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Forum Discussion
TM Backs up too much
I've got an issue that's similar to some: Time Machine is backing up way too much. As I write this, it is backing up over 15 GB of data; there should be nearly nothing that has changed since the last backup. One result of this is that TM runs most of the time, and therefore slows my network. Other than that, it seems to work well. I've been able to restore files, etc. Is anyone else experiencing this, and can anyone suggest a solution? I have heard rumors that this same thing happens with some TM users who are backing up to external drives as well..........
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- What apps have you been running recently? Do you run VMs?
- I do have Parallels installed, and run it occasionally. I have Win7 and 8 (trying it out), two flavors of Linux, and Chrome OS VMs. None is running at this time.
- In Time Machine Preferences, click the "Options..." button and exclude the directory where the VMs are stored and see if that makes a difference (if not we'll need to move onto considering something else). VMs should be backed up separately to using Time Machine. Time Machine doesn't work very well with backing up huge files that are changed regularly (e.g. VMs) and these should be backed up separately. Your VM software might have a feature too that allows you to rollback the VM to a saved state in the case you make a mistake (of course this isn't a replacement for backups as your Mac HDD might die, the VM file could be corrupted etc.).
- Thanks for this. I'll try it. But I will say at this point that I don't run these VMs much, so I'm assuming that they don't change much. I have not run any of the Parallels VMs in several days, and I'm still getting these 15 gig backups. I'm not challenging your answer, and I will try this. I'm just sort of groping for understanding. I'll let you know what happens.
- Well if it's not the VMs it might be from another app you use. Not knowing what apps you use it'd be difficult to guess.
- I won't waste your time and your expertise in listing all my apps, but I don't have anything unusual. Besides Parallels VMs, I have Office for Mac, Aperture, and a lot of little stuff. I have nothing that approaches multi-gigabyte file modifications. BTW, I excluded the Parallels folder (it contains all the VM packages), and TM is not backing up even more--about 16.5 GB versus about 15 before I made this change. I'll watch and see what happens. Thanks again for helping me with this.
- You might want to search for an app such as TimeTracker (haven't tried this) to see what's changed between backups: http://charlessoft.com
There's an explanation of the app here: http://www.macgurulounge.com/see-which-files-time-machine-backed-up/
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