Why does ext HDD / time machine run slow?

Apologies if this is answered else where, but I can't find any answers.
I have a MBP running OSX 10.6.8. Connected to it as a Time Machine is a Freecom 400GB 28147 uk, external hardrive connected over USB 2.0. I also have a Mac Mini running 10.6.8.
When connected to my MBP, I have found that it is extremely slow to read files. I gave up using it for Time Machine a while ago as I thought there was a problem Time Machine software causing it to run slow. I have also tried to read the time machine backups through finder and they are still slow to read.
Today (don't know why i didn't do it before now) I plugged it in to my Mac Mini with USB 2.0 and found that I can read all the time machine files at lightning speed, far quicker than my MBP which can take 2-3 mins to open a folder. I have noticed that the hard drive doesn't make its usual whurring noise when im trying to open a folder using the MBP, right up until the last minute before the folder opens.
Does any one have any idea about what might be causing the problem when the the ext HDD is connected to my MBP?
Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated.

larryfromjackson wrote:
I'm backing up to a Drobo with four 2-Gig drives.
How are you connected to it? Network problems could explain at least some of what you're seeing.
More often then not I don't know how long the backups take because when it becomes to annoying I stop the backup.
That guarantees that Time Machine will have to do a "deep scan" the next time, comparing everything on your system to the backups. That does take a while, but if there are no other problems shouldn't have a major impact on performance.
All of that said, I can't say for certain that there isn't something else going on. Generally the way I notice the slowdown is when my keyboard inputs come out screwy -- ingB instead of Bring, pplAication for Applicaton for example. When I know that this is happening I can work "around" it by typing the first letter, pausing for a second or two, then typing the remander. Does any of this ring an bells?
I've not heard of that specifically, but if you're connected to the Drobo wirelessly, and using a Bluetooth keyboard, there are reports of interference between the two. Try a wired keyboard temporarily, and/or different WIFI channels.

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Why does power nap time machine backup not work on my August 2012 macbook pro retina?

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Yeah I still have the same problem BTW; it still does not work.
The second I open the lid and take it out of sleep mode, it starts to backup automagically, but when it's sleeping EVEN when it's connected to AC power, TM backups do NOT work to my OS X Server.
I don't understand what the problem is here.
I didn't before but I do have FileVault turned on now -- should that make a difference?
In either situation it didn't work, but now that I think about it, I could understand why it wouldn't backup while asleep. Apparently the encrypted volume will stay encrypted during sleep and even at the lock screen; it's not until you open the lid and log in from the lock screen that it will unlock the encrypted boot volume.
But even still, I did *not* have FV turned on before, and this still did not work.
Is there some third party solution that can do what I want this to do?
Here's my use case:
1.) I have a mac mini at home that I use when I'm at home; it runs OS X server.app (bought and paid for) and has TM server turned on.
2.) I have a laptop that I mainly use at work and I don't use at all when I come home (ie. when I'm ready to head home for the day I close the lid and don't open it until I'm back at work the next day, but the laptop does come home with me every day).
What I want to have happen is this:
1.) The minute my laptop enters my home wifi lan (even though it's still asleep with lid closed) I want it to automatically backup the boot drive.
I thought that's what Power Nap was supposed to do, but then I found out that in order for this to work, you have to be connected to AC power; so then I tried that -- ie. every day I come home, I put my laptop in a docking station that has AC power, but TM backups while lid closed / sleeping STILL do not occur!
Thanks for your help everyone...Looking forward to a solution that works.
EDIT:
I found this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4158709
"It looks like Power Nap doesn't perform Time Capsule backups when the MacBook Air screen is closed."
So apparently that is yet *another* requirement to get powernap working. The lid can not be closed.
What is the difference between sleep with lid open and sleep with lid closed!?

Why does Yosemite make my iMac run slower?

Since upgrading from Mavericks to Yosemite, my iMac is running somewhat slower and trudging a bit. Is this anything to do with the new OS and if so, is there any "solution"?

