Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”

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Level 1

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Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”

I am having problems backing up to Time Machine. I have not been able to backup since August. I get the following:

I have an internal 4TB SSD with 204.6GB free. The external drive is a 4TB HDD.

From what it says, TM deletes old backups and replaces it with new backups. If that's so why can't it do that? Its confusing since there is 200GB free space it should be able to make a backup with no error, shouldn't?

This has been the case for a long while now and I can only get it to make a backup when I erase the TM drive and start over.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 12.6

Posted on Oct 3, 2022 7:20 PM

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Answer 1

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Barney-15E

Level 10

112,686 points

Oct 3, 2022 7:26 PM in response to erahi

Time Machine doesn't make copies of every file, so there is no single "old backup."

It will only ever remove old backups if those only contain files you have deleted from your Mac.

The backup drive needs to be two to three times the size of the data you are backing up.

So, you would need at least an 8TB backup drive.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,686 points

Oct 3, 2022 7:50 PM in response to erahi

You can create a JBOD RAID using Disk Utility. But, as soon as one drive gets accidentally disconnected, you will likely lose everything and have to create it again.

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Answer 3

erahi Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 3, 2022 8:12 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you doing this now.

For TM which format do you recommend?

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Answer 4

erahi Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 3, 2022 7:38 PM in response to Barney-15E

Ok I was hoping I wouldn't have to go out a buy a new drive.

Am I able to use two 4TB external USB HDD and make it a single 8TB drive?

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Answer 5

steve626

Level 6

9,989 points

Oct 3, 2022 8:15 PM in response to erahi

With MacOS 12.6, normally APFS is required for a Time Machine target drive format.

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Answer 6

erahi Author

Level 1

24 points

Oct 3, 2022 8:33 PM in response to steve626

Perfect, it works! I wish I knew this before - had no idea you could concatenate external HDDs and I have multiple of these lying in a drawer doing nothing.

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Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”

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