleted that much music from iTunes. How can I check and retrieve what's there?

Thanks

Carl

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Answer 11

Jul 17, 2009 9:31 AM in response to Pondini

Pondini,

My TM backup is about 20 GB less than my HD. I checked my Log and vm folders and they are in the low MB values. Also my last backup failed. I tried to copy the Tm Buddy report but I couldn't do it. With widgets open as soon as I press CMD the report vanishes and cmd shows up. How do I copy the report?

Thanks

Carl

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Answer 12

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 17, 2009 10:00 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

Carl Sutherland wrote:
Pondini,

My TM backup is about 20 GB less than my HD. I checked my Log and vm folders and they are in the low MB values.

They are now, but you don't know how big they were on July 7, when you did your initial backup, nor what was in your trash then. Did you have a Previous System folder left over from an Archive and Install?

Also my last backup failed. I tried to copy the Tm Buddy report but I couldn't do it. With widgets open as soon as I press CMD the report vanishes and cmd shows up.

What do you mean by "the report vanishes and cmd shows up."?

You're not currently running a backup, are you? Since the last one failed?

Does the whole widget disappear? Does the message box disappear? What/where does "cmd show up"?

I can't find any key or combination that does anything like that.

Do you see the box with messages (the first should be "Starting standard backup." or "Backup requested by user."?

Click at the top left corner of that box (that should outline it in blue) and drag your mouse to the lower right. That should highlight all the messages. Then press the CMD (Apple logo) key and the "C" key to copy them to the clipboard.

If all else fails, use the Console app (in your Applications/Utilities folder). Click +Show Log List+ in the toolbar, then navigate to your system.log in the sidebar that opens up. Type backupd in the Filter box in the toolbar. That will select the messages from all backups, not one at a time as in the widget. Each run has a different +Process ID+ (the number in square brackets). Find the messages for the failed backup and copy and post them here.

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Answer 13

PT

Level 7

20,894 points

Jul 18, 2009 10:34 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

One way to "clean" the iTunes folder is to go into iTunes preferences and change the iTune Music Folder location, say call it something like "iTunes Music 2". OK out of preferences then use the consolidate command.
The consolidate command will COPY everything iTunes is using that isn't currently located in the location specified in the preferences into that location and updates the date base to now access the file from there. Usually it is used to pull in those few files spread around the drive into the central location.
Since you just changed the location, NOTHING is in that location so iTunes will then copy EVERYTHING it accesses to that location. Any orphaned files in the old iTunes Music folder will be left behind. After the consolidation you can compare the folders to see how much file space was used my orphaned files.
At this point you can delete the original iTunes Music folder to free up the space. You can then either leave the new folder as is, or if you want it back to normal chance the preference back to using iTunes Music as the folder then rename the folder in the finder to remove the "2".
Patrick

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Answer 14

Jul 23, 2009 9:00 AM in response to Pondini

Pondini,

Thank you for your prompt response. My hard drive and Time Capsule drive both show that 150 GB are used so I guess that is settled. When the Time Capsule changed I don't know. In regard to the Time Machine Buddy, I followed the instructions. To copy I pressed the C key, the M key, and the D key then pressed the C key again. It works a lot better to use the CMD key C approach.

Starting standard backup July 23, 7:01
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD@Carl-M-Sutherland-II-MDs-Time-Capsule.l ocal/Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD'
Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD'
Disk image /Volumes/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD'/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD’s Computer_00254bb234c8.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Carl M. Sutherland II, MD’s Computer
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of Carl M. Sutherland II, MD’s Computer/Backups.backupdb
Node requires deep traversal:/Users/carlmsutherlandiimd/Pictures/iPhoto 5 Library reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonMissedReservation|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 245.6 MB requested (including padding), 314.67 GB available
Copied 1005 files (28 KB) from volume Macintosh HD.
No pre-backup thinning needed: 229.8 MB requested (including padding), 314.67 GB available
Copied 472 files (33 bytes) from volume Macintosh HD.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
Ejected Time Machine disk image.
Ejected Time Machine network volume.

July 21
Starting standard backup
FSMountServerVolumeSync failed with error: -36 for url: afp://Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD@Carl-M-Sutherland-II-MDs-Time-Capsule.l ocal/Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD'
Backup failed with error: 19

July 23 8:32 with note Backup Unknown

Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD@Carl-M-Sutherland-II-MDs-Time-Capsule.l ocal/Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD'
Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD'
Disk image /Volumes/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD'/Carl M. Sutherland II, MD’s Computer_00254bb234c8.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of Carl M. Sutherland II, MD’s Computer

July 23, 8:09
Starting standard backup
FSMountServerVolumeSync failed with error: -36 for url: afp://Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD@Carl-M-Sutherland-II-MDs-Time-Capsule.l ocal/Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD'
Backup failed with error: 19

I look forward to your further suggestions and appreciate the detail you give.

Carl

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Answer 15

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jul 23, 2009 9:35 AM in response to Carl Sutherland

Carl Sutherland wrote:
Pondini,

Thank you for your prompt response. My hard drive and Time Capsule drive both show that 150 GB are used so I guess that is settled. When the Time Capsule changed I don't know. In regard to the Time Machine Buddy, I followed the instructions. To copy I pressed the C key, the M key, and the D key then pressed the C key again. It works a lot better to use the CMD key C approach.

Yes, sorry, that's what I meant by CMD-C.

FSMountServerVolumeSync failed with error: -36 for url: afp://Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD@Carl-M-Sutherland-II-MDs-Time-Capsule.l ocal/Carl%20M.%20Sutherland%20II,%20MD'

This is some sort of problem mounting the TC. I'm not very familiar with Time Capsules, but it might have to do with your Time Capsule's name: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1170

If that doesn't help, do the same with your system name, in System Preferences > Sharing.

In both cases, keep them relatively short (under 27 characters), and omit most punctuation and unusual characters. Why it will work one time but not another is not clear, but it does happen.

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