Time Machine 500gb external disk.......assistance sought

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Level 1

11 points

Time Machine 500gb external disk.......assistance sought

Hi, I have 3 external backup disks for my imac which are 500gb, 1TB, and 3TB. I recently successfully repaired the 500gb using the Disk Utility which removed all backups and left a clean external 500gb drive.

Time machine cannot create an initial backup because 800gb is required which is too big for the 500gb external disk.

Is there anyway that I can use the 500gb for the usual daily/weekly incremental backups. Any help, advice much appreciated.

iMac 27", macOS 10.14

Posted on May 4, 2019 1:28 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

den.thed

Level 10

82,570 points

May 4, 2019 6:19 AM in response to 7812b

How much data is on your internal startup disk?

I'm asking, because it sounds like maybe TM is trying to backup your internal drive, plus one or more of your external drives.

Go to: Apple > System Preferences > Time Machine > unlock the panel > select Options... > Exclude all of the external drives connected to your Mac by adding them to the list > click Save.

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Answer 2

7812b Author

Level 1

11 points

May 4, 2019 10:10 AM in response to 7812b

@ den-thed,

I received your email but the link to reply didn't work. I'd already made sure that the three disks were not included in the backups, see the attached screen shot.

I also suspect that the hidden? file may have already been backed up to both the 1and 3TB because there was sufficient room there so that It wouldn't have been picked up by me or TM.

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Answer 3

7812b Author

Level 1

11 points

May 4, 2019 8:08 AM in response to den.thed

Hi, and thank you for your time. I already checked that side of it out and everything is ok. This has made me think though that the hard drive to be backed up is larger than it should be because when I click "about this mac" it shows 663gb of free space which means that only 337gb has been used and therefore the 500gb should be ample.

Many thanks for your input.

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Answer 4

7812b Author

Level 1

11 points

May 4, 2019 9:25 AM in response to den.thed

Hi den-thed,

the TM preference shows 802gb needed for full backup but only 499gb available on the disk. The 1Tb HD shows only 326gb used, I've checked photos, music, and most other files that you would expect to be large but none of them are, so that somewhere there must have been a glitch that I didn't notice.

Last Friday I switched everything back from a "Temporary" account that I'd raised while I tried to sort out an aol/apple mail problem and so far as I'm aware there weren't any issues but something may well have gone adrift during that. The Temporary account was removed.

Any idea's appreciated.

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