Slow Time Machine Backup to USB

Yes, I know I am not the only one having this problem, but I figured I would add my question in hopes that Apple would address the problem sooner than later.
I'm backing up my Time Machine to a LaCie USB 500GB external hard drive. The current backup (running now) is 9.76GB and the hard drive has 81GB available, so that is not the issue. I'm running Lion 10.7.5 and didn't have this issue until I upgraded. Since the hard drive is sitting right here, I can audibly hear that its only writing data every couple of minutes, so I'm not sure what it is doing between these writings.
I know have read some solutions, but I'm hesitant. I can't upgrade to Mountain Lion because my MacBook is too old and isn't compatible. I'm hesitant to do any changes to Spotlight without a recent backup, because if I screw something up and have to re-install OSX, I will lose weeks of info going back to my last backup.
I'm going to let this back-up continue in hopes of getting through it within the next few days. If I can, I will try the Spotlight fix. If not, I'm going to be waiting for Apple to fix the issue.

I'm also face the same problem. What I do just now is disable spotlight and backup again. I found it much faster. then, after backup completed I will enable spotlight back because I really using spotlight for faster searching files..
for enable or disable spotlight in Mac OSX Lion
http://osxdaily.com/2011/12/10/disable-or-enable-spotlight-in-mac-os-x-lion/

Similar Messages

PowerNap Time Machine backup? USB Data shuts off in sleep mode!

So how is PowerNap supposed to do a Time Machine backup when USB is turned off in sleep mode? Everything else seems to work, but when I wake my computer back up, I am greeted with a message that the external hard drive was removed improperly, and no backups were completed overnight.
I'm using a MacBook Air Mid-2012 and a 2TB WD External HDD that uses it's own power supply.

A USB drive should be fine.
Right before going to bed, I duplicated a bunch of large files and then went to sleep with my USB hard drive plugged in. When I woke up I realized that Time Machine did back up about one hour after the computer was asleep.
Using a mid-2011 MBA.

Mountain Lion Time Machine backup to USB drive super slow

I recently upgraded the MacBook Air to Mountain Lion. The time machine backup is SUPER SLOW even when doing it on a USB 3.0 Drive. It currently showing 2 days for 100GB backup. I was able to copy the same 100 GB of files on to the same hard disk in less than 1 hr. This is so slow that i might be better off managing back ups manually or just writing a small script to do it. But before I do so wanted to check if anybody else has the same issues.
Regards
Uddhav
Update:
Turning off the spotlight on the external hard disk helped improve the speed dramatically. Brought it down from 1 GB in 1 hr to almost 1 GB / minute.
System Preferences --> Spotlight
Add the Drive to the exceptions list. It will say this is a time machine disk so except the time machine folder everything else will be added to the exception list. Say Yes and thats it !!!
Now says 19hrs still a lot according to me but much better than 2 days.
Any body has any additional tips /tricks please share !!
Regards
Uddhav

uddhav wrote:
Turning off the spotlight on the external hard disk helped improve the speed dramatically.
That may indicate a damaged index. Keep an eye on subsequent backups -- if they take a long time, and/or show "indexing backup" on the Time Machine preferences panel for very long, you may need to delete it, so OSX can recreate it. See the pink box in #D2 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting for instructions.
It will say this is a time machine disk so except the time machine folder everything else will be added to the exception list.
Is there anything else on the drive (in the same partition)? If so, that's usually not a good idea. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #3 for an explanation.
Now says 19hrs still a lot according to me but much better than 2 days.
Yes, that's quite slow, especially if your Mac supports USB 3.
If it doesn't, it should be running at USB 2 speeds, which for a full backup should be, very roughly, 40-50 GB/hour.
See the rest of #D2 in the Troubleshooting link for other causes of slow backups.

When is Apple going to fix the problem with slow Time Machine backups with Mavericks?

