Time machine strange behavior

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Level 1

12 points

Time machine strange behavior

On a day when nothing much much was going on my system, time machine failed. I got the error message:

'Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine Backups”.

The backup disk ran out of space unexpectedly. Time Machine will try to make more space available by removing expired backups during the next scheduled backup.

Open Time Machine preferences to select a larger backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding files.'

I don't want to exclude files. I once dropped my mac (stupid human tricks). The mac was irreparable, and I able to restore the last mac using Time Machine. Since I'd like to be able to do a full system restore, I don't want to exclude files. I also don't want to get a larger drive.

My Macintosh HD is 500GB of which 294GB are available. In other words 206GB are used. My time machine drive is 1TB.

The backup that failed was 48GB.

Some questions:

1. How did I need to do a 48GB backup (23% of my system) when nothing much was going on my system?

2. Is there any way to free much more space on the Time Machine drive?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Apr 15, 2016 5:27 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Apr 16, 2016 6:52 PM in response to stirling-dad

Go to this definitive web site for Time Machine usage and operating problems:

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

Here is the troubleshooting section:

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

Ciao.

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Answer 2

stirling-dad Author

Level 1

12 points

Apr 16, 2016 7:01 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

Thanks for the reply. Wow, that's a lot of material. I don't know where my problem fits. Could you please help? Thanks. By the way, the problem has not happened again. So a full reset, which I'm reluctant to do, doesn't seem to be called for.

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Answer 3

notcloudy

Level 4

1,252 points

Apr 16, 2016 8:08 PM in response to stirling-dad

stirling-dad wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Wow, that's a lot of material. I don't know where my problem fits. Could you please help? Thanks. By the way, the problem has not happened again. So a full reset, which I'm reluctant to do, doesn't seem to be called for.

It will do a full backup of say an IPHOTO library if you do one of the reset or reorganize options.

After each run of time machine backup it does the cleanup that starts combining hourly to daily and daily to weekly. I missed a month of backups while getting a repair done - and it did take more than one time machine run to get the dailies to weeklies.

From everything I have seen - eventually the drive gets full and you have to go to another drive.

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Answer 4

stirling-dad Author

Level 1

12 points

Apr 16, 2016 8:18 PM in response to notcloudy

Thanks for the reply. I prefer not getting a new time machine drive: I'd lose the backups I have now, and there's the cost of the new drive.

I don't think I need to get a new drive. The error messages have stopped. Apparently, the folks who designed time machine did a good job.

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Answer 5

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,305 points

Apr 17, 2016 3:09 AM in response to notcloudy

notcloudy wrote:

From everything I have seen - eventually the drive gets full and you have to go to another drive.

When the drive becomes full, Time Machine will drop off the oldest backups in order to make room for the newer ones. A new HDD is not needed.

http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

Ciao.

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