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Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
When I click on details I get this window:
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
When I click on details I get this window:
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
Harry,?
I’ve had almost the identical problem a couple times, but no partition involved. ?
The problem in my case was a directory so whacked it quit working.
I wasn’t able to rebuild the directory using Disk Warrior because there wasn’t space in the drive for DW to perform it’s task.
I had to hold my breath both time that I wouldn’t lose my main drive while I formatted TimeMachine and began a fresh backup, which then lasted for months and months until the directory once again becomes corrupted.
I guess to be safe I should attach another TimeMachine drive and backup to it before wiping out the damaged one…one day I may get caught for not being safe.
This may not address your question but I thought I would share my experiences.
John
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Show quoted text
On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote:
Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.05.51 PM.png>
When I click on details I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.06.05 PM.png>
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 7.34.25 PM.png>
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition?
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Mar 23, 2020, at 8:21 PM, John Robinson via Groups.Io <profilecovenant@...> wrote:
Harry,
I’ve had almost the identical problem a couple times, but no partition involved.
The problem in my case was a directory so whacked it quit working.
I wasn’t able to rebuild the directory using Disk Warrior because there wasn’t space in the drive for DW to perform it’s task.
I had to hold my breath both time that I wouldn’t lose my main drive while I formatted TimeMachine and began a fresh backup, which then lasted for months and months until the directory once again becomes corrupted.
I guess to be safe I should attach another TimeMachine drive and backup to it before wiping out the damaged one…one day I may get caught for not being safe.
This may not address your question but I thought I would share my experiences.
John
On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <hejb44@...> wrote:
Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.05.51 PM.png>
When I click on details I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.06.05 PM.png>
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 7.34.25 PM.png>
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
On 23Mar 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote: My experience with Time Machine is that this always happens sooner or later. The only fix I’ve found is to nuke the backup and start over.
I’ve stated several times before that I don’t trust Time Machine. My reason is because Time Machine is clearly designed to work like a standard Unix/Linux backup utility called rsync. The problem is that rsync depends heavily on another Unix/Linux feature called hard linking. This hard linking is a capability built into Unix/Linux file systems. The Mac’s HFS+ file system had no hard linking, so the Apple elves grafted it on just to make Time Machine work. It’s always been somewhat flakey and my theory is HFS+ seems to get confused when there are too many links in a directory.
The new Mac file system, APFS, does do hard linking, so I expect there will soon be an APFS version of Time Machine.
L^2 I’m just looking at this plague-based house arrest as a rehearsal for my voyage to Mars.
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That should work if there is a separate directory for each partition. I don’t know but I suspect so?
John
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On Mar 23, 2020, at 10:04 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <hejb44@...> wrote:
?What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition?
On Mar 23, 2020, at 8:21 PM, John Robinson via Groups.Io <profilecovenant@...> wrote:
Harry,
I’ve had almost the identical problem a couple times, but no partition involved.
The problem in my case was a directory so whacked it quit working.
I wasn’t able to rebuild the directory using Disk Warrior because there wasn’t space in the drive for DW to perform it’s task.
I had to hold my breath both time that I wouldn’t lose my main drive while I formatted TimeMachine and began a fresh backup, which then lasted for months and months until the directory once again becomes corrupted.
I guess to be safe I should attach another TimeMachine drive and backup to it before wiping out the damaged one…one day I may get caught for not being safe.
This may not address your question but I thought I would share my experiences.
John
On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <hejb44@...> wrote: Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.05.51 PM.png>
When I click on details I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.06.05 PM.png>
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 7.34.25 PM.png>
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
On 23Mar 2020, at 10:04 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote: What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition?
I have a feeling that probably won’t work because most of the entries in a long-standing Time Machine backup are really just hard links in the directory. If the directory is messed up, then it won’t copy correctly.
Doesn’t hurt to try, though.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
?I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.?— ?Bertrand Russell
??
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Lee,
If I remember right there was a discussion previously that suggested the newer Apple computers Apple’s SSD’s, ?no longer had to have their directories rebuilt. ?True? ? If so & an SSD TimeMachine is attached would it still have to be rebuilt as needed??
Thanks,
John
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On Mar 23, 2020, at 10:17 PM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io <leelarson@...> wrote:
? On 23Mar 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote: My experience with Time Machine is that this always happens sooner or later. The only fix I’ve found is to nuke the backup and start over.
I’ve stated several times before that I don’t trust Time Machine. My reason is because Time Machine is clearly designed to work like a standard Unix/Linux backup utility called rsync. The problem is that rsync depends heavily on another Unix/Linux feature called hard linking. This hard linking is a capability built into Unix/Linux file systems. The Mac’s HFS+ file system had no hard linking, so the Apple elves grafted it on just to make Time Machine work. It’s always been somewhat flakey and my theory is HFS+ seems to get confused when there are too many links in a directory.
The new Mac file system, APFS, does do hard linking, so I expect there will soon be an APFS version of Time Machine.
L^2 I’m just looking at this plague-based house arrest as a rehearsal for my voyage to Mars.
