Seagate goflexhome out of space for backups

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Level 1

8 points

Seagate goflexhome out of space for backups

I purchased a Seagate Goflexhome for backing up my imac on reccommendation of Maplin staff. It is only a couple of months old.

It was working fine- had to unplug it a coupe of times due to three house moves and still it seemed to be ok.

All of a sudden I get a message saying that there is not enough space to perform a backup in time machine and the disk is nearly full. It is 1TB and my imac is not used any where near enough that it should be this full. Time machine is set to delete old back ups as space is needed.

The other problem is that when I go to Disk utility the Goflexhome doesn't show up. It is sitting next to the imac with the lights on ready for action, but I cant access it.

I have rung apple but they tell me that they only support their own backup devices (fair enough) but I'm not sure if this is mac problem or Seagate. The Seagate help is not very helpful and i have not been able to receive any reply to emails i have sent. Their helpline is also constantly engaged.

Does anybody have a clue where I can beging to work out this mess?

It is a waste of money at the moment. Short of formatting and starting again I dont know where to begin.

\the Goflexhome is connected to my router- I dont have any other means to connect it although there is a USB socket. Not sure if Ican get a double ended USB lead to try connecting it directly, but it also backs up my son's laptop.

Mac 27", Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jun 3, 2013 5:40 AM

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Answer 1

Greenapple68 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 3, 2013 5:55 AM in response to Greenapple68

Should just say my son's laptop is Mac book air

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Answer 2

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 3, 2013 11:28 AM in response to Greenapple68

Eeeek! I just spent the weekend in another thread helping a user recover from corrupted backups on another one of those. 😟

Just for your reference, and so I don't have to retype a bunch of it, please review the pink box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #2.

The reason AppleCare doesn't support it is, they don't have any of them, much less instructions or experience with them (ditto U.P.S. systems, printers, scanners, etc.). Few helpers here do, either.

And since it's a network drive, Disk Utility won't see it, thus can't format it properly. So Time Machine creates a sparse bundle disk image on it (kind of like a virtual disk on the disk), properly formatted, to back up to. If you can connect to the NAS, Disk Utility can see and repair the disk image.

Whether there's really enough space is unknown; it depends on how the NAS is set up -- some have different accounts, users, shares, or similar terms, for different purposes; some of those limit the size of each. Or, if you're not accessing it with the right one, you may not see what you need.

But Time Machine does need a lot more space than the data it's backing-up; we usually recommend at least 3 times the size. If Time Machine is trying to do a very large backup, that may the problem. A clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages here.

If you can see the NAS drive in the Finder, try to repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

If that doesn't work, post back with details, including the widget messages and, if you can't find the sparse bundle(s), a screenshot of what you see in the Finder.

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Answer 3

Greenapple68 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 6, 2013 6:26 AM in response to Pondini

Thank you.

Am working through your suggestions...I did download the time capsule buddy widget but unable to copy the message into a post for you for some reason. Working on it!

So are you saying that as the imac memory is 1TB that I should have at least 3TB of space on my NAS?

I took advice from the guys at Maplins, and it seems reasonable to have 1TB as I havn't nearly even filled a third of the memory on the imac. Also not sure why older backups arent deleted to make space.

Iappreciate your help- only tech savvy to a point!

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Answer 4

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 6, 2013 6:35 AM in response to Greenapple68

Greenapple68 wrote:

Thank you.

Am working through your suggestions...I did download the time capsule buddy widget but unable to copy the message into a post for you for some reason. Working on it!

Click in the message area, then click Cmd+A to select all, then Cmd+C to copy to the clipboard. Then you can paste here normally.

So are you saying that as the imac memory is 1TB that I should have at least 3TB of space on my NAS?

Sort of. It depends how much of the disk space ("memory" refers to RAM, not disk space) is used. The problem is, we tend to put more and more on them, so TM won't be able to keep backups for long.

I took advice from the guys at Maplins, and it seems reasonable to have 1TB as I havn't nearly even filled a third of the memory on the imac.

Yes, you should be ok for now.

Also not sure why older backups arent deleted to make space.

Hard to tell without more info, such as exactly which message you got. See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. That may clarify it.

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Answer 5

Greenapple68 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 10, 2013 2:43 PM in response to Pondini

Here is the latest backup message on the widget thingy!

>Starting standard backup

Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/GoFlex Home Backup

QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN

Disk image /Volumes/GoFlex Home Backup/Family’s iMac 1.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups

Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb

Error parsing SystemMigration.log to determine source volume of system migration.

Backup content size: 214.7 GB excluded items size: 1.9 GB for volume MACINTOSH HD

Starting pre-backup thinning: 255.37 GB requested (including padding), 133.13 GB available

No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room

Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.

Backup Failed: unable to free 255.37 GB needed space

Backup failed with error: Not enough available disk space on the target volume.

Ejected Time Machine disk image.

Ejected Time Machine network volume.

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Answer 6

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 10, 2013 2:56 PM in response to Greenapple68

Greenapple68 wrote:

. . .

Error parsing SystemMigration.log to determine source volume of system migration.

Clue. Looks like it thinks you have a new Mac or hard drive -- it was trying to figure out if you'd migrated, but couldn't tell.

Backup content size: 214.7 GB excluded items size: 1.9 GB for volume MACINTOSH HD

Thus it would back up about 213 GB. That sounds like the full content of your Mac. Second clue.

No expired backups exist - deleting oldest backups to make room

Error: backup disk is full - all 0 possible backups were removed, but space is still needed.

Third clue: no backups could be removed. That means there are either no, or exactly one, backup associated with your Mac.

That's assuming you're connected to the NAS with the correct account, or share, or whatever they call it.

Conclusion: for some reason, TM seems to think you have a different Mac. It won't delete any backups for (what it thinks is) a different Mac to make room for new ones on a different one.

You might be able to persuade TM that it really is the same Mac. Do both the "inheritbackup" and "associatedisk" procedures in #B6 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting. Follow the instructions for backups on a Time Capsule, in the green box. With your backups on a NAS, I don't know if you'll be able to find the sparse bundle exactly that way (there may be some intervening folders), or whether the NAS will let you see inside the disk image. You may need to use an administrator account or such on the NAS.

Then start another backup and see what it does.

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