I have been with Apple tech support and they got my Time Machine working by doing a spotlight re-indexing and a safe boot. This worked for about three days and I am back to very slow backups. It is impossible for Time Machine to back up every hour when it takes six hours to do the back up. I don't want to take hours to re-index with spotlight all the time. I think taking six hours to do an incremental backup is a bit much. I see that there are many people that have this trouble and it all started with an upgrade to Mavericks. The question is when is Apple going to fix this problem of slow backups with Time Machine for Mavericks. I have wasted more time than I care to. I am think of going back to Windows. I need good solid backups of my machine and Apple has taken it away with the new Mavericks. Oh, I am using the UBS 3.0 connection so the drive should not be the problem. Also this has occurred in about the last five months, so I am not sure this problem was in the original Marvericks.

Allen Thanks for your reply. All I can say is several months ago Time Machine quit working in a reasonable manner. Right now I have a Time Machine backup that has been running all night and still has three hours to go to backup 6 GB of data. I am using a OWC 1.5 TB drive connected directly to my MacBook with a USB 3.0 connection. In the resent past I have added Dropbox, GoogleDrive and a MAMP server on which I am using a program called Learning With Text from Sourceforge. There have been a lot of questions on the forum about people having very slow Time Machine back ups, so it appears to be a general problem. I should also state I am getting this very slow backup after doing the Spotlight re-indexing and the Safe Restart procedure that was told to me by apple support. I have a 750 GB drive in my MacBook Pro which I am constantly trying to keep at a 5% level of free space. This might be a problem also. However, I am working on a lot of things and like to have a lot of things on my drive. Also the heavily loaded drive has not be a problem in the past. This slow backup business started about three months ago, so something has happen in a very short time period. Now it seems even the procedure that Apple support gave me is not working. Currently I am in China and it is difficult to interact with Apple support to solve this problem, but because I am in China having my computer backed up is critical. I have run the EtreCheck and am attaching the results below. I would appreciate any suggestions. If necessary I will clear out more of my hard drive if that appears to be a solution. The Time Machine drive was recently reformed so I only have a few backups on it. I also don't run the Time Machine all the time as I don't want multi-hour backups running all the time. I run it every few days.
Here is the info from EtreCheck:
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,1
          1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 1024 MB
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 1024 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.2 (13C1021) - Uptime: 0 days 10:18:59
Disk Information:
          APPLE HDD HTS727575A9E362 disk0 : (750.16 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 749.3 GB (54.06 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS31N
USB Information:
          VIA Labs, Inc.    USB3.0 Hub
                    OWC Elite Pro mini C 1.5 TB
                              EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                              NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1 (disk1s2) /Volumes/NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1: 1.5 TB (691.6 GB free)
          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
          Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Logitech USB Receiver
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper:
          Mac App Store and identified developers
Kernel Extensions:
          [not loaded] com.LaCie.ScsiType00 (1.2.2) Support
          [not loaded] com.lacie.driver.LaCie_RemoteComms (1.0.1) Support
          [not loaded] com.oxsemi.driver.OxsemiDeviceType00 (1.28.0) Support
          [not loaded] com.roxio.BluRaySupport (1.1.6) Support
          [not loaded] com.roxio.TDIXController (2.0) Support
          [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecDriverCore (5.0.1) Support
          [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_4 (5.0.1) Support
          [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_5 (5.0.1) Support
          [not loaded] com.seagate.driver.SeagateDriveIcons (5.0.1) Support
          [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.SymAPComm (11.2.2f3) Support
          [not loaded] com.symantec.kext.confidentialData (1.4f5) Support
          [not loaded] com.symantec.kext.filesecurity (1.4.3f19) Support
          [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.fw (1.0.3f5) Support
          [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.internetSecurity (1.3.2f5) Support
          [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.ips (1.3.1f7) Support
          [kext loaded] com.symantec.kext.pf (4.2.1f7) Support
          [not loaded] com.wacom.driver.HIDTablet (5.0.1) Support
Startup Items:
