On the existing HD, the Get Info tries to calculate file size and just thinks about it forever (like a day or two).
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.14
Follow all of the steps, at > Transfer Time Machine backups from one backup disk to another - Apple Support
Follow all of the steps, at > Transfer Time Machine backups from one backup disk to another - Apple Support
Did you format the new HD first? If not that is the first step, you need to format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID partition in Disk Utility. Disk Utility can be found in Applications - Utilities - Disk Utilities. Most external drives are not formatted for Mac OS out of the box.
You are leaving out vital information and we are not clairvoyant and cannot look over your shoulder to see what you are doing so we rely on you to write a clear description of what you have done and what is occurring.
Well . . .guess I have been spanked!
The time machine backup is on this disk -
LaCie:
Available: 1.15 TB (1,145,938,415,616 bytes)
Capacity: 2 TB (2,000,054,960,128 bytes)
Mount Point: /Volumes/LaCie
File System: Journaled HFS+
Writable: Yes
Ignore Ownership: No
BSD Name: disk2s2
Volume UUID: A6834937-CE4E-3D25-B86C-1F9C9D2BA9E6
Physical Drive:
Device Name: d2 Quadra v3C
Media Name: LaCie d2 Quadra v3C Media
Protocol: USB
Internal: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
I don't know the size of the file (backups.backupdb) since each time I request that information, using "get info", it begings to calculate the size and never does come up with the size.
So, I have been deleting the various weekly time machine backups over the past few months. I am now down to 11 months worth of backups. Right now I am attempting to copy the backups.backupdb file to this drive -
Bottman3:
Available: 499.32 GB (499,315,613,696 bytes)
Capacity: 499.76 GB (499,763,888,128 bytes)
Mount Point: /Volumes/Bottman3
File System: Journaled HFS+
Writable: Yes
Ignore Ownership: No
BSD Name: disk3s2
Volume UUID: 0E88D414-58CB-3EA6-85AE-665372C251B5
Physical Drive:
Device Name: Backup+ BK
Media Name: Seagate Backup+ BK Media
Protocol: USB
Internal: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
I started this 4 hours ago, and it is now "preparing to copy" 409,657 items (and slowly adding more).
I have tried this several times over the past month, and usually after 2 - 3 days I get the message that there is not enough room on the target drive.
The desktop computer is -
macOS Mojave, v. 10.14.6
3 GHz Intel Core i5
16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Please let me know is you need anything else.
I have done this numerous times and it always works assuming the drives are in good shape to begin with. If the old drive is not in good shape due to age (HD's should be swapped out every few years) then moving it's data to a new drive may not work. Sometimes I just start over with TM when I am introducting a new HD. BTW, what experienced users like on these forums are the OWC Mercury Elite Pro line of EHDs. When I first started with Macs (many years ago) I tried Lacie and they failed frequently, since I move to the OWC MEP's no problems, some of the enclosures are as old as 15 years and still working just fine.
I am trying to copy the time machine backups to a new external HD. The transfer is REALLY slow and always just hangs up aprt way through.
