G Drive Time Machine
I know that's a shocking headline, but that certainly seems to what they're saying for a certain group of users (red emphasis added):
By default, your System Photo Library is stored in the Pictures folder on your Mac, but you can move it to another location on your Mac or store it on an external storage device.
WARNING: If a Photos library is located on an external drive, don’t back up the drive using Time Machine. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup
Jan 23 2018 update: Thanks to reader Brian for commenting below that Apple has updated this page with much clearer wording. It now reads (emphasis added):
When your drive runs out of space, Time Machine deletes the oldest backups. My current Time Machine backups for my iMac go back to December 2015. I use Time Machine on both my Macs, and I’ve had. The drive is formatted properly. I have an identical partition to which the MBP does a local Time Machine backup. The drive is shared properly. In fact, the MBA can see and mount the remote drive. However, the partition is not shown as a potential Time Machine drive. Finder can see and access the drive, so why can't Time Machine?
If a Photos library is located on an external drive, don’t use Time Machine to store a backup on that external drive. The permissions for your Photos library may conflict with those for the Time Machine backup.
That just means you shouldn't use the same external drive for both your Photos library and as a destination drive in Time Machine. This makes much more sense; continue reading only if you care about my feelings on the original incorrect wording.
That's taken from the System Photo Library overview, part of Photos' help. In a nutshell, Apple recommends that if you've moved the System Photo Library to an external drive—as nearly anyone who takes lots of pictures will have done, given space-limited solid-state internal drives—you do not use Time Machine on that drive. Not just 'don't back up the Photos Library folder with Time Machine,' but 'don't back up the entire drive with Time Machine.' Yikes!
Think about that for a bit…this affects anyone with limited internal storage space who has their photos stored on an external drive. And in today's Mac world, that could be a lot of people—while you can configre some machines with up to 2TB of solid state storage (and iMacs with bigger Fusion drive), doing so is wildly expensive. So there are potentially a lot of Mac users with small internal drives who may be affected by this. Yikes again!
Apple's writeup leaves me with a couple of critical questions…
- What if I exclude the iPhoto Library folder from Time Machine—is that sufficient to prevent the permissions issues, such that I can use Time Machine for the rest of the drive?
- How, exactly, am I supposed to back up my photos, if I can't use Time Machine? (See update at end for Apple's recommended solution.) Will SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner also run into permissions problems? I'm using a 1TB Flickr account and their upload tool as a backup method, but I have lots of upstream bandwidth, so it's not bad…but not everyone is lucky enough to have fiber to the door.
G Drive Time Machine
I know Apple's answer to the second question is 'You shouldn't be storing photos locally, they should all be in the cloud.' But if you have a huge collection of photos and videos, and/or if you've got slow or limited internet, this is not a realistic option.
My library is over 40,000 photos and 1,400+ videos, requiring in excess of 500GB of storage. At that level, I'd need the 2TB iCloud plan at $10 a month…versus Google and Amazon, both of which offer unlimited photo storage space for free (though Google has caps on image and video resolution). So if I have to go to the cloud for primary photo storage, I don't think I'll be using Apple's solution (even though it's obviously the best-integrated).
Seriously, Apple, tell me how to back up the 8TB external drive I'm using to hold my photos…there must be an Apple-accepted solution, right?
Update: Ed Mechem's comment points out Apple's Back up thew Photos library page, which recommends simply dragging your Photos library to another drive to back it up. Thanks Ed; that appears to address the second question. I don't know if it's OK to copy it to the Time Machine drive, just outside the Time Machine folder, or if you'd ideally need a third drive. You'd want to use an app like CarbonCopyCloner or similar to automate this process, obviously. Manual backups aren't usually the best solution.
Related Posts:
- Updated on 2019-12-10 to Mac Data Recovery
G Drive Time Machine
For Mac OS X users, Time Machine is not strange. It is a backup software application that keeps a copy of all your files, and allows you to restore the whole system or specific files whenever you need. Recently, however, we found that many users are discussing on forums about Time Machine backup error and failure. Are you wondering why Time Machine failed to backup? This article contains answers to many common issues about Time Machine backup and troubleshoots to alert messages while time machine could not complete the backup.
Troubleshooting-Time Machine Failed to Complete Backup
If you lost files due to backup failure, UltFone Mac Data Recovery can help you recover with no worries. It supports to recover videos, photos, documents, app data and more after deletion or format.
G Drive Usb-c How To Set Up For Time Machine
Solution to First Backup Failure
If this is your first backup, or the first time to a new external drive/partition, the most common cause might be that the drive has not been formatted properly. Follow the steps to set up using Disk Utility.
- Open Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities folder.
- Select Startup drive, it usually names Macintosh HD on the second line of the side bar. On the bottom you will see detailed information of this HD.
- In Format it is Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
- Select the line for your external drive that you set up to backup files. If you are not sure, please check in Time Machine Preferences.
- The format of this drive should be the same as your Startup drive. If they are not the same, you need to erase the partition and select the format to the same as Startup drive.
If Time Machine is still unable to complete a backup, please note the alert message it sends. If you missed it, you can open Time Machine preferences, and click the red 'I' icon for more info.
Solutions to Specific Alert Messages When Time Machine Failed to Complete the Backup
Regardless of what warning message it appears, firstly you should make sure your software is up-to-date.
Messages you may receive while Time Machine failing to complete a backup:
Message 1: The backup volume is read only
- Turn Time Machine Off: Launch System Preferences >Time Machine, move the slider to OFF.
- If your backups are on an external HD, please eject the drive from your computer and disconnect it for a while. And then restart the Mac to connect the drive again.
Message 2: Time Machine could not complete the backup.
The entire alert message like this:
Usually this problem can be resolved after you restart the Mac. If this does not help, please format your external HDD and create a new partition for your backups.
Message 3: An error occurred while copying files.
This message occurs for no specific reason. Restart and then try the backup once again should fix it.
Message 4: The backup disk is almost full
When the backup is disk full and lock of enough space, the Time Machine will delete old backups to make room for new ones. If you are not willing to remove old backups, please open Time Machine preferences to set up a new backup disk.
Message 5: No volumes to be backed up were available.
Open System Preferences, in Time Machine preferences pane, click Options. Please check and confirm you have not excluded all available volumes.
Conclusion
We wish you can fix the Time Machine backup issues disturbing you. If the problems you are having do not include here, write on the comment and we will respond as soon as we can. If you lose files on Mac, the Mac Data Recovery aims to help you recover deleted files.