          cma: Path: /Library/StartupItems/cma
          MySQLCOM: Path: /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM
          ParallelsDesktopTransporter: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsDesktopTransporter
          ParallelsTransporter: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ParallelsTransporter
          Tablet: Path: /Library/StartupItems/Tablet
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.versioncueCS4.plist Support
          [loaded] com.barebones.authd.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.barebones.textwrangler.plist Support
          [loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist Support
          [loaded] com.mcafee.virusscan.eupdate.plist Support
          [running] com.micromat.TechToolProDaemon.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist Support
          [loaded] com.prosofteng.DriveGenius.locum.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.avscandaemon.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.deepsight-extractor.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.diskMountNotify.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.MissedTasks.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.navapd.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.navapdaemonsl.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.Sched501-1.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.Sched501-2.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.Sched503-3.plist Support
          [loaded] com.symantec.Sched503-4.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.sharedsettings.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.symdaemon.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.symSchedDaemon.plist Support
          [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support
Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist Support
          [running] com.lacie.safemanager.daemon.plist Support
          [running] com.micromat.TechToolProAgent.plist Support
          [loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
          [running] com.seagate.SeagateStorageGauge.plist Support
          [failed] com.sogou.SogouServices.plist Support
          [running] com.symantec.uiagent.application.plist Support
          [running] net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist Support
          [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
          [running] com.wondershare.mobilegodaemon.plist Support
User Login Items:
          GeekTool
          SIMBL Agent
          QQ
          Safari
          Calendar
          Google Drive
          Dropbox
          Day One
          Dictionary
          SymSecondaryLaunch
Internet Plug-ins:
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.2.1.11 Support
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 Support
          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.182 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 9.5.5 Support
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          OfficeLiveBrowserPlugin: Version: 12.3.6 Support
          RealPlayer Plugin: Version: (null) Support
          Silverlight: Version: 4.0.51204.0 Support
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 55 Check version
Safari Extensions:
          Video Converter: Version: 4.0.0
          AllMyTube: Version: 4.1.0.0
          Open in Internet Explorer: Version: 1.0
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          QQMail: Version: 1.0.2.0 - SDK 10.7 Support
          txftn: Version: 1.0.0.6 Support
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Adobe Version Cue CS4 Support
          Flash Player Support
          GeekTool Support
          Growl Support
          Java Support
          MacFUSE Support
          MenuMeters Support
          MySQL Support
          Norton\nQuickMenu Support
          Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X Support
          Pen Tablet Support
          Perian Support
          TechTool Protection Support
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 697.84 GB Disk used: 647.49 GB
          Destinations:
                    NewMBP-TimeMachine-1.1 [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 1
                    Total number of backups: 11
                    Oldest backup: 2014-03-18 15:09:46 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-04-29 23:24:28 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 1 < (Disk used 647.49 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
              47%          SymAVScanDaemon
               7%          Finder
               7%          WindowServer
               2%          mds
               1%          NortonAutoProtect
Top Processes by Memory:
          385 MB          NortonAutoProtect
          262 MB          mds_stores
          180 MB          Safari
          139 MB          WindowServer
          115 MB          Finder
Virtual Memory Information:
          1.15 GB          Free RAM
          2.87 GB          Active RAM
          1.83 GB          Inactive RAM
          1.05 GB          Wired RAM
          1.02 GB          Page-ins
          380 MB          Page-outs
I hope you can see something that can be fixed.

