2TB WD back up drive full so purchased a 4TB disk and copied the backup folder across.
BUT now new drive shows 3 TB FREE! I would have expected it to have used the 2 TB from the old drive and to leave 2tb free.
Has it taken everything across?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15
I use Time Machine
I opened 2 finder windows, located the 2 drives and checked the Format - File and Partition type.
Then dragged backup.backupsdb to the new drive.
Left it overnight to prepare and copy.
Grateful for any further comments. Thank you.
I used this information to help me:
If you plugged in the new drive, set it up as a TimeMachine drive, and initiated the first backup this is what I’d expect. Explanation:
TimeMachine makes an initial backup and then backs up any changes on an hourly basis. That means the old drive not only has your current data but lots of old data too. Assuming you did as I described above, the new drive doesn’t have any of the old data. Just the new. Thus the discrepancy.
Solutions:
I like TimeMachine precisely because it does keep the old data. It has saved my bacon a few times over the years. You could simply retire the old TM drive to a drawer for safe keeping. Once you figure you’ve reached the point where the old data on the old drive is no longer needed you can repurpose that drive. Or, you could erase the new drive and copy the old TM drive to the new one. Apple’s official methodology is to simply drag the old TM folder onto the new drive but that can take a long long time. I prefer to use the Disk Utility restore function to perform the copy
I don’t think you lost anything. What I think happened, is that the backups were thinned and compressed.
That is of corse, if you followed all of the instructions to the letter.
What backup App. do you use?
(Time Machine, CCC, SD, ??)
How did you Copy it?
I did follow the instructions to the letter.
I was just surprised the the data didn’t take up more space but it seems that you have answered that for me now.
Thanks so much.
$TB back up drive wrong capacity
