Freefilesync SIZE anomaly

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Posts: 5
Joined: 19 Jan 2023

cade

trying to backup up an old time machine 'backup' Mac file in order to archive it and remove from small 1TB drive.

FINDER SHOWS 547 GB comprise the backup file(s)
FINDER SHOWS 547 GB
FINDER SHOWS 547 GB
Image.png (213.34 KiB) Viewed 181 times
BUT
Freefilesync shows 9.42 TB

the drive it's on is only 1TB -- how come FFS shows 9.42TB

I don't understand what is happening and how I can get that time machine "Backups.backupdb" copied to a drive that has 3TB available?

thank you!
Attachments
Freefilesync shows 9.42 TB
Freefilesync shows 9.42 TB
PastedGraphic-1.tiff (71.78 KiB) Viewed 181 times
Posts: 5
Joined: 19 Jan 2023

cade

ffs larger
ffs larger
ffs lgr.jpg (583.56 KiB) Viewed 180 times
here's a larger view of the ffs file
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Posts: 4867
Joined: 11 Jun 2019

xCSxXenon

Time Machine backups are very weird. They contain a copy of every file backed up and every time it was backed up. But they use essentially "deduplication" to save tons of space. There is a section that is storing strings of data that are called to by each file but that storage of strings doesn't exist somewhere else. You shouldn't back it up like that, you should just add the second drive as another Time Machine drive and make a backup to it independently.