Time Machine Failed To Backup

pc-modd · 5 Oct 2008 at 17:42

It's done this a few times now. I get an eror message something along the lines of "Time Machine failed to back up". Now as far as I can tell it only does this when the machine is sleeping as I have just come home and the message is there.

After a quick search on the apple forums there seems there is no answer for this.

There is space left on the drive so it can't be that the drive is full. Would time machine be affected if a file was in use that it was trying to back up as I have EyeTV recording most of the time.

Any Ideas? It works fine if I do a manual backup.

likwid · 5 Oct 2008 at 20:47

I get this sometimes with my external WD mybook which is pretty much the worst purchase i ever made. The disks own firmware puts it to sleep after a period and as it occasionally takes too long to wake up, time machine reports an error.

pc-modd · 5 Oct 2008 at 21:59

Hmm mine is a standard drive in a caddy. I presume its not just the fact that I have my mac set to sleep?

PardonTheWait · 5 Oct 2008 at 22:36

I get it with my MyBook too, never got it when I was using an old PATA drive in a caddy.

I just let it get on with it though, the odd missed backup is no problem, considering it makes one every hour. I do wonder about the MyBook though, it's a bit slow, I get this error... cheap for a reason it seems! Good enough though.

pc-modd · 5 Oct 2008 at 23:05

Ahh well, Ill try an other external drive for a few days. If the problem is still there I suppose I will just have to live with it.

likwid · 6 Oct 2008 at 11:59

Maybe worth trying disabling 'Put hard disks to sleep when possible' within Energy Saver.

RoleyBirkin · 10 Oct 2008 at 15:51

On a slight tangent....

Can TM backup to SD card via a reader?

Deleted member 329 · 11 Oct 2008 at 14:57

all the newer external hard drives seem to want to sleep after a few min of no activity. however there is usually an option to turn it off (ususally buried in the tools that come with it )

RoleyBirkin · 12 Oct 2008 at 19:36

RoleyBirkin said:
On a slight tangent....
Can TM backup to SD card via a reader?

Anyone?

Feek · 12 Oct 2008 at 19:58

Don't see why not, it just sees it as an external disk but surely an SD card in a reader isn't going to be big enough?

RoleyBirkin · 13 Oct 2008 at 10:54

Yeah, I go down the route of just backing up my constant use, really important files (given I don't have a large 2nd drive yet)

RoleyBirkin · 17 Oct 2008 at 12:11

This Time Machine is becoming the bane of my life

As above, I back only a narrow band of files circa 10gb

When, in TM options, I add files not to back up, TM shows that what's included amounts to one thing, yet when it writes it to the external SD card, it ADDS some 3 GB, taking it over the cards limit, and hence fails!

What is this it is adding?, and can it be stopped.

likwid · 17 Oct 2008 at 13:43

While you can add folders you wish not to be backed up, it's probably the case that time machine is backing up non-configurable system folders.

In your case time machine probably isn't the best option and you should look for an alternative. In my experience it's worked flawlessly, except for my flaky Western Digital drive which can be temperamental.

RoleyBirkin · 17 Oct 2008 at 16:50

You're right.

Perhaps I'll just manually copy the 3 folders over every week.

Nice try Apple, just not good enough.

likwid · 17 Oct 2008 at 18:53

I think personally it's a very good solution and more intended as a system back up, rather than a few folders. Manually copying three folders isn't difficult.

iSam · 17 Oct 2008 at 19:04

Time Machine is designed to create a COMPLETE backup of your Mac, it's not primarily designed to back up only certain files.

RoleyBirkin · 17 Oct 2008 at 19:21

likwid said:
Manually copying three folders isn't difficult.

Maybe not, but very tedious if done daily.

iSam said:
Time Machine is designed to create a COMPLETE backup of your Mac

Really? The option to not back up COMPLETELY was an Apple after thought then presumably!

Feek · 17 Oct 2008 at 19:41

Something like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner would suit you better. Daily (or even hourly) incremental backups and you can just select certain directories.

RoleyBirkin · 17 Oct 2008 at 23:10

I have CC, so I'll take a closer look. Ta.

I've got TM to back up, but it's meant discount about 2gb of files - which kind of defeats my object of backing up!

RoleyBirkin · 20 Oct 2008 at 16:21

Think it'll have to be CC.

Even once I got TM to backup my files initially, it now tells me it's run out of memory. I thought it was supposed to overwrite the old data!

Time Machine Failed To Backup

Deleted member 329

Deleted member 329