Add'l ideas to cure slow Time Machine backup

Over the past 10 days, the average duration of my Time Machine backups has gone from 1 minute to :42-:45 minutes. There's been no significant shift in my computing behavior during that time. To fix, I've tried nearly everything recommended in Pondini's terrific site -- can you see something that I've overlooked?
* iMac8,1 4GB, running OS X 10.6.8
* TM drive: Seagate GoFlex 1TB, 30 days old, was freshly formatted and 100% dedicated to TM; have tested both Firewire and USB; 356GB used
* Fusion virtual machines excluded from TM via Preferences
* no virus program running
Review of backupd items in system.log shows, after the first few weeks of speedy TM backups, a gradual decay -- can't pinpoint a cliff (that could be blamed on an installation, etc.) And there's no other TM-related messages ("deep traversal," etc) in the log. When I watch Activity Monitor during a TM cycle, I see low CPU usage by TM, and slow read/write speeds for disk activity.
Yes, I have:
* repaired permissions (frequently)
* done disk verify and repair on both internal and TM drives (nothing found)
* set drives to "no sleep"
* disabled Spotlight
* relaunched Finder (and, of course, rebooted the whole system)
* tested in Safe Mode (no improvement)
* run daily/weekly/monthly maintenance scripts and purged caches, using Cocktail (Ironically, it got dramatically worse yesterday after I did this!)
No, I have not yet reformatted the TM drive, nor reinstalled 10.6.8. Am I forgetting something else?
thx

Hi there
The same problem here:
17.07.12 17:17:17          com.apple.backupd[12749]          Starting standard backup
*means: com.apple.backupd[12749]
17.07.12 17:17:17          *          Starting standard backup
17.07.12 17:17:17          *          Backing up to: /Volumes/TIME MACHINE/Backups.backupdb
17.07.12 17:17:48          *          No pre-backup thinning needed: 703.6 MB requested
                                                  (including padding), 1.37 TB available
17.07.12 17:22:43          *          Copied 34006 files (639 bytes) from volume DATEN.
17.07.12 17:23:54          *          No pre-backup thinning needed: 704.0 MB requested
                                                  (including padding),1.37 TB available
17.07.12 17:27:14          *          Copied 10482 files (639 bytes) from volume DATEN.
17.07.12 17:29:47          *          Starting post-backup thinning
17.07.12 17:33:29          *          Deleted backup /Volumes/TIME MACHINE/Backups.backupdb/
                                                  pmg5/2012-07-03-121520: 1.37 TB now available
17.07.12 17:37:05          *          Deleted backup /Volumes/TIME MACHINE/Backups.backupdb/
                                                   pmg5/2012-07-03-114951: 1.37 TB now available
17.07.12 17:37:05          *          Post-back up thinning complete: 2 expired backups removed
17.07.12 17:37:06          *          Backup completed successfully.
Many years everything with TimeMachine was fine. No problems, no effort. Works quiet and effectiv in the background.
2 months ago I recognised first changes. TM needs long and longer. Thousands of files - big number with low volume - TM copied to my external HDD. "Preparation" and "reworking" take a long time.
I controlled the backup with TimeTracker - a much smaller number of files was listed.
I read other threads:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3144862?start=15&tstart=0
and jump to Pandinis website. No success with this.
So long
iPille

Extremely slow time machine backups

I have problem that prevents me from making Time Machine backup at all. First, some information about my environment:
- MacBook MB404 (late 2008)
- Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
- External USB hard disk drive (Samsung)
I'm using this configuration for years, before Lion everything was working pretty well. Unfortunately, on Lion from time to time I have to erase my external disc drive which contains Time Machine backups and start taking a new backup. Otherwise backups are extremely slow and taking couple hours just to save about 100MB on external drive. That's not a big problem for me, so every two or three months I'm erasing my external drive using Disk Utility, configuring TM from scratch and taking first backup again.
Yesterday was the day TM starts working very slow, so I decided to repeat mentioned process. Everything went good to the moment Time Machine started making a new, first backup on a erased drive. It is still so slow, it wont be done in a week or more. I know, that this is the fist and clean backup, and TM have to copy over 60GB of data from MacBook's hard disk drive to external disk drive, connected by USB, so it have to be time-consuming, but it wasn't take more than 6-8 hours before for the same amount of data! I have already fixed permissions on the disk using Recovery HD partition, but I didn't help, TM is still so slow it almost impossible to make a backup. I have checked MacBook's disk and external Samsung disk - both seams to be in good shape, there are no errors in S.M.A.R.T, Disk Utility says that everything is OK. What else can I do to fix this issue?

