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There it goes again. Before Monterey Time Machine had the ability to delete older backups to make room for the more recent backups. This should be extremely obvious. But, somehow Monterey struggles with this basic concept.
I suppose it's only a matter of time before macO is every bit as dysfunctional as Microsoft window.
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.0
Here we go again. I must continuously reformat my external hard drive in order to back up my MacBook Pro. TimeMachine has become the world's most dysfunctional backup scheme. Monterey is to blame - before upgrading I never had an issue from 2015 through the end of 2021.
I must say I don't like This version of Microsoft Windows known as Monterey.
Here we go again. I must continuously reformat my external hard drive in order to back up my MacBook Pro. TimeMachine has become the world's most dysfunctional backup scheme. Monterey is to blame - before upgrading I never had an issue from 2015 through the end of 2021.
I must say I don't like This version of Microsoft Windows known as Monterey.
I don't believe lllaass meant for each backup, only once to try to start anew. I have an OWC 6 TB drive that I had similar problems with a couple of years ago. Since I had no files on it that weren't on my boot drive and other external drives so I erased it and started over from scratch. It's been working perfectly ever since.
Also you might try running Disk Utility's First Aid on the TM drive. It will take a lot longer than an normal drive due to the complex ecosystem of permissions, hard links, etc. But might save an erasure and start over.
What I would do would be to either start anew ™ backup on a new disk. Let ™ format the disk after you erase it and make it GUID partition map with APFS format. Alternately you and erase the existing disk and use that.
Oh.... Windows . . . . not again! Let me try rebooting several times, updating drivers, scouring Internet forums for possible solutions, workarounds or fixes. Perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling the software a few times will get it to finally work. I'm sure this will only take a week or two to straighten out and I bet this machine will run smoothly for the following month - maybe even two months if we're lucky.
Reformatting the external hard drive worked for 2 or 3 backups - now it's full again. I've been using Time Machine since 2015 - same everything - except for upgrading the operating system. What was never a problem in the past has suddenly become a huge issue - seemingly impossible to fix - and nobody knows why.
Okay, so now - I have to reformat this drive every 2 or 3 backups. That makes absolutely zero sense. How is this any different from a dysfunctional Windows OS? It isn't
I seriously regret upgrading to Monterey - an operating system that aims to be as janky as a Microsoft Windows operating system
Did you backup before on the drive? On Monterey?
How much space does your currently have on your startup disk?
What is total capacity of bp disk?
How uch space was free before last backup?
What is formate of the bakup didk?ckua
@lllaass - Yes, I've performed backups using the same external drive using Monterey. My startup disk is internal and I usually keep 250GB to 300GB free. The backup external HD is 1TB. My internal SSD is also 1TB. I don't recall what the format was of my external HD used for the backup. I probably did not use the latest format - I vaguely recall reading something about mechanical external drives not working as well using the latest formatting scheme. I probably used a format that is commonly used - but, I'll have to check to be sure.
Looks like the backup external hard-drive used by TM is formatted using: APFS Volume • APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted). I'll reformat this drive today (keeping the APSF case sensitive format) and try to get TimeMachine working again.
Your earlier post indicated that you have an internal 1 TB drive with 250 GB free, and you are backing up to a 1 TB backup drive. The backup drive is too small, recommended Time Machine backup drive size is 3x to 4x the size of the drive being backed up.
That said, I am surprised that it filled up that fast. Do you have large folders that change frequently, perhaps large image collections (Lightroom, etc.) or possibly a virtual system drive -- with virtual systems, just starting it up causes the entire file (which can be 50 GB or more) to be marked as changed and hence it gets backed up next backup. For large collections or files like that, excluding them from Time Machine and instead backing them up separately using a program like SuperDuper or CCC might make sense.
Since 2015 and up until upgrading to Monterey TimeMachine worked with no issues - never did I have to flippin' reformat the darn drive just for basically functionality (I can't emphasize enough how this is reminiscent of a typical dysfunctional Windows system).
Anyway . . .
I have Parallels - and those VMs need to be backed up. So, yeah, that might be the issue - a VM (the Windows one anyway) is right around 100GB. I do keep about 250GB free on my 1TB internal drive (the one that boots macOS) - in practice the free space will get low to, say, 150GB before I notice and then free up more space.
Okay, I'll get a larger external hard drive. I really hope that works.
When you run the virtual machine, it changes the 100 GB file so that means it gets backed up. Based on what you said earlier, if the VM is open frequently, you would get maybe 3 backups with such a changed file before filling up the backup drive.
I wold exclude the VM from Time Machine and back the VM large folder/file up separately using CCC or SuperDuper periodically. When I use backup drives 3x to 4x the size of the internal, they last ~ years before filling up. Normally Time Machine deletes older backups to make room for the newest one but when large files like that are involved (100 GB), it may not be able to do that.
Although Time Machine does require APFS for the backup drive under Monterey, I have a variety of backup drives in use, some SSD and some HD (mechanical). The SSD ones are certainly faster but the HD ones seem to work reasonably fast also, even though they all are APFS.
Getting a larger backup drive will likely help the situation but if you are backing up a "changed" 100 GB file or folder with every Time Machine backup (e.g. every hour), you still may encounter some issues. In 24 hours that would take up 2.4 TB just for that VM file alone. I have one of those on my work computer and it is excluded from Time Machine backups as well as from a Cloud based backup we use, instead I just make a local backup (finder copy) on a local external drive every day or so for the big VM file. My Time Machine backup drives have lasted for several years and have been working smoothly.
I'm reformatting the hard drive again today. I lost count of how many times I've had to reformat this hard drive just to do an extremely simple backup. But, this goes to show you that Monterey is just a terrible operating system. I never had an issue such as this until upgrading to Monterey. This is so bad that I might as well be on a crummy Microsoft Windows machine =(
silver_mica wrote:
I'm reformatting the hard drive again today. I lost count of how many times I've had to reformat this hard drive just to do an extremely simple backup. But, this goes to show you that Monterey is just a terrible operating system. I never had an issue such as this until upgrading to Monterey. This is so bad that I might as well be on a crummy Microsoft Windows machine =(
You indicated that your source drive is 1 TB, with 150MB-250 MB free. Since your backup drive is 1 TB, that means you have room for one or two backups when the 100MB VM has been accessed before the drive fills up.
As I indicated before, you can
(a) exclude the VM folder from the Time Machine backups and back it up using a clone program like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner or a simple Finder copy, maybe very few days or once a week. SuperDuper and CCC can do automated backups on a schedule as well -- and that backup drive won't fill up because it is not a versioned backup, it keeps only one backup of the last version of the VM)
(b) buy a larger drive 4x the size of your source drive, but even that will fill up after a few dozens of backups of that 100 GB VM file, but since it has more room to work with, it may be able to delete older backups on the fly and keep going
If this leads you to go back to Windows, personally I would have no objection to that. There are plenty of satisfied Windows users. Buying a 5 TB external TM backup drive for about $100 might be cheaper and simpler but it's certainly your choice.
(c) go to an earlier macOS that isn't as severely crippled as Monterey actually is.
As I've indicated a number of times - since 2015 and up until I upgraded to Monterey Time Machine never required a 4TB external drive for basic functionality.
I'll put it to you this way EVEN a seriously flawed operating system known as Microsoft Windows doesn't brick your computer when upgrading. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read on... https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/01/macos-monterey-bricking-older-macs/
Yeah, I suppose I could reformat the disk for each backup. I'm traveling right now - so when I get back I'll give it a go
Timemachine "there isn't enough space on . . . "
