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I'm convinced that time machine over a network is a bad idea. Seems convenient, but if there's network flakiness, TM will decide that the backup is bad and forc

I'm convinced that time machine over a network is a bad idea. Seems convenient, but if there's network flakiness, TM will decide that the backup is bad and force you to create a new one. And the first step in that process is to delete the existing backup. I had that happen once, when the drive I was backing up was in the process of failing. It got about 5gb into the new backup before it was totally dead. Even a somewhat flakey full backup is better than 5Gb of a 2Tb drive.

ioquatix 11y ago
Deleting the old backup is no longer the first step AFAIK. Yes, I have seen that behaviour in the past. Now, it gets renamed and then deleted once the next backup is completed successfully.
- rcthompson 11y ago
  Still, it sucks that the solution involves losing your entire backup history.
  - ioquatix 11y ago
    Yes, it's completely rubbish, I agree. I'm pretty sure the people who are working on Time Machine are aware of this problem and I'm pretty sure it stems from the unreliability of mounting disk images over a network. Quite possibly due to hardware issues (e.g. flakey AirPort/Time Capsules) or problems with HFS+ filesystem. At a guess, I'd say they had to do their best to work around these issues. There is no excuse though, especially when it comes to backup.
- wiredfool 11y ago
  It still is on Mavericks, which is where my laptop is for now. (I'll check Yosemite, as my wife's laptop got the same message.) I had flakey network stuff happen last night (which only seems to happen with one of my APs), and it flipped into needing to creating a new backup. The old backup is gone, the new one has gotten to about 7%, got interrupted, and now claims that it's in use.