Hello, Ivor,
1. get your backup(s) made first. Be sure the drives are properly formatted to receive Time Machine.
See
OS X Yosemite: Disks you can use with Time Machine
Also, see this post
OS X Yosemite: Alternatives for backing up your Mac
This second link above has something overlooked but is a good way to get at least your data secured
You can create a burn folder that contains all your important files. Whenever you want to back up the latest versions of those files to a CD or DVD, simply open that burn folder, then click Burn. For more information, see Create and use a burn folder.
2. once you back up you can concentrate on getting your iMac up and running according to Uncle or Aunt Apple standards by doing some things that Kappy suggested (see my first post).
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally.
Safe Mood boot is a good way to isolate some problems. It may be something quite simple such as a 3rd party app in your login items under Users & Groups in System Preferences.

Time machine running slow and slowing network access

I have had and continue to have issues with wifi on my MBP. Those are pretty well summarized in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5535320?start=30&tstart=0. I've been able to make mt system usable with some of the less dodgy workarounds in that thread ( like keeping a ping on my router running )
That thread really doesn't mention the issues I've been having with time machine though, so I thought I'd bring this up here. Whenever time machine starts up, Safari and mail become unresponsive. It's worst when TM is "preparing" of "cleaningup", though barely usable during the actual backup. Mostly, I can work around that too, but occationally, TM will find GB of data to be backed up and lock up my mac for a day. Here's a recent example:
2/16/14 12:30:27.952 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Starting automatic backup
2/16/14 12:30:28.466 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://;AUTH=No%20User%20Authent@MyBookLive._afpovertcp._tcp.local/TimeMachine
2/16/14 12:30:33.866 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/TimeMachine using URL: afp://;AUTH=No%20User%20Authent@MyBookLive._afpovertcp._tcp.local/TimeMachine
2/16/14 12:31:44.678 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Disk image /Volumes/TimeMachine/sparky.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
2/16/14 12:31:46.613 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Backing up to /dev/disk2s2: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
2/16/14 12:34:07.904 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Will copy (1.66 GB) from Macintosh HD
2/16/14 12:34:08.004 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Found 83487 files (1.66 GB) needing backup
2/16/14 12:34:08.738 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: 4.16 GB required (including padding), 445.21 GB available
2/16/14 1:32:33.579 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 534.6 MB of 1.66 GB, 28317 of 83487 items
2/16/14 2:40:02.513 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 564.1 MB of 1.66 GB, 30225 of 83487 items
2/16/14 3:46:20.853 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 593.2 MB of 1.66 GB, 31631 of 83487 items
2/16/14 4:48:19.461 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 621.8 MB of 1.66 GB, 33182 of 83487 items
2/16/14 5:00:31.968 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
2/16/14 5:54:51.036 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 658 MB of 1.66 GB, 34773 of 83487 items
2/16/14 6:17:20.839 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
2/16/14 6:56:27.566 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 688.2 MB of 1.66 GB, 36246 of 83487 items
2/16/14 7:57:07.076 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 704.8 MB of 1.66 GB, 37267 of 83487 items
2/16/14 8:58:52.469 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 730.7 MB of 1.66 GB, 38724 of 83487 items
2/16/14 10:09:42.807 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 760.5 MB of 1.66 GB, 40291 of 83487 items
2/16/14 11:21:25.825 PM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 803.8 MB of 1.66 GB, 42462 of 83487 items
2/17/14 12:30:58.322 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 834.1 MB of 1.66 GB, 43513 of 83487 items
2/17/14 1:45:28.495 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 846.1 MB of 1.66 GB, 44160 of 83487 items
2/17/14 2:45:36.010 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 868.6 MB of 1.66 GB, 45485 of 83487 items
2/17/14 3:57:29.939 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 890.6 MB of 1.66 GB, 46729 of 83487 items
2/17/14 5:07:30.971 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 926.7 MB of 1.66 GB, 48695 of 83487 items
2/17/14 6:15:49.283 AM com.apple.backupd[11557]: Copied 963.7 MB of 1.66 GB, 50583 of 83487 items
This is on an AC router. My peak throughput shows 19 Mb/s on menu meters, so, not great, but not this slow. Mostly, the network activity is nothing with short bursts of higher throughput.
I'm hoping this will be addressed in 10.9.2. In the mean time, are there any workarounds to get past this issue short of turning off TM?
Thanks,
Horst