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Thanks Lee & John. I’ll keep you posted.
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On Mar 23, 2020, at 10:27 PM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io <leelarson@...> wrote:
On 23Mar 2020, at 10:04 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <hejb44@...> wrote:
What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition? I have a feeling that probably won’t work because most of the entries in a long-standing Time Machine backup are really just hard links in the directory. If the directory is messed up, then it won’t copy correctly.
Doesn’t hurt to try, though.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
leelarson@...
?I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. — ?Bertrand Russell
??
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Thanks Lee & John. I’ll keep you posted.
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Show quoted text
On Mar 23, 2020, at 10:27 PM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io <leelarson@...> wrote:
On 23Mar 2020, at 10:04 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer <hejb44@...> wrote:
What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition? I have a feeling that probably won’t work because most of the entries in a long-standing Time Machine backup are really just hard links in the directory. If the directory is messed up, then it won’t copy correctly.
Doesn’t hurt to try, though.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
leelarson@...
?I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. — ?Bertrand Russell
??
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On 23Mar 2020, at 10:30 PM, John Robinson via Groups.Io < profilecovenant@...> wrote: If I remember right there was a discussion previously that suggested the newer Apple computers Apple’s SSD’s, ?no longer had to have their directories rebuilt. ?True? ? If so & an SSD TimeMachine is attached would it still have to be rebuilt as needed??
I don’t remember anything about rebuilding directories on SSDs.
What I remember is a discussion about optimizing with things like defraggers. Fragmentation is no longer a big problem with SSDs because any block anywhere on the drive can be accessed instantly.
The problem I’m worried about with Time Machine is that a long-standing backup might have millions of files in it and many more hard links. All of these have directory entries. HFS+ was not built for such a situation. It is an old file system that dates back to 1998 and was based on HFS dating from 1985 which was largely based on SOS, the Apple III file system for high density floppy disks.
Apple introduced APFS because it was becoming clear HFS+ was too clunky to support large drives with millions of files. In the process, they built a lot of modern features into APFS and optimized it for SSDs because it’s clear the days are numbered for spinning rusty platters.
Returning to the limitations of HFS+ and Time Machine, I still think hard links are a problem. In all other Unix/Linux file systems you can have more than one directory entry pointing to one file. The additional entries are called hard links. It was impossible to do this with HFS+, so the Apple guys cheated. A hard link in HFS+ is a directory entry for an invisible file on the drive which contains the address of the file they want to link. (In programming lingo it’s a pointer to a pointer.) Since these pointer files are invisible, copying the files you can see to another drive leaves out a lot of information needed by Time Machine.
It could be there are utilities for rebuilding the links in another location, but why take the chance? I’d just nuke and pave.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
?Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.?— ?Albert Einstein
?Quoted in Die Macht der Kürze, 2004?
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On Mar 24, 2020, at 11:05 AM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io <leelarson@...> wrote:
? On 23Mar 2020, at 10:30 PM, John Robinson via Groups.Io < profilecovenant@...> wrote: If I remember right there was a discussion previously that suggested the newer Apple computers Apple’s SSD’s, ?no longer had to have their directories rebuilt. ?True? ? If so & an SSD TimeMachine is attached would it still have to be rebuilt as needed??
I don’t remember anything about rebuilding directories on SSDs.
What I remember is a discussion about optimizing with things like defraggers. Fragmentation is no longer a big problem with SSDs because any block anywhere on the drive can be accessed instantly.
The problem I’m worried about with Time Machine is that a long-standing backup might have millions of files in it and many more hard links. All of these have directory entries. HFS+ was not built for such a situation. It is an old file system that dates back to 1998 and was based on HFS dating from 1985 which was largely based on SOS, the Apple III file system for high density floppy disks.
Apple introduced APFS because it was becoming clear HFS+ was too clunky to support large drives with millions of files. In the process, they built a lot of modern features into APFS and optimized it for SSDs because it’s clear the days are numbered for spinning rusty platters.
Returning to the limitations of HFS+ and Time Machine, I still think hard links are a problem. In all other Unix/Linux file systems you can have more than one directory entry pointing to one file. The additional entries are called hard links. It was impossible to do this with HFS+, so the Apple guys cheated. A hard link in HFS+ is a directory entry for an invisible file on the drive which contains the address of the file they want to link. (In programming lingo it’s a pointer to a pointer.) Since these pointer files are invisible, copying the files you can see to another drive leaves out a lot of information needed by Time Machine.
It could be there are utilities for rebuilding the links in another location, but why take the chance? I’d just nuke and pave.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
?Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.?— ?Albert Einstein
?Quoted in Die Macht der Kürze, 2004?
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Lee, what do you use for backup if not Time Machine?
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On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:27 PM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io < leelarson@...> wrote:
On 23Mar 2020, at 10:04 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote: What if I copy the time machine backups to the larger partition on the hard drive and then reformat the Time Machine partition?
I have a feeling that probably won’t work because most of the entries in a long-standing Time Machine backup are really just hard links in the directory. If the directory is messed up, then it won’t copy correctly.
