Time Machine slow, and getting slower

I am a recent Windows emigrant with a two-week-old, 11" MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB SSD, and Mountain Lion.  All system software is up to date.  Five third-party applications I have added are Google Chrome, LibreOffice, Skype, TeamViewer, and VLC.  Add-ons include Flash and Java, WoT and LastPass for Chrome and Safari, and ClickToFlash and ClickToPlugin for Safari.  The system appears to be badware-free.
The first time I backed up this unit with Time Machine, I was using a 16 GB Kingston DataTraveler SE9 flash drive.  It took the expected, several hours to back up some 13 GB of items.  This backup was created after I had installed all desired applications and plugins (sans Silverlight, which always has to be reinstalled following a restoration), and before installing any updates.  I'd created it in a hurry, as I like to get the first snapshot in before anything crashes so much as once; the contents of this drive will not be changed in the foreseeable future.
For ongoing backups - until I run out of space - I have a new, 64 GB PNY Micro Metal Attaché.  I should mention that I have done a restoration from Time Machine, followed by an archive & install, after trying Mozilla Thunderbird and finding its filters to be apparently quite buggy on the Mac; I have also reset the SMC and NVRAM, and repaired disk and user permissions.
When I'd started Time Machine with the new PNY disk two days ago, it gave time estimates of 8-12 hours for 13.78 GB.  Since then, I've watched it start off copying a few megs a minute, then start crawling like a camel with one shy of the last straw on its back; and the speed continues to taper off.  At about 7:00 this morning, 9.51 GB were backed up.  And now, at 4:35 p.m., I'm at 9.57 GB with 21 hours remaining.
I fear these 21 hours will ultimately translate to 21 days or perhaps weeks, if Time Machine is even capable of dragging itself across the finish line at all.  Since getting app and system configurations all setup the way I want them - complete with a Mail rule to redirect messages tagged as spam to five different authorities - I am determined to wait this out in hopes that it actually finishes.  Then, I intend to image the PNY disk and try troubleshooting this bug.
I have seen countless forums regarding this issue, most of them dealing with Time Capsules rather than USB drives, and most of them unresolved.  Among the cases that appear to be resolved, I'm not finding any real consensus on a fix for this.  KB article PH11172 is useless to me, as none of the information reflects my scenario.  A couple of suggestions I have had from AppleCare Advisors are to try another flash drive, and do an erase & reinstall.  Any others?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Everything else I have tried on this computer has been responsive and smooth.  I have long since come to terms with the fact that all OSes are delicate, yet always strive to render an apparatus so neatly put together that it can run for months without a single incident; fine china is picture-perfect and priceless before it is broken.  Happy Easter!

@drdocument:
Thank you for your reply.  Yes, I realize the rule of thumb is for the backup volume to have equal or greater capacity than the source volume, and intend to purchase a larger drive when the need arises.  But for the time being, I have only 22.09 GB of occupancy on the startup disk, including the OS itself.  13.78 GB is the quoted size of an initial backup on a blank drive, not a differential.  And I realize that the initial backup itself will take awhile, and that comparisons and deletions for differential backups may take time as well.  But neither of these should take days on account of 13.78 GB, and the latter actually doesn't apply in this case, as I am using a fresh drive.  And again, the first backup only took several hours on the Kingston, which is 1/4 the capacity of the PNY drive itself.  That said, I appreciate you having brought these things up, as they are important details that I had neglected to mention.
After opening this discussion, I realized that, assuming the issue is software-related; creating a whole, new backup after correcting the issue would likely take a lot less time than waiting for Time Machine to finish backing up the remaining few gigs in its present condition.  Also, the difference between the initial backup on my Kingston and the current state of my system is mere megabytes, as the only changes I made after creating that backup included updating from 10.8.2 to 10.8.3, and setting some preferences.  So I created an image of the Kingston in Disk Utility, and am now extracting it over to another 16 GB flash drive.  When finished, I will use this second drive to save my changes in a differential backup before trying the erase & reinstall; hopefully, my crippled Time Machine can handle a few hundred megabytes before the reinstall.  I will post an update either way, to let you know how it turns out.
Thanks again!

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    sydababy wrote:
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    The Tragedy that will be, the tragedy that never should be
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    I installed time machine buddy and found out there was a file in the itunes acct that might be causing the problem and i had time machine ignore that file.
    I then erased the Lacie drive to start again.
    The next backup i made it to 44 gb but got the same error message. This time tm buddy did not identify anything. ( these are all night backups cause they take about 4 - 5 hrs on my machine) After getting the error message, Time Machine would still continue hourly backups and the Genius bar used that as evidence it was working.
    I was wondering if the discussion community agrees with that. and if they dont ask if they had other suggestions.