These instructions were taken from Mac OS X Hints at:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382
The Unix program dd is a disk copying util that you can use at the command line in order to make a disk image. It makes a bit-by-bit copy of the drive it's copying, caring nothing about filesystem type, files, or anything else. It's a great way to workaround the need for Norton Ghost.
Normally, in order to make a disk image, the disk you're copying from has to be able to spin up and talk -- in other words, it's OK to make a copy if the disk is healthy. But what happens when your disk is becoming a doorstop? As long as it continues to spin, even with physical damage on the drive, dd and Mac OS X will get you out of the fire.
We had a situation recently where a friend sent a disk to us that had hard physical errors on it. It would boot in Windows, but then it would hit one of these scratch marks and just die. We fired up dd, and it started OK, but stopped at the same physical error location -- complaining about a Hard Error.
So the workaround was to designate the dd mode as noerror -- which just slides over the hard stops, and to add the mode sync, which fills the image with nulls at that point. We did it on BSD Unix, but as long as you can get the hard drive attached to your Mac, the command is the same:
dd bs=512 if=/dev/rXX# of=/some_dir/foo.dmg conv=noerror,sync
The bs=512 designates block size, and the if=/dev/rXX# is the UNIX path to the actual disk device. Make sure that the chosen directory (some_dir) has enough room to take the entire disk image -- which will be equal to the size of the drive. Since dd doesn't care about the contents of the drive, it copies every bit on the thing, so you get an image equal to the disk's capacity. A really big file. One workaround is to put it on a RAID array.
Once you've established the disk image (in this example, foo.dmg), you're almost home. Here's where your Mac OS X box is far and away the best thing to have. In this example, the dd output file is foo.dmg. You have to realize that this is an exact copy of a busted drive, but the "holes" are filled with nulls. As long as the damage isn't to the boot sector, though, when you double-click on it, Mac OS X mounts it without breathing hard ... who cares if it's FAT32, NTFS, whatever.
Due to the size of the image that we were copying, we put it on a RAID array, and had to access the image over the network -- it still mounted fine. In straight UNIX, if you try to mount a disk image, it complains that there is "no block device" and fails. Once your image is mounted, it appears in your Finder, and then it's easy work to retrieve the critical files from the image -- usually things like .doc files and .xls files and the lot.
Finally, since your disk is actually dying, once you have your image, you can drop it to tape or something and you've not only recovered your files, you've made a viable backup as well. Once again, that which destroys a Windows box becomes a play thing to a Mac OS X box.

Time machine running slow

Not sure why my wireless setting are set up high connections.What happens if I put something into the wan port?

Ok, so I have had another play this morning. I have plugged the Mac into the router connecting at 100Mbps. I then added a file around 4GB to the Mac. I first transferred this to the WD drive which transferred at 95Mbps average continuously until the file was transferred. This tells me there is not issue with my network and equipment.
Secondly I started a time machine backup and it picked up this file as needing backing up. The transfer started quite quickly which was good compared to yesterday. It was a little choppy on the through put but was reaching peaks of 95Mbps. Great. I am just putting the choppy down to time machine copying and sorting or something of that sort.
Oh dear. 1GB transfered and the backup suddenly goes slow again without warning again. Then later on, a lot later, it speeds up again. I am seriously looking at my router as the problem here but require to swap it out to test it. It just seems so strange that it is up and down like this. Oh, and right now (while writing this) it is back at 72Kbps peak. This makes no sense that Time Machine itself would keep changing the transfer rates so dramatically.
Regards,
Adam.

Why does the new version FireFox run slower than the old one?

I have a fairly new computer but Firefox runs slower than the older version. Can this be remedied?

That does not sound right. I recommend rebuilding your VI. Beore you do, open the top level VI and press contol-shift-run arrow to perform a manual binary recompile. This makes LabVIEW recompile the whole code. Most times you will not see anything happen but occasionally an error will surface. Be sure to save the VI then rebuild it.
You may also need to reinstall the LabVIEW run time engine and/or LabVIEW. I would start with the run time engine first.

Why does the application built executable run slower than my developement lib.

The Response given was LabView 5.0.1.f1 specific. Iam however, using LabView 6.i. The Application runs approximatley 3 to 40 times slower than the developement library. Additionally the Write to spreadsheet data is corrupted when using the application executable. Is there a different solution for 6.i ????
Tnx
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That does not sound right. I recommend rebuilding your VI. Beore you do, open the top level VI and press contol-shift-run arrow to perform a manual binary recompile. This makes LabVIEW recompile the whole code. Most times you will not see anything happen but occasionally an error will surface. Be sure to save the VI then rebuild it.
You may also need to reinstall the LabVIEW run time engine and/or LabVIEW. I would start with the run time engine first.

