Time Machine won't overwrite old backups

[Alabama]

I have just reached the limit of space on the drive I use forr Time Machine backups. According to the Apple blurb it should overwrite the oldest backups, but i just get an error message that the drive is full and I should delete files.

Is this correct, and if not what should I do to set it to overwrite as I can't see any settings in the preferences that relate to overwriting

 

[Jen Yates]

Sounds like your TM drive isn't big enough.

What is the size of the drive(s) you are backing up?
What is the size of the TM drive?

Have you been running TM every day, or is the first backup since you have made lots of changes?

 

[Anthony McCallister]

I have a 500 Gb iMac that Time Machine refused to back up after its own 1Tb capacity was filled. I got a 2 Tb drive and now it works fine.

Incredibly, TM apparently needs 4 X the capacity of the drive it backs up. I don't know how it will handle the 1.256 Gb of hard drive(s) in the iMac I just bought.
--
Mac

 

[Harv]

I resolved the issue this way. Make certain that you have everything backed up on another HD.

Then ERASE the HD you use for Time Machine and start anew. Now that TM drive works the way it should.

 

[Edvinas]

Incredibly, TM apparently needs 4 X the capacity of the drive it backs up.

You've made wrong conclusions.

--
Edvinas

 

[Edvinas]

I have just reached the limit of space on the drive I use forr Time Machine backups. According to the Apple blurb it should overwrite the oldest backups, but i just get an error message that the drive is full and I should delete files.

Is this correct, and if not what should I do to set it to overwrite as I can't see any settings in the preferences that relate to overwriting

If that would happen to me, I would manually delete oldest backups.

--
Edvinas

 

[Tinkerer]

Check to see if any other non Time Machine files are on the TM drive, or partition.
If there is, remove them.
The allocated drive, partition, must be for TM use only.

Tink.

 

[bigshorty66]

I have the same issue with back up not working. I have a 500gig mac with a 500gig back up HD and it is telling me I can't back up and I don't even see it on the screen anymore. I plugged my HD into another computer to see if it would register and it did so do I just dump the contents and restart it for TM back up. HELP

 

[Alabama]

I have a 1 Tb imac and drive. No other programs or data exists on the drive and it was prepared for use as a time machine back up drive. First backup was 8 Feb and TM will not overwrite it now

I could delete the old ones but the point of using it is automation.

Maybe I'll go back to CCC though I realise both do different things.

Message...

This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 65.69 GB but only 63.86 GB are available.

 

[Marco S Hyman]

Do you have the time machine option set that notifies you when older backups are deleted? I did and when I had my previous disk fill up got such notifications so I know that TM was doing its thing. I've sinced changed to a larger TM disk and it hasn't filled yet.

 

[Alabama]

I do have the "Notify after old backups are deleted" set, but I am sure I have never seen a notification.

Maybe it's more basic. As the main drive is now sitting at 89gb am thinking maybe there is not enough space left for the program to make temp fils or whatever it does during the process.

Will try another drive soon

 

[beachbumdave]

When I have trouble with Time Machine Backups I run the disk utility and usually it finds and repairs some kind of problem. After the disk repair, for me TM runs normal.

My suggestion is to run the disk utility on both your data hard disk and the Time Machine disk.

David