Mac Cannot Copy Files

[Alameda]

After upgrading to Big Sur, I decided that I want a backup of my backup. I have a Time Machine backup of my Mac on a 2TB Drobo C RAID partition. The backups take FOREVER because the 2TB partition is full, and I cannot expand it.

So I bought a 5TB external drive, formatted it properly, and tried CCC. No luck; CCC cannot copy Time Machine backup and Finder must be used. So I dragged the 2 TB folder from the Drobo to the external 5 TB drive. I benchmarked these drives as 150 MB and 100 MB/second.

I started the copy before bed, woke up this morning, and not one single file has been copied yet. It is still “Preparing to Copy” about 2 million files. In eight hours, the Finder has not copied one single file.

I’ll probably quit and create a fresh Time
Machine backup, and then I’ll deal with whether I can maintain two separate backups.

 

[flowrider]

You may want to study this thread:

Carbon Copy Cloner - Users Thread - Yosemite to Mojave to Big Sur - and after

There have been several threads about "Which Back Up Software?" is used by MacRumors members and various other back up services and competitive software options. I noticed that many CCC users are posting on the other threads and as a long tme CCC user I was also tempted to post comments on...

forums.macrumors.com

You certainly can make bootable clones with CCC.

Lou

 

[Alameda]

You may want to study this thread:

Carbon Copy Cloner - Users Thread - Yosemite to Mojave to Big Sur - and after

There have been several threads about "Which Back Up Software?" is used by MacRumors members and various other back up services and competitive software options. I noticed that many CCC users are posting on the other threads and as a long tme CCC user I was also tempted to post comments on...

forums.macrumors.com

You certainly can make bootable clones with CCC.

Lou

Thank you. I appreciate your helpfulness. What you write is true, except you still can’t CCC a Time Machine backup. What I want to do is migrate my backup to a larger volume. I also want to keep my previous data.

But, yeah, I think I’ll eventually ditch the time machine for CCC

 

[Alameda]

It's been 24 hours since I dragged my 2 TB Time Machine folder to my new 5 TB drive.

In that 24 hours, the Mac Finder has not copied a single file.
Currently, the dialog box reports "Preparing to copy to "5TB"... Preparing to copy 5,915,247 items"

I'm open to taking bets. Who thinks this will ever finish? How long will it take? Three days? Five? Seven?

 

[Alameda]

36 hours, and my mac is "Preparing to copy 10,209,415 items."

Not a single file has been copied so far.

 

[jz0309]

I'm not sure I understand your rationale to copy an exiting TM backup to another drive ...
Rather, if you do use TM, create a 2nd, new backup.
It is a good strategy to have more than 1 backup, but the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th ...) should not be a copy of an existing backup but rather an independent backup.
Me personally, I've switched to CCC for backups as TM has been giving me trouble with external HDDs on Big Sur, multiple threads on that topic in this subform ...

 

[Alameda]

I'm not sure I understand your rationale to copy an exiting TM backup to another drive ...
Rather, if you do use TM, create a 2nd, new backup.
It is a good strategy to have more than 1 backup, but the 2nd (or 3rd or 4th ...) should not be a copy of an existing backup but rather an independent backup.
Me personally, I've switched to CCC for backups as TM has been giving me trouble with external HDDs on Big Sur, multiple threads on that topic in this subform ...

I'd like to reformat my hard disk and restore my Mac to an earlier state, but not the latest state in my Time Machine.
But I don't want to trust that to my sole Time Machine backup. I want to have two Time Machine backups.

Besides that, I should be able to do this. The 2TB Time Machine is full and every backup takes forever to "clean up." But I can't enlarge the partition, I can only copy my Time Machine to a larger disk drive.

 

[Alameda]

It's now been 48 hours since I began to copy my 2TB Time Machine to a new 5 TB drive.

Status: Preparing to copy 12,682,221 items.

Not one file has been copied to the new 5 TB drive after 48 hours.

 

[AppleSmack]

It's now been 48 hours since I began to copy my 2TB Time Machine to a new 5 TB drive.

Status: Preparing to copy 12,682,221 items.

Not one file has been copied to the new 5 TB drive after 48 hours.

To clone a TM volume, you have to reboot into Recovery, and use Disk Utility in there. Select your destination drive, choose Restore, then select your source drive.

It'll still take ages though - mine took overnight for 2TB, from HDD to SSD.

Edited: this was on a Mojave system. Your mileage may vary on Big Sur.

 

[Alameda]

To clone a TM volume, you have to reboot into Recovery, and use Disk Utility in there. Select your destination drive, choose Restore, then select your source drive.

It'll still take ages though - mine took overnight for 2TB, from HDD to SSD.

Edited: this was on a Mojave system. Your mileage may vary on Big Sur.

Thanks! If this copy dies, I'll try the method you're suggesting.

Meanwhile:
60 hours elapsed:
"Preparing to copy 18,938,945 items"

Not a single file has been copied after 60 hours.

 

[Alameda]

72 hours elapsed.

"Preparing to copy 23,819,116 items"

Not a single file copied in three solid days.

 

[Alameda]

84 hours elapsed.

"Preparing to copy 28,202,390 items"

Not a single file copied in three and a half days.

 

[Alameda]

BOOM!
86 hours elapsed.

"The item "Backups.backupdb" can't be copied because there isn't enough free space."

Back to thread title: "Mac Cannot Copy Files." Way to go, Cupertino.