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Catalina Time Machine: Past explanation for "Out of Space" is incomplete

The discussion of "Out of Space" in a previous question states "Once Time Machine finds it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start over or get a larger drive." This fails to get at the problem: What's wrong with the design of Time Machine that it can't reliably keep discarding the oldest incremental file? Relatively few files actually change over time--it shouldn't take much space to track that.


I have a TM drive that is 3 times the size of my system drive. If TM were working properly, it should just hum on forever. But instead, I keep getting the message Backup Failed, Out of Space. With 453 Gb free, how is it possible that TM can't do an incremental backup?


BTW, I've had a continuing problem since Sierra: "Entering TM" produces a black screen, without the stacked windows. I'm able to get the standard TM screen to appear for only a second as I close this. What's up?

Posted on Jul 23, 2021 7:53 AM

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Jul 23, 2021 11:28 AM in response to Techie242

Well, since the internal drive has a lot of empty space and the external also has a lot of empty space- can you put the drive with the issue aside for now. Then introduce a new TM Drive and set it up as the default drive and test is the original issue replicates itself. More of a test than anything else.


No chance any Cleaner or Optimizer applications have been run or installed ?

Catalina Time Machine: Past explanation for "Out of Space" is incomplete

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