Time Machine Runs All Night...Every Night.

Ove the past month or so I've noticed Time Machine seems to be running (especially at night) any time I'm not actively using my MacBook. (When I'm using the MB it seemed to operate normally backing up every hour or so.)
I initally thought that after a year's worth of accumulated back ups, the Time Machine file was getting too large to efficiently manage. So, not needing all those backups I wiped the hard disk that contained the back ups and started from scratch. (I back up to a hard drive, via wifi, through an Airport Extreme.)
I also Verified/Repaired the disk through Disk Utility.
This seemed to help for a coupe of days, but eventually it was back to the same, Time Machine chugging along seemingly all night. And now, the MB was getting warm when it really should be mostly idle.
So, I did some more research and found this webpage below that suggested if all else fails do a "Full Reset of Time Machine". The proceedure involves deleting the Time Machine ".plist" file and resetting your preferences. Your back up files will stay intact.
http://pondini.org/TM/A4.html
Wow! This really did the trick! Time Machine no longer runs all night long, and even the hourly backups during the day seem to process much quicker. So, if your Time Machine seems to just constantly chug along when you think it should be idle - give this a try.
Thanks to Pondin for putting the info out there that really helped me......
As an aside.....
I'm fairly new to the world of "Mac". I've had this MacBook a little over a year. In that time I've had 3 issues with: IPhoto, Mail, and Time Machine. (The programs just started acting "wonky".)
All these issues were fixed by deleting a ".plist" file (or a group of ".plist" files).
What are these ".plist" files and why are they always getting corrupted? Is this common? Am I doing something wrong? Is there anything I can do to make the files a little more roubust and keep them from getting corrupted?
Seems like one goes bad every 4-months and takes the app down with it.
Q.

Noelle Buscher wrote:
I dont recall this problem a month ago when I first got the Time Capsule. I do remember seeing the Time Machine running quite a bit, but it didnt affect my performance (at least not to the degree that I was going up and turning it off all the time)
Opening a webpage...takes about 10-15 seconds. Of course, I look up at the Time Machine and it is running. Opening a file takes forever...ESPECIALLY a Photoshop or other large file. Time Machine is running.
I will STOP the back-up so I can get something accomplishes...but ultimately have to go up and just turn it off completely, as it starts running again shortly.
Is there a setting for only running a backup once a day? I cant find it.
No, as Time Machine is designed to run hourly, and ordinarily works best that way.
You've clearly got something else going on here. I'd recommend starting by doing a +*Repair Disk+* on the sparse bundle. See #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.
If that doesn't help, try all the things in #D2 there.
Once you get it doing regular backups, see if the size makes sense considering the amount of changes you think you've made. If the backups seem too large, see #D4 in the Troubleshooting Tip. You may have an app that's causing extra-large (and therefore lengthy) backups.

HT1277 Mail has gone crazy. Header's and messages are mixed up. New Mac Book Pro. Migrated files from Time machine running snow leopard. Reinstall or new computer needed?

Mail has gone crazy. Header's and messages are mixed up. New Mac Book Pro. Migrated files from Time machine running snow leopard. Reinstall or new computer needed?

Ok; I'm not sure what you're doing. 36 hours is rather long. Seems like a new migration. Not what I intended.
Here's what I intended: from the newly-migrated and apparently-corrupt environment, create a new user, not related to any existing user, nor any migration-created user, or any other user for that matter. That is, use  > System Preferences > Users and Groups, authenticate yourself by clicking on the padlock, and then click the + and create a wholly new user. Then log in under that user and establish the mail access.
36 hours? I'm wondering if there's an error or an exceedingly slow network here? Or a really, really slow disk? Or a sick backup? (WiFi isn't the path I'd usually choose, either.)
Failing the attempted second migration, I'd try a different tactic. Does your existing (old) system work? If so, I'd bypass the backup and connect an external (scratch) USB disk drive to the (old) sstem and then boot and use Disk Utility booted from the installer DVD disk or boot and use Disk Utility from the recovery partition or booted from a recovery partition created on some other external storage (details here vary by the OS X version and what hardware you have), and perform a full-disk backup of your original internal disk to (scratch) external storage. (Make sure you get the source and target disks chosen correctly here; copying the wrong way — from the scratch disk to your existing disk — will clobber your data!) In esssence, this will clone your existing boot disk. Then dismount the (formerly-scratch) external disk, transfer it over to the new system, and use it as the source of the migration, by performing a fresh OS X installation on the new system.
Target Disk Mode is also sometimes an option for accessing the disk for a migration, but that requires the right cable, and requires systems that have the same external connection; newer MacBook Pro systems use Thunderbolt for this, and older systems tend to use FireWire. And I'm guessing you don't have compatible hardware.
The details here can and do vary by your OS X versions and your particular Mac systems — if you'll identify the specific models and hardware, somebody might be able to better tailor the above (fairly generic) sequence to your particular configuration.