Doesn’t hurt to try, though.
L^2
----
Lee Larson
?I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.?— ?Bertrand Russell
??
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Well I tried to erase the time machine backup with disk utility and cannot because disk utility cannot unmount the disk. I can erase the other partition with disk utility no problem. I cannot, however, re-partition?the drive to a single partition because disk utility cannot unmount the disk.
I purchased the drive at costco in October 2017. I could return it to costco and get a new drive or get my money back but I don't want to do that because the time machine data is still accessible.?
Any thoughts?
On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 7:52 PM Harry Jacobson-Beyer < hejb44@...> wrote: Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
When I click on details I get this window:
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
Well I tried to erase the time machine backup with disk utility and cannot because disk utility cannot unmount the disk. I can erase the other partition with disk utility no problem. I cannot, however, re-partition?the drive to a single partition because disk utility cannot unmount the disk.
I purchased the drive at costco in October 2017. I could return it to costco and get a new drive or get my money back but I don't want to do that because the time machine data is still accessible.?
Any thoughts?
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Mar 23, 2020, at 7:52 PM, Harry Jacobson-Beyer via Groups.Io < hejb44@...> wrote:
Time Machine on my wife’s MacBook Pro hasn’t backed up since March 12. When I tell Time Machine to back up I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.05.51 PM.png>
When I click on details I get this window:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 2.06.05 PM.png>
Time Machine backs up to a 1TB partition on a 4TB ssd
When I run disk utility on the Time Machine partition I get this message:
<Screen Shot 2020-03-23 at 7.34.25 PM.png>
I can successfully run disk utility on the 3TB partition of the ssd.?
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
|
On 24Mar 2020, at 2:07 PM, Dan Crutcher < dcrutcher@...> wrote: Lee, what do you use for backup if not Time Machine?
I never said I don’t use Time Machine; I just said I don’t trust it. Because of this, I use a belt and suspenders.
The backup strategies depend on what machine you’re asking about: desktop or laptop.
With the two desktop Macs I regularly use, I have USB hard drives attached and the backups are done with Time Machine. The desktop machine at home is also backed up with Carbon Copy Cloner to my NAS every morning at 4:00. The one in my office is backed up to a Linux machine elsewhere in the building by rsync at 2:00 every morning.
My MacBook Pro is backed up at home to my NAS by Carbon Copy Cloner semi-regularly. I try to remember to do it a couple of times per week. It’s a manual thing, not automatic, which is probably a bad idea.
For current projects, I have a different strategy. My current projects are on DropBox, so they are mirrored on all the Macs—and Linux. I also have a Hazel script to mirror the current projects from DropBox to iCloud. This way, I feel the chance of losing ongoing work is pretty small.
L^2
I like to know if anyone uses ChronoSync. The reviews I read of it are pretty good, but I’ve never tried it. The reason I ask is because I’ve been toying with the idea of getting some Amazon or Google storage for backups or archiving and ChronoSync supports both companies.
---- Lee Larson
?Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, 'Let us take history by the scrotum.' Of course, he was not a very honourable fighter.?— ?Terry Pratchett
?Jingo?
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Lee, I used to use ChronoSync. ?It has lots of options to set, but you're good with Unix so that won't be a problem. ?I remember thinking its data files were taking up a lot of disk space. I only stopped using it because my data files won't fit on my thumb drive anymore.
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On Mar 26, 2020, at 12:19 PM, Lee Larson via Groups.Io < leelarson@...> wrote:
On 24Mar 2020, at 2:07 PM, Dan Crutcher < dcrutcher@...> wrote: Lee, what do you use for backup if not Time Machine?
I never said I don’t use Time Machine; I just said I don’t trust it. Because of this, I use a belt and suspenders.
The backup strategies depend on what machine you’re asking about: desktop or laptop.
With the two desktop Macs I regularly use, I have USB hard drives attached and the backups are done with Time Machine. The desktop machine at home is also backed up with Carbon Copy Cloner to my NAS every morning at 4:00. The one in my office is backed up to a Linux machine elsewhere in the building by rsync at 2:00 every morning.
My MacBook Pro is backed up at home to my NAS by Carbon Copy Cloner semi-regularly. I try to remember to do it a couple of times per week. It’s a manual thing, not automatic, which is probably a bad idea.
For current projects, I have a different strategy. My current projects are on DropBox, so they are mirrored on all the Macs—and Linux. I also have a Hazel script to mirror the current projects from DropBox to iCloud. This way, I feel the chance of losing ongoing work is pretty small.
L^2
I like to know if anyone uses ChronoSync. The reviews I read of it are pretty good, but I’ve never tried it. The reason I ask is because I’ve been toying with the idea of getting some Amazon or Google storage for backups or archiving and ChronoSync supports both companies.
---- Lee Larson
?Glory awaits, gentlemen. In the words of General Tacticus, 'Let us take history by the scrotum.' Of course, he was not a very honourable fighter.?— ?Terry Pratchett
?Jingo?
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