Backup failed - "there isn't enough space on my time capsule"

Correct.. you will find a new OS takes a huge chunk of space and it cannot delete enough old files to get a working backup so it doesn't.

You need either a new destination or archive the old backup and erase the TC and start over.. new clean backup.

You do need to read the manuals.. I know it is hard work.. but there is a whole setup manual that comes with the TC.. although I have to add.. apple have been extra lax in the documents department of late. Much of it is now in single point documents on website and hard to find instead of a big fat pdf usermanual with everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

sueshewchuk wrote:

Hope you can explain it in Lay-man's terms

Computers are NOT my friend.....

Google is your friend.

All you need to do is type terms in .. archive time capsule. (That will bring up loads of irrelevant info to do with generic term "Time Capsule" so make it specific by adding apple in front of it).

You would discover through this method articles from our good friend Pondini.. who actually wrote his own manual.. and allowed us all to read it.

See

http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ6.html

But go back and at least glance through the whole thing.. he has extensive instructions.

http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

You will also find you are the 10,000,000th person to have asked this question (no prizes here though).

So .. already there is a discussion. How can I archive my time capsule disk

I am not trying to be mean.. but there is a lot of info you simply have to learn.

To show my unmeanness open your airport utility..

Click on your TC.. and click on edit.

Click on disk tab.

Here are the two functions you will be using.

Plug in a Mac OS extended journaled format hard disk into the TC that is fully compatible with it.

Of the same capacity as your TC.. ie if your TC is 1TB a 1TB or greater USB drive. if 2TB a 2TB or greater USB drive..

Click on archive.. for next 12 hours and up to 24hours the TC will load your entire disk to USB.. no backups are possible during this time.

Once finished.. unplug the USB drive and place it in a safe place.. put a sticky label on it with the date and stating TM archive .. because in 3-6 months you will not need it. You can then reuse the disk.

Click on erase disk.. select quick erase.. it will take just 1-2min to wipe the drive and present your TM with a new clean drive.

There is no need to change destination as the disk is identical to what it was but is now empty ready for your new backup with all the space cleared of old backups.

Note .. the pictures may or may not actually be visible.. because Apple have messed up the website with yet another update.. same as your computer.

Your unmeaness is exemplary. Your tips saved me alot of time and effort. Plus I got a new 2TB drive for $99...Bonus!!!!

Thanks!

phamily1 wrote:

Your unmeaness is exemplary. Your tips saved me alot of time and effort. Plus I got a new 2TB drive for $99...Bonus!!!!

Thanks!

😉

Thanks for feedback.

Glad it helped you.. and yes, USB drives are cheap, big and easy to use. Grab loads.

I was good for 3 weeks. But now the backups have failed again. Any advice, appreciated!

This is a bit more difficult..

Notice how big your backups are.. 928GB is huge..

What size disk is in the Mac?

Do you have any virtual disks .. eg parallels,

BootCamp, Cloud services,

Any of these can use large virtual disks.. that will fill up the backup rapidly.

They should all be excluded.

Next.. you are most likely using Yosemite judging by the font in the screenshot.

Yosemite has several nasty network behaviors.. one of which is continually ghosting itself..

So check your computer name.. has it changed.. (under sharing, in preferences).

If you find your computer name has been incremented.. (1) (2) etc.. then you might already have backups for several of them.. Let me strongly recommend you delete the TC and start a new clean backup.. this time ensure the name doesn't change. So there is only one backup.

I am backing up my MAC hard drive (family's iMac) and an external drive (FreeJack) which total about 1.240 TB. My TM drive is 2 TB...enough room.

What's the issue? Do I need to upgrade capacity on my TM drive, elect not to backup some not essential files on FreeJack or can I do some parsing of FS in order to make it all fit on existing TM 2 TB drive?

Something has gone wrong.. and I have little choice but to blame Yosemite.. because it is more guilty than innocent. (Much easier to work on guilty until proven innocent!!)

I would strongly recommend..

buy a 3rd party backup utility..

Carbon Copy Cloner is my pick of the bunch but superduper is popular. There are others..

Do not use TM for the external drive.. use CCC etc.

I would make a CCC backup also of your main drive.. Perhaps to an external USB disk so you can create a bootable clone. But CCC can also create a sparsebundle and backup to TC just fine.

Still use TM but restrict it to the internal drive of the computer only..

Use CCC once a day (or once a week even if files don't change much) on the external drive.

Avoid complex setups with TM.. honestly on Yosemite it is half-broken.

Got it tx...I've got some home work to do but it will be worth it to get away from TM and it's limitations (even b4 Yosemite). Time to do the needful...Thanks, for your tips!

this is not supposed to happen. i am facing the same problem today. os x is automatically supposed to delete old backups.

It used to do that until people did upgrade installs of the OS.. if you have upgrade installed then it is even more lost than you are.. especially by the time you get to Yosemite.. doesn't know if it is coming or going.

os x is automatically supposed to delete old backups

And, it usually will if you are performing the small, quick incremental backups that occur each hour when the Mac is active. Time Machine has no problem deleting the oldest small incremental backups to make room for new incremental backups.

But, Time Machine does not know what to do when the drive is close to full with backups and you add a significant amount of new data on your Mac.....like performing an operating system update, or adding some other large new data files.

When that occurs, and the backup drive is already close to full, Time Machine.....which is programmed to delete small incremental files to make room for other small new incremental backups.....cannot delete enough old data to make room for a new large backup of the new data on the Mac. Unfortunately, Apple does not mention details like this in their product literature.

So, at this point, you have several options....listed below in terms of most expensive on down:

1) Buy a new Time Capsule and start backups going on that device

2) Add a USB drive to your existing Time Capsule and start backups going to that device

3) Erase the existing Time Capsule hard drive, and then start all over again with backups and move forward

This is the exact reason why I miss Unix. Apple does not give solutions to simple stuff like this. Also, OS X is not supposed to store faulty backups. This is a really horrible answer from Apple.