Level 1

67 points

How to move Backup from TC to external HD

At the office we have a few Macs and PCs connected to a Time Capsule. From the get-go, I set my iMac to do Time Machine backups to that TC. Unfortunately, I was new to TC and TM then, and I didn't realize that Apple left me powerless to set a "size/space limit" on how much HD space my backup would consume. My backup has now eaten 920MB of the TC's 1TB drive. And since it is a TC, we cannot partition the internal drive.

What we decided to do is purchase an external FW800 2TB drive for my iMac alone so we can then delete off my TM backup and free space on the TC's internal HD. (Yes, I know we could have attached a USB drive to the TC, but we decided against that.) I will use TM to backup exclusively to my external HD, directly attached to my iMac. That's easy to do and I don't need help doing that. The reason I am posting here today is because I want to MOVE my backup off the TC and onto the new external HD. And I then want TM to continue making backups to that same set of backups on my new external HD. If this is possible, how do I accomplish it? (Keep in mind that TM backups on TC's are saved into a single Sparse Bundle Disk Image.)

I look forward to your replies.

Thank you,

James

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), March 2009 DuoCore, 8GB RAM, 1TB HD

Posted on Jun 13, 2013 5:35 PM

20 replies

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 18, 2013 7:45 PM in response to JDW1

JDW1 wrote:

Pondini, thank you for your detailed reply. And I must say that your TM website is simply amazing. It's like a college course on the use of TM!

😁

The entire time it was backing up, it said "Oldest Backup: None". I guess that's normal when you start backing up to a new drive, even though I had copied over my Backups.backupdb file to it.

Yes. That often terrifies people. See #B3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. PLEASE tell Apple how upsetting that can be, per the red paragraph there.

So I am happy to report that everything worked as seamlessly as I hoped. And I wish to thank you and the others here who so kindly pointed me in the right direction.

You're quite welcome. 🙂

I now have one last question.

Pondini wrote:

Since it "thins" backups down to one per day after after 24 hours, it saves very little space, either.

Based upon the above statement and what I read on your site, it would appear that using a third party app like TimeMachineEditor to backup only once a day (weekdays) would not trigger the "automatic thinning" process? Does the auto thinning get triggered only after TM is active for 24 hours? Or is it triggered by 24 hours worth of individual backups by third party apps such as TimeMachineEditor?

No. Thinning is done (if necessary) on every backup. 3rd-party hacks don't affect it; all they do is start backups. You'll see the messages in the logs, either via Console (filter for backupd) or the widget in #A1 of the above link.

Furthermore, I see all the caveats to the 3rd party apps you mention on your website, but what then is the advantage of using a 3rd party app? Your information seems to indicate there would be virtually nothing gained by using a 3rd party app instead of TM's default hourly backups. But at the very least could it not be said that use of a 3rd party TM scheduler would be "less obtrusive" than TM's hourly backups, especially on older/slower Macs where you feel the effects of such frequent backups?

In most cases, there is no advantage. If backups are obtrusive, there's almost always something wrong. Backing-up less often is only treating the symptom, not the cause. And some of those hacks can interfere with backups.

JDW1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 19, 2013 2:05 AM in response to Pondini

Thank you again, Pondini.

In closing, I would like to say that after 7 full hours today, I finally was able to delete off my 930GB+ Sparsebundle from my TC. I initially tried a Finder delete, but I stopped that when I realized it was taking forever. I read the suggestion about Showing the Package Contents and then deleting 8000 "bands" at a time, but 20 minutes after choosing Show Package Contents, the Contents still had not displayed so I stopped that. I then tried the Graveyard app, but after 30 minutes I couldn't see that anything had been deleted so I killed that app. In the end I used the following procedure in the Terminal (which took about 6 hours):

1. Launch Terminal

2. Type: sudo -s

3. Enter adminstrator password

4. type: cd /Volumes/<your TC's name>

5. Type: ls -la

6. Type: rm -rf <your sparsebundle's filename>

Yes, I know I could have backed up my TC and then erased it and then restored the contents, but I was too busy today to mess around with that. The best solution would be for Apple to just tweak the OS so deletes would take seconds, rather than hours, but I'm sure someone will tell me all manner of technical reasons why that cannot be so.

Anyway, the job is done and I am greatly relieved.

Thanks again!

James Wages

JDW1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 25, 2013 12:15 AM in response to JDW1

As of my last post here, I thought I had brought this thread to a conclusion; however, I have one final question today. I wanted to post the question here since it is related to our previous discussion.

Previously when I used a Time Capsule to backup via Time Machine, the TC backup drive would not be mounted on my iMac's Desktop. In fact, the only time I would see my TC/TM drive mounted was when I would choose "Enter Time Machine" from the TM menubar icon. I liked that scenario where the backup drive was only mounted when needed.

As I mentioned before, despite the caveats discussed, I am continuing to use the 3rd party scheduler TimeMachineEditor 2.5.3 to run a single backup each day.

Now that I am using an external 2TB FW800 HD for my TM backups, I see my external HD mounted all the time. In most cases it sits there unobtrusively spun-down. However, I am wondering if it is best to use Disk Utility to unmount my external HD so no other apps will ever try to access it and make it spin up? (That drive is 100% dedicated to TM and nothing else.) But will unmounting the drive create problems for TM? Will TM find and re-mount the drive when it needs to backup? And then will TM then unmount the drive again when finished, just like it with my TC in the past?

Thank you,

James

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 25, 2013 4:46 AM in response to JDW1

JDW1 wrote:

. . .

Will TM find and re-mount the drive when it needs to backup? And then will TM then unmount the drive again when finished, just like it with my TC in the past?

No. TM (and OSX generally) won't mount an unmounted drive automatically. About the only exceptions I know of are at startup and when using Migration Assistant.

You'll get this:

JDW1 Author

Level 1

67 points

Jun 25, 2013 6:09 AM in response to Pondini

I see.

Thank you, Pondini!

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How to move Backup from TC to external HD