On Feb 29, 2020, at 11:23 AM, Barry Austern via Groups.Io <
barryaus@...> wrote:
My 2? here: Time Machine will write any file that is at all changed, leaving others alone.
Obviously, I misspoke in an earlier answer. Dan is entirely correct. Any easy way to overwhelm a Time Machine backup drive is to update a tiny text file in a 100 GB virtual machine file once a day, which will generate 1 TB of backups in < 2 weeks.
What I think I meant to say (and this could be wrong, too, so I hope others will address this), is that Time Machine needs to keep track of what¡¯s NOT changed as well as backing up what HAS changed, and that generates a huge number of directory links that can make evaluating?a backup drive with Disk Utility take a LONG, LONG time.
Of course, one other element can be your WiFi (you¡¯re backing up to a time capsule). If your WiFi performance isn¡¯t stellar, that will create a major impact on the speed of backups. I don¡¯t think you mentioned what generation of Time Capsule you have, but it¡¯s old enough that it¡¯s initial drive has failed¡
Each of these of course is not what¡¯s bedeviling you as far as the backup not happening AT ALL¡
--?
Jim Robertson
