Smart Update exceeds disc capacity?

[Loopy C]

I am on my third update of a cloned drive. This third time the back-up gave the error 'failed to copy files' because drive had exceeded capacity while using Smart Update? There is now only 58 MB left on the destination drive. I thought the drive was made to look like the source, erasing and updating. How did I fill up the destination if I have only used Super Duper on it (again, I erased drive, created clone, and have updated two times before this).

Internal Source Drive: ATA Drive 120 (111.8 GB)

This drive (system drive) has about 7 GB free

Destination Drive: Lacie Firewire 120 (111.8 GB)

Now only 58 MB free after failing to finish update (and I definitly saw the 'Smart Update' message before starting operation)

OSX 10.4.5 / Powerbook 17 HR 1.67 / 2 GB RAM

Thanks in advance.

[Loopy C]

Hmmm, after I posted, your forum provided me with 'Similar Threads' and I see this has come up before. So how do I handle this?

I basically just keep my system up to date and don't neccessarily have some changing folder that I can rename. I appreciate your explanations elsewhere but if you could perhaps expound a bit more, as it stands now the only way I would have to back-up is to erase my destination. I just bought new drives specically to make this 120 my back-up, is there any more you can suggest on how to use Smart Update with drives the same size, 'rules of thumb' maybe?

[dnanian]

The problem is there's no general rule of thumb. But there are some relatively easy workarounds when you have trouble.

As I explain in the user's guide, this problem happens when we hit things to copy before we hit things to delete. Almost always, it's a problem with users who are dealing with large data sets in a single folder (movie projects, recordings, pictures) that they've renamed or moved, and we hit the "new folder(s)" before we get a chance to remove the "old folder(s)".

You can help SuperDuper! out by renaming or moving the same folder(s) on the destination -- or deleting something you've deleted.

Hope that helps.

[Loopy C]

Originally Posted by dnanian

'As I explain in the user's guide'

Sorry, my bad...didn't check there for no good reason ;-(

Thanks for the reply, I will try your suggestion.

btw, I did find a large folder of files that on the source was 12 gb and the unfinished BU 20 gb...I take it that is what you are talking about. I deleted the destination version and then manually dragged the folder over to the destination. I will now try to to the back up again.

[dnanian]

No problem at all, "LoopyC" -- just a gentle reminder that there's a lot of information to be found there!