I just added a TM backup disk and TM says it will take about 7 DAYS to backup.
iMac Intel i5 mid-2011, Mac OS 10.7.5 (1163), FW800 connection
It looks like the 1163 build of 10.7.5 didn't fix the problem of Spotlight slowing down TM backups. I'm going to dl the supplement (even though Apple says it isn't needed) and see if it will fix it.

Time machine backup from USB stick doesn't work

Hi all,
I've got an MacBook Air (1st gen) with Lion, with a 80GB internal HD. This HD is quite full now, so I decided to move my rather large iPhoto library (c. 30GB) to an external 64GB USB stick. Up to that point, everything worked well.
I'd like to include the USB stick to my Time Machine Backup. The USB Stick is formatted as HFS+. It appears in the list of excluded drives in the Time Machine setup. If I click the 'minus' button to remove it from that list, it goes away, but comes back as soon as I leave the TM setup and reopen it. Accordingly, Time Machine does not generate any backups of the USB stick. The external Backup has enough free space to make a backup, so this should not be the problem.
Any ideas how I could fix that problem?
A workaround could be to use a 3rd party tool to backup the library. I tried Carbon Copy Cloner, but CC can not do incremental backups of bundles. Any recommendations?

I am having the same issue on my macbook air (end 2010)
I bought a 32gb usb stick and Time Machine always excludes it.
I assume that Time Machine should be able to backup it.
Could it be because it is a USB stick and not a USB hard drive ?
Also as a workaround could be make that a usb stick is reconnized as a hard drive ?
Any recommendations?
thanks

Can Time Machine backup a USB drive connected to Airport Extreme?

Hi all,
I have an airport extreme that I used to run a shared USB drive for the family. I have a network drive attached to the airport extreme which I used for Time Machine backups, how do I tell Time Machine to back up the USB drive also?
All help very gratefully recieved.

Thanks for your reply,
When I open Time Machine preferences I can either select a different disk to use as the backup disk or exclude items from the back up. I cannot find an option to add the USB drive attached to my airport extreme. Apologies if I am being a little dumb.

Extremely Slow Time Machine Backup after upgrading to 10.8.3

Time machine backups are taking an extremely long time on my retina MacBook Pro 13 inch after upgrading to 10.8.3. It's taking many minutes just for a kilobyte to be backed up. I've tested transferring something to the disk and it's lightening fast so there's nothing wrong with the disk.
Is anyone having similar issues or know of a fix?

I had the same problem with slow backups. Called Apple 5 times and went through all the hoops checking plists, airport, and then erasing using my airport utility and the first backup of about 25-30 gigs went fine, but the second backup would take between 1-2 hours. By the time it was finished it was ready to do another backup.
After looking at community fixes I found that my Comcast Norton Anti Virus was the problem. Upon speaking for the 6th time to Apple I was told that should have been the first thing they asked, since antivirus programs check each file going to the time capsule. Even unchecking the scan external drives did not help.
I removed the Norton AV from my system and replaced it with the IAV from apple store (free) and my backups are back to normal. I timed a 100 meg using Ethernet/LAN and it took 9 minutes 32 seconds from clicking backup now, searching for backups, preparing backup, backingup, and cleanup. My Wifi connection on 10 megs took only 1 minute 29 seconds.
Now my backups run so fast I don't even see them working. Also the constant updates to Norton were casuing my backups to be 100 megs or more each time due to daily Norton updates. Now I get backups in the order of 10-20 megs - depending up what I have put on the machine. If I put music on it increases the size of the files installed.
I recommend anyone having this slow time capsule problem to turn off your full antivirus program no matter what you are using and watch the difference in speed. I am so happy! No more 2 hour backups and 45 minutes to 1 hour preparing backup! good luck

