disk utility restore fails - Could not validate sizes - File too large
I'm trying to backup my Macintosh HD drive to an external drive. the internal drive is 3TB. the external one is 4 TB. I'm in recovery mode and using disk utility's restore.
- Boot in recovery mode
- go to disk utility
- select external drive and click restore
- Restore from: Macintosh HD, click Restore
- processes for 10-20 seconds. says it is Validating Source, then Validating Sizes. During that it then fails and says "Restore process has failed".
- click show details and get:
- Restoring "ASRNewVolume_656" from "Macintosh HD"
- Validating ...
- Validating source...
- Validating sizes...
- Could not validate sizes - File too large
- The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error 27.)
- Operation failed...
I can't find much online that is relevant. help?
iMac 27", macOS 10.14