Hi everyone,
I bought a new Macbook Pro a few weeks ago and I'm trying to start backing it up on my Time Capsule (it's maybe 6 years old). The TC is empty, my Macbook says that it needs around 320GB for the backup (TC has 1 TB). However, the backup stops and says that there isn't enough space on the TC. Even deleting TC and starting afresh doesn't work.
My macOS is Mojave.
Does anyone have an idea how to solve this issue?
Thanks,
Lars
MacBook Pro
Although it might appear that the TC is empty, that may not really be the case. Your post did not really indicate whether you erased the disk on the TC, so it would not hurt to do this again.
Open AirPort Utility on your Mac.........(Finder > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility)
Click on the picture of the Time Capsule
Click Edit in the smaller window that appears
Click the Disks tab at the top of the next window
Click Erase Disk
Use the default Quick Erase setting
Click Erase
The Erase procedure will take a few minutes
When the process is done, try a new backup again
Unfortunately 320 GB is a huge amount of data to back up. Keep the Mac close to the Time Capsule if you are using WiFi to back up the data on the Mac.
Although it might appear that the TC is empty, that may not really be the case. Your post did not really indicate whether you erased the disk on the TC, so it would not hurt to do this again.
Open AirPort Utility on your Mac.........(Finder > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility)
Click on the picture of the Time Capsule
Click Edit in the smaller window that appears
Click the Disks tab at the top of the next window
Click Erase Disk
Use the default Quick Erase setting
Click Erase
The Erase procedure will take a few minutes
When the process is done, try a new backup again
Unfortunately 320 GB is a huge amount of data to back up. Keep the Mac close to the Time Capsule if you are using WiFi to back up the data on the Mac.
Click on the Time Machine "clock" icon at the top of your Mac's screen.
Click on Open Time Machine Preferences
Click the Options button at the lower right of the window
Look for information about the size of the backup of your Mac
In the example above, you can see that my Mac has about 92 GB of data on its hard drive that will be backed up.
If only 350 GB of space on your Mac's hard drive is occupied, then the Estimated Size of the backup should be about 350 GB.
If the estimated size of the backup is much larger, then you may likely be backing up other hard drives that might be connected to your Mac. If that is the case, then you will need to Exclude the other hard drives from the backup of your Mac.
Some of my previous post was not included, so I am adding it again.
If the estimated size of the backup is much larger than 350 GB, you will need to stop the backup, and Erase the Time Capsule hard drive again. The "Quick Erase" selection will be fine and it will only take a few minutes.
Then, open Time Machine Preferences again and click on the Options button like you did before.
Click the + (Plus) button at the bottom of the window
A Finder interface will appear
Navigate to find other drives that are connected to your Mac or the network
Click to highlight the name of the drive
Click the Exclude button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from the backup
Do the same for other drives that might be connected to your Mac or network
Check your Mac to make sure that there are no disk errors on the Mac. To do that......
Open Disk Utility (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)
Click to highlight the Mac's hard drive......(named Data, unless you have changed the name of the drive)
Click First Aid
Restart the Mac
Power off and then restart the Time Capsule
Try a backup again
Any 1TB TC must be at least 8 years old and could be 11 or 12.. although that is unlikely.. even 8 years is over long lifespan for this product that usually requires replacement on 3 year cycle if not before. Apple no longer make them so it is time to consider other options.
Do you think it's possible that the time capsule is simply too old?
Possible. Do you have another Mac that you could use as a test to try a backup that way?
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your help. I'm sorry I forgot to say, yes I did erase the disk, even did the option where it securely erases it 7 times.
Still doesn't work. The backup just starts and it then just fills up the whole disk and says that there isn't enough space.
Any ideas why this happens?
Thanks,
Lars
Hi Bob,
I tried all of that, but the backup is still going on. It was at 271GB yesterday morning and has now just grown to 913GB. But my TC has only 80GB space left and it will just run out of space again. My backup clearly shouldn't be this big for a first backup of a 500GB hard drive (whereof only 350GB are occupied).
Any ideas why this keeps happening?
Thanks for your help!
Lars
Thanks for the ideas, unfortunately, the problem still stands. The estimated backup size is around 350GB and there are no drives connected to my macbook. I even tried excluding the time capsule from being backed up, in case there was some kind of looping issue, but still no progress.
I've erased the time capsule several times and done a new backup, leaving my macbook next to the time capsule, and still every time the time capsule gets filled up entirely and it says that there isn't enough space for the backup.
Do you think it's possible that the time capsule is simply too old?
TM Backup with New Macbook Pro
