Every three weeks, or so, macOS Monterey (v12.4) TimeMachine reports that my MyCloud Home (firmware v8.5.1-102) is full and a backup cannot be completed.
This is evidence that–for some reason(s)–TimeMachine is unable to trim the affected sparsebundle on the WD MyCloud Home drive.
NOTES:
The MyCloud Home drive replaced a failed Apple Time Capsule. The Time Capsule had no problem trimming a sparsebundle. TimeMachine’s failure to trim sizable sparsebundles manifested itself only when the MyCloud Home drive was provisioned as its repository.
Yes, I read the manuals. Yes, I invested hours searching for answers in this forum, Apple’s forums, and others before posting this request.
Until now, my fix to the “Oh great, MyCloud Home drive is full again” problem was to (with great irritation) reformat the MyCloud drive, reconfigure TimeMachine and try again.
> No more! This shall not pass!
Now, I’m determined to gain an understanding as to why TimeMachine is not trimming sizable sparsebundles that reside on a MyCloud Home device (as distinct from an Apple Time Capsule).
Moreso, with your knowledgeable insights, my hope is that this posting will evoke a solution(s) that benefits everyone experiencing this issue.
Mac users: 1. Have you had the same problem? 2. Any insights as to cause? 3. Moreso, any insights as to a way(s) to fix the problem?
My assumption is that the configured Size for the TimeMachine Share is too small. I remember having similar issues when I was backing up on an external drive and my Mac had no ‘breathing room’ to automatically remove old backups.
I can only make a suggestion to one question since I don’t use TimeMachine (anymore/yet).
- Try to trim the sparsebundle using this command on your Mac:
The affected MyCloud Home drive has a capacity of 4TB. As I recall my long-ago failed TimeCapsule, it had 2TB capacity. Given the MyCloud’s capacity, and TimeMachine’s automatic file configuration, what command(s) can I apply to affect the “TimeMachine’s Share”?
Given the MyCloud Home drive is a network attached device (i.e., it connects to the WiFi router, not my iMac), regrets, I do not know how to apply the hdiutil command to a network attached device (what is “/path/to/your/TimeMachine.sparsebundle” for a network attached device?).
There is an option in the WD Dashboard under .“ Settings > General to choose the size dedicated for Time Machine.
You might increase it there.
The hdiutil command requires the .sparsebundle as argument.
You can manually mount the Time Machine share by pressing Cmd + K on your Mac and entering smb://192.168.0.123 (Replace it with your IP address or DNS name)
The mounted Share includes the .sparsebundle file (actually it’s a directory).
Don’t open it, instead enter the hdiutil compact in your terminal followed by the sparsebundle path. Just drag & drop the sparsebundle into the window.
I’m having related problems.
My sparsebundle has now grown to 5.4Tb - and is basically taking all my free disk-space. I can’t remember what size I specified when I first set it up. The dashboard gives strange figures for max size - 0Kb, and if I try to reduce its size, it then gives max size as ‘NaN Mb’. No idea what is going wrong.
I’ve tried to delete the sparsebundle and start again - but it won’t delete.
I maintain a paraleel backup on a Time Capsule, which manages fine on a 2Tb disk.
