"not enough space" error backing up via Time Machine

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Hi guys. I may just not be understanding how these things work, but even my IT-educated friend says this seems dumb. You can see the error in the pic below.
10833821_10152825392931348_2016037485_n.jpg

Trying to back up, says it needs 636 GB but only 464 GB are available... this doesn't make sense to me as my internal HD is only 750GB and has 209GB free. The external is 1TB I'm pretty sure (I don't have it with me right now.)

The external HD long ago ran out of enough space to keep more than a few dates' worth of Time Machine backlog, and now there is only one. Which I don't really mind, as I've never really had need for the actual going-back-in-time function, though I know it might come in handy so I will be getting a new external at some point.

But, is this a legit thing? Does it really need that many GB of "working" space? Is there any way I can make it back up right now?

other relevant info: I'm running 10.7.5 on my 20111 Macbook Pro.
My internal HD is on its way out (iTunes refuses to open and other stuff is slowly borking up) so I know I need to buy a new one of those ASAP too.

Thanks guys!
 
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Hi Bec,
I'm very new to these forum scenarios as well. So if I'm guessing right you currently have a 1TB external HD to use as Time Machine for backing up and according to you there only is ONE back up on it and Time Machine is unable to back up to it. One thing to consider when deleting files from a Mac and Trashing the items. The trashed items can still reside in the memory of the HD. Have you made sure to completely empty the trash. If you have deleted files from the external HD and these files are in the trash, it would be worth emptying the trash to ensure that you regain that space back. I had some similar issues with a flash drive once until I realised even though the files were deleted I did not regain the space until I emptied the trash.

Hope this helps.
Dud3m@n
 
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I understand folks use their machines for different purposes, but that seems like quite a lot of stuff you are backing up. Myself, I prefer to run "mean and clean", so to speak, and only keep (mostly) the bare minimum of stuff I need for day to day purposes on my primary, boot partition on my internal hard drive (256 gig SSD for each of my machines, and I have only 1 visible (and made by the OS) partition on each SSD. I also have the small, visible eDrive partition made by TechTool Pro, and the two invisible (can make them visible) partitions Recovery HD and EFI). And, even with that (plus some miscellaneous stuff that I can actually get rid of and/or move to a more "static" external device), I am using less than half of that 256 gig. Also, I don't need to backup everyday, and use SuperDuper! once a week to do my backups (I actually replace the one from the week before with the new one).

So, here are a couple of suggestions that could help you:

1. Are there any files that you are currently back up that remain "relatively" static? If so, you might consider moving those to another partition/external device.

2. Regarding Dud3m@n's suggestion (an excellent one), do a "Secure Empty" trash the next time you empty the trash. That will get rid of "left over" items from a normal Empty Trash (in addition to emptying the trash like Empty Trash does).
 

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