Q: Time Machine Needs too much space, goes too slow?
I noticed recently that TM was taking a long time during backups, sometimes as long as 15-20 minutes to back up data in the MB, not GB, range. While doing some troubleshooting, I installed Time Machine Buddy. When I looked at the logs, I noticed stuff like this:
Found 145 files (91.5 MB) needing backup
5 GB required (including padding), 984.9 GB available
Copied 3434 files (8.8 MB) from volume myMac.
Using file event preflight for myMac
Will copy (305 bytes) from myMac
Found 14 files (305 bytes) needing backup
4.89 GB required (including padding), 984.89 GB available
So...to backup 91.5MB, it needs 5GB?
To backup 305 bytes (not KB, not MB -- bytes!), it needs 4.89GB?
What the heck? Could this be what's slowing down my backups -- some glitch making TM think it needs vastly more space than it actually needs?
iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
Posted on Feb 13, 2013 10:59 AM
It takes time to determine what needs to be copied. It's more efficient when larger amounts of data are involved. Snapshots are deleted when they expire, regardless of how much space is available. When space is short, unexpired snapshots are deleted.
Posted on Feb 13, 2013 3:49 PM