Time Machine claims disk is full, but it is a brand new drive, formatted correctly for Time Machine.

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Time Machine claims disk is full, but it is a brand new drive, formatted correctly for Time Machine.

I've had a seagate 8TB drive working fine for years as my Time Machine backup, but it suddenly started saying it was full. It wasn't. but I erased it and started over. Same message. So I thought the drive might be failing. Bought a new WD 10 TB drive, formatted Mac OS Journaled, as specified and told time machine to use that disk. Same message. "Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “WD Elements”

"Time Machine could not back up the disk “Macintosh HD - Data” because it is nearly full."

There is nothing on the drive - there is 10 TB free and I have no idea how to fix this. I have rebooted the Mac, in case it was the problem. It is completely up t date with Big Sur 11.2.2. I have no idea how to solve this. I've searched the internet but havent found anything useful. Please help.

iMac 27″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 6, 2021 10:25 AM

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Answer 1

Owl-53

Level 10

102,133 points

Mar 6, 2021 10:58 AM in response to annford

New Feature in Big Sur and Big Sur Time Machine Backup - the Drive must be formatted as APFS with GUID Partition map.

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 6, 2021 12:05 PM in response to annford

annford wrote:

"Time Machine could not back up the disk “Macintosh HD - Data” because it is nearly full."

How much free space is on your internal drive? The error may indicate your internal drive is too full.

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 6, 2021 12:19 PM in response to annford

FWIW, if you notice, the error message doesn't say your external is nearly full…

"Time Machine could not back up the disk “Macintosh HD - Data” because it is nearly full."

Unless of course you named the external drive: “Macintosh HD - Data”

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Answer 4

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,030 points

Mar 6, 2021 11:52 AM in response to Owl-53

I found that if you have a clean drive formatted to Mac OS (journaled) for TM and use it with Big Sur it will auto reformat to APFS so not sure what the issue is with TM stating "drive full". Seems odd to me.

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Answer 5

annford Author

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Mar 6, 2021 12:04 PM in response to tbirdvet

Yes, that is my experience too. It automatically switched it to APFS, which I though odd.

Agreed that the message is odd, that is why I am here asking for help.

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Answer 6

annford Author

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5 points

Mar 6, 2021 1:05 PM in response to dialabrain

About 445 GB

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Answer 7

annford Author

Level 1

5 points

Mar 6, 2021 1:06 PM in response to dialabrain

I did notice that, but that drive is not nearly full either, and why would it care - since it is not using that drive to backup to.

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Answer 8

dialabrain

Level 10

135,383 points

Mar 6, 2021 1:11 PM in response to annford

Well, Time Machine does create local snapshots but that's not the issue. You have enough free space. Was just a thought. I don't know why you are getting that error.

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Time Machine claims disk is full, but it is a brand new drive, formatted correctly for Time Machine.

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