  • Time Machine disk and Airport Extreme issues

    I have a portable USB drive I use as my Time Machine disk. It works great, but only when I manually mount the disk.
    I recently got an Airport Extreme, which allows me to mount a disk off of it. So, I figure I'll mount my USB Time Machine disk there so Time Machine backs up hourly.
    Well, the first issue I get is that Time Machine tells me the disk isn't properly formatted! Odd, since I've had it configured via the app for backups. I go into preferences to select a disk, and I choose my Time Machine disk. When I next tried to run a backup, it indicated I don't have enough room on the disk, requiring ~106 GB .... almost as if it thought it hadn't done any backups before and was going to run a full one.
    I dismounted the drive from the Airport Extreme and hooked it back up locally, and I get the same results within Time Machine.
    I also noticed a new file on the root of my Time Machine, with a .sparsebundle extension. Is this related in any way?
    Anyway, what can I do, short of a full reset of my Time Machine disk, to get it working through my Airport Extreme?

    Me again ...
    I hooked up my USB TM disk again to my Airport Extreme. I don't see it as a mounted drive in my Sidebar. However, I see it under the Devices on my sidebar, under "my" computer, then Time Machine Backups, then a backups.backupdb folder.
    To start fresh with TM backups I'll need to erase the drive. From what I see, do I just delete the 'backups.backupdb' folder and its contents?

  • Time capsule as time machine backup and NAS?

    I've read the TC section of the website and notice a blurb about computers able to connect to it as a HDD.
    I realize the device has yet to be released but was wondering about this. I have a handfull of macs and a handfull of xp machines on my network (wired and wireless)
    1 of my XP machine is just used as a file server. (1.5TB NTFS formated holding all video/audio/docs as well as having iTunes running to download HD podcast) All computers (Mac/XP) can access this. Five of my XP computers are MCE2005 which are configured to record SD and HD shows directly to this box.
    I have yet to have a HFS formated drive to actually do time machine backups and I would like to start. I understand that going with TC I will loose some abilities I currently have by running a dedicated computer/file server but I like the fact that it is small and self contained.
    I just want to make sure I understand the specifiations correctly. Can I make a various folders on TC and then map it to my Mac/XP machines via windows naming convention (ie \\TimeMachine\RecordedTV\)
    I am in the process of upgrading my file server so this would be a perfect time to think about going this route. Should TC not meet my needs I will continue with my build of a Raid 5 server.

    Until we get more information, at the present time the only certain thing we know about Time Capsule is that it will support TimeMachine backups.
    What we don't know:
    1. whether TimeMachine backups to network drives other than Time Capsule will ever be supported
    2. whether the Time Capsule internal drive can be used for general file storage, or only Time Machine backups. Current information on Apple's web site could be interpreted either way. I suspect it can be used for general file storage - but that is just my opinion.
    If it is not essential that you make a purchasing decision before Time Capsule ships within the next month (and more detailed information becomes available) I suggest you wait. My two cents worth of opinion - if it is general file storage that you want, and Time Machine automated backups are not a priority on the "wish list", then I think you would be far better off setting up your own network file server rather than using Time Capsule for this purpose.

  • I told Time Machine no and now it won't detect my external drive...

    Whenever I would plug in my external drive it would pop up with a Time Machine dialog asking if I would like to set it up for backup. I usually hit the ask me later option. Well last time I just hit no. It was starting to annoy me. Well now, when I plug in that drive, it won't detect it or pop up on the desktop. It works on my laptop. How the heck do I get it back?! I have files I really need to transfer!
    I would appreciate any info you can give. My i7 is my first Mac in 10 years and I am a bit lost.

    As far as I know the drive should still appear as an icon on your Desktop even if you turned down Time Machine's request to use it as the TM backup drive. What's on the external drive right now? Is it just stuff that you dragged and dropped onto it for backup? But if you've used it as a Time Machine backup on your laptop then maybe that's part of the reason you're having difficulty getting it to show up.
    P.S. If you want TM to ask you again if you want to use this external drive as a TM backup, go to Applications and open Time Machine and then go to Time Machine preferences and make the selection you desire.
    Regards,
    Steve M.
    Message was edited by: Steve M.

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