Time Machine WIFI slows down and Fine after I unplug it?

My Time Machine WIFI slows down to an absolute crawl and then after I unplug it and plug it back in, it's back to normal. Can someone help me?

My Time Machine WIFI slows down to an absolute crawl and then after I unplug it and plug it back in, it's back to normal.
This is a classic case of the effects of wireless interference from other networks around you. See the link at the bottom for more information about this.
It might first help to understand why things improve when you unplug the Time Capsule and then power it back up. When you do this, the Time Capsule will scan to find the best available wireless channels to use at the time.
Unfortunately, other wireless routers are doing the same thing all the time, so after a few hours or a day or two, the channel(s) that the Time Capsule was using become overcrowded and the wireless slows down to a crawl. Cordless phones can also create interference issues for a wireless network as well as any number of other electronic devices.
Unless you can convince other users around you to turn off their wireless routers, there is not much that you are going to be able to do to come up with a permanent fix. For now, locate the Time Capsule as far away from any outside walls in your home as possible and use the 5 GHz band for as many connections as you can.
A friend of mine who recently moved into a new apartment complex has the same problem. He has to restart his wireless router at least twice a day, sometimes more on the weekends. Too many wireless networks.....not enough channels.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: Potential sources of wireless interference - Apple Support

What is application memory and why does my macbook pro keep running out of it?

what is application memory and why does my macbook pro keep running out of it?

There is excessive swapping of data between physical memory (that is, the memory chips on the logic board) and virtual memory (one or more files on the startup volume.) That activity is relatively slow and causes the whole system to be less responsive. It can happen for two reasons:
          A long-running process with a memory leak (a kind of bug)
          Not enough memory for your usage pattern
Please note that if the cause is a memory leak, installing more memory will not help. That's likely if you already have more than 4 GB of memory. Tracking down a memory leak can be difficult, and it may come down to a process of elimination.
These instructions are for OS X 10.9 and later. Some details may be slightly different for earlier versions of OS X.
When you notice the swap activity, open the Activity Monitor application and select All Processes from the View menu, if it's not already selected. Select the Memory tab. Click the heading of the Real Mem column in the process table twice to sort the table with the highest value at the top. If you don't see that column, select
          View ▹ Columns ▹ Real Memory
from the menu bar.
If one process (excluding "kernel_task") is using much more memory than all the others, that could be an indication of a leak. A better indication would be a process that continually grabs more and more real memory over time without ever releasing it. Here is an example of how it's done.
The processes named "Safari Web Content" render web pages for Safari. They use a lot of memory and may leak if certain Safari extensions or third-party web plugins are installed. Consider them prime suspects.
Another process often implicated in memory leaks is "inkjet4" or "inkjet8," which is a component of the HP printing software. If it's present, force-quit the process in Activity Monitor to solve the problem temporarily. Empty the print queues in the Printers & Scanners preference pane (which has a slightly different name in each recent version of OS X.) If you don't use an HP printer, reset the printing system. Otherwise, if the problem is recurrent, update the software (which may not help) or contact HP support.
"Wired" memory should be a small part of the total. That memory is not swapped, but it makes less physical memory available which may then result in swapping. If you have a lot of wired memory, that's usually an indication of a memory leak in a third-party program that modifies the operating system at a low level. Ask for guidance in that case.
If you don't have an obvious memory leak, your options are to install more memory (if possible) or to run fewer programs simultaneously.
The next suggestion is only for users familiar with the shell. For a more precise, but potentially misleading, test, run the following command:
sudo leaks -nocontext -nostacks process | grep total
where process is the name of a process you suspect of leaking memory. Almost every process will leak some memory; the question is how much, and especially how much the leak increases with time. I can’t be more specific. See the leaks(1) man page and the Apple developer documentation for details.

Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Erase and install?

Trouble with Time Machine (runs constantly). Tried re-installation (equivalent of archive install) of Snow Leopard. Time Machine still unable to complete a back-up. Erase and install recommended at Genius Bar. Have backed up data to external HD using Super Duper. Should be a bootable backup. Last successful backup through Time Machine was 6/1/11. Not sure if I can access this back-up if I erase and re-install.
Computer shipped with Tiger (7/2007). Have original disks. Now running Snow Leopard. So: erase HD, install Tiger, then update to Snow Leopard? Start-up from Tiger disks does not appear to work (starting up holding "C" key). Suggestions? Want very much to transfer data to new iMac, but do not want to carry bugs forward. Very nervous about erasing HD. And have the questions above about reinstalling system software.
Advice desired! Thanks.

Well if you can hold option and boot off the Superdupes clone and it works fine then you should be set to do what you need to do to the original boot drive.
Disconnect all drives and c boot off the Snow Leopard install disk, use Disk Utility to Erase > format HFS+ journaled your internal boot drive.
Quit and reinstall OS X Snow Leopard, setup (do not use Setup/Migration Assitant!) and update to 10.6.8
When you setup the new install, use the same hard drive name and user name as you did before.
Now the free iLife that came on the Tiger disks you won't get naturally, but you can pick them off the disk with the shareware program called Pacifist.
install your programs from fresh sources, this way you don't get the "crap" from the older setup.
Once your machine is up and going. Hook up the clone and transfer your user folders over manually. With iTunes just replace the whole folder. Because you kept the same user and boot drive name as before, the playlists should be fine.
Once your all peachy, take the opportunity to clone this new setup to a external drive, label and disconnect.
Make another clone for day to day, or week to week clone updates and your just a hold option boot away for recovery.
You know Superdupes and Carbon Copy Cloner both have auto-scedualing/updating ability, so you can leave them plugged in and it will perform a update so your clone stays fresh and recent.
But you should keep a clone timed back about a couple of weeks back just in case you install something bad and don't learn about it right away.

How does one get Time Machine out of a "Preparing to Backup" loop to actually doing a backup? thanks, AR

How does one get Time Machine out of a "Preparing to Backup" loop to actually doing a backup? thanks, AR

Hi..
Thanks for the reply..
My original I Phone 5 was running IOS 6.12
My I phone 5S currently runs IOS 8..When I upgraded it, it had IOS 7 on it which made the I Photo app compatible with everything below IOS 8...( which the photo app is not compatible with ) so I just connected the I Phone 5S to my computer and thinking the new phone had IOS 7 on it that these was nothing to worry about..I thought all 900 + pictures in the photo stream would transfer but somewhere in the process, I Tunes decides to just go and install IOS 8 which requires that you run a " Photo Migration App" to transfer photos from IOS 7 & below. The problem was is that I didn't want IOS 8 on my new 5S so I thought I wouldn't have to do that part..
Anyway the phone emerged with IOS 8 on it and the only photos that remained were the ones that were actually on the phone..The 900 + I had in the stream didn't transfer because the Photos that works on IOS 7 and below isn't compatible with IOS 8..I guess you have to use the photo migration app that comes with IOS 8 & I phone 6..But I didn't ask to upgrade to IOS 8...It just did it on it's own!
I still have the I Phone 5 Back up that I did just before giving it back to Verizon but if I try to restore the I Phone 5S running IOS 8 those photos in the stream will not go back on the phone because IOS 8 isn't compatible with the I Photos" that ran on IOS 7 and below..
So I have an I Pad mini that runs IOS 7..should I try and erase it...and put that I Phone 5 backup on it and pray the photos that were in the stream come back on it so I can transfer them back to my computer...then erase the I pad mini again and restore it using it's original backup that I have on the computer and the in the cloud?
I know this sounds confusing but I'm at a loss as to what to do..This is what I found ...http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201386
but it doesn't help me..
Steve

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