I too erased the external hard drive (4 tb) that was working fine to do my Time Machine backups and also purchased a 10 tb external hard drive (seagate backup) and time machine gives me the same error message "Time Machine could not back up the disk “MacintoshHD - Data” because it is nearly full." I deleted my back ups when I erased my 4 tb hard drive and now I have no back ups at all. What else can I do?
iMac 27″, macOS 11.4
First, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac. This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.
There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs. There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.
Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear. They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware. Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.
There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is desshoigned solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it. The free version is more than adequate for most users.
Also, unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's or bank's servers, they are useless from a privacy standpoint: Public VPN's are anything but private.
That being said, uninstall Bitdefender and AntivirusforMac according to the developer's instructions.
What are you using the Seagate drive for? I've noticed that you have Seagate software installed. Did this come with a Seagate drive and is for managing the drive under normal usage. If so it's totally unnecessary and should be removed. The system does not need any additional 3rd party software to manage external HDs as long as those drives are formatted either OS X Extended (journaled) or APFS depending on the type of drive it is.
Did you install any of the Seagate software that usually comes with Seagate drives?
Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
IMPORTANT:
Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:
Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.
Copy the report
and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.
I did turn off my Time Machine and reselected the external hard drive. This is what I have now with no error message. A couple of things 1) I've never seen this icon before in my Time Machine folder and 2) when I open on of the backups there's only the MacintoshHD - Data and again that's not what I normally see and 3) within the backup folder for Applications on 29 applications are in the folder but I have 64 applications on my internal hard drive and in the Library backup folder there are 65 items but I have 67 items in my Library on my internal hard drive.
Did you try turning off Time Machine quitting out of the System Preferences and going back in and re-selecting the new large empty external backup drive? Thinking the previous Time Machine configuration is stuck when you erased the external Time Machine drive. So turning off Time Machine completely and re-selecting the drive might fix it.
Thanks for the information. If my memory serves me correctly, Bitdefender, Malwarebytes and Acronis was all installed on my computer by the store that I bought the iMac from. I never did install Bitdefender or Acronis but I had my internal hard drive replaced with a solid state drive. I wonder if that's when it got installed. Then again I may have done it but for over a year I let it sit on my hard drive without installing the software.
With respect to the Seagate software, the information supplied said if I have a Mac, I will need to download the drivers in order to use the external hard drive with my Mac. I'm hoping to format the drive to NTFS format. It's a silly reason but that seems to be the only format that I can have an icon displaying what is in a folder rather than just having the blue folder that is Apple's default. That's what started this whole thing. When I change the folder to an icon I want in my download folder on my iMac and then I move that folder to an external hard drive, inside the folder, there's a hidden file and I've never seen that before until I upgraded to the most current version of Big Sur. I know; this is a whole different issue and most importantly I want to get my time machine back up running again.
I've deleted both Bitdefender and AntivirusforMac as per the developer's instructions and I will to back up to my time machine now. Thanks again.
Malwarebytes is a very good app. That's the only one I use occasionally. Good luck.
Hopefully I copied and added the report correctly. Thank you again for your expertise on this.
How much free space do you have on the Macintosh HD - Data volume? It needs enough free space to create local snapshots.
Thank you for your quick response. I’m not well versed in this stuff.
Error message "Time Machine could not back up the disk