Suddenly extremely slow Time Machine backups on Time Capsule

My Time Machine backups on Time Capsule have been pretty good in the last few months. In the last week or so I am seeing painfully slow backups. It's not the preparing or the finishing phase, it's the backup itself. Data transfer for other apps is fine. The backup transfers about 50 Kb per second. In more than 3 hours it backed up about 600 Mb. Here's what I get from the Console:
11/26/08 4:22:07 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.28 GB requested (including padding), 730.31 GB available
11/26/08 5:50:47 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
11/26/08 6:12:40 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
11/26/08 6:51:37 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
11/26/08 7:05:44 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:05:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:05:46 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:07:05 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:07:05 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:09:06 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:09:13 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Error: (-39) SrcErr:YES Copying (null) to (null)
11/26/08 7:09:14 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:09:14 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
11/26/08 7:12:15 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[1281] Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
Any clue? What happened? (I did an Airport-related upgrade recently)
My set up is a Time Capsule and an Airport Extreme.

Well, this link has a video describing a downgrade:
http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/airport-extreme-and-time-capsule-firmware-downgrad ing/11537477/
It has been mentioned in apple discussions here as well, but with no other information than that it has helped some people.
Message was edited by: Karl Ivar Dahl

Problems with Airport Extreme Firmware 7.6.1. and Time Machine Backups to USB Disks

I found that when I upgraded to Firmware 7.6.1 my Airport Extreme was no longer able to maintain afp server connections to USB disks mounted to the APE. If I power cycled the APE it would work for a while and then fail again. This even applied for connectins on gigabit ethernet, not just wifi. Consequently my Time Machine backups became unusable. Rolling back to 7.6 fixed it, but I permanently fixed this by changing the IPv6 mode from "Automatic" to "Host". No problems since then.

I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.

Slow Time Machine Backups?

Hi there
I'm doing my first Time Machine backup after upgrading from 10.4 to 10.6, backing up to a partitioned Freecom USB2 external drive directly connected to my Mac Mini. The data rate of the backup seems very slow (approx 1GB per 35 minutes compared to 1GB per 45 seconds when doing a copy / paste to the drive). Is this normal for Time Machine to transfer data at this slower speed or is there a possible problem causing this slow transfer?
Thanks in advance
John

jonty1512 wrote:
will subsequent backups be complete (ie 23GB)
no. you are doing your initial backup hardwired, right ? backing up large amounts of files via wi-fi is neither recommended nor very reliable. plus, an ethernet connection will increase throughput
or will they be small incremental backups?
yes. and they can be done wirelessly.
JGG

Time machine backup to usb disk

How do I set up a USB disk attached to an airport extreme as a time machine backup device?

First please be aware that Apple does NOT support Time Machine backups to HDDs attached to the AirPort Extreme Base Station. However, if you still wish to do so, you simply need to first use the AirPort Utility to share out the attached USB drive, and then, 'point' Time Machine to this drive.
For details on how to set up a Time Machine drive, please check out the following Apple Support article.

How long for Time Machine backup with USB v. 1

My hard drive might be failing. I'm going to backup with Time Machine for
the first time ever. I'll be using a 1 TB external hard drive. My Mac only
has a USB v. 1, so how long should this take? I read where someone said
that Time Machine said it would take DAYS to do it. Say it ain't so!! Any
ideas our there? Thanks!

See this for an indication of transfer rates these are theoretical speeds - real world is slower!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates
USB 1.1 runs about 1.5MB/s at full rate.
How much data is on your internal disk?
Wolfram Alpha says 1TB would take 7 days & 17 hours.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1TB+at+1.5+MB%2Fs
I would add more days to that time to account for the fact that USB 1 is slower (more like 0.7MB/s in my tests from years ago).
This is an appalling idea - your disk could easily stop working in the time it takes to copy.
Fortunately you have got the spec wrong on this iMac…
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac-core-2-duo-2.4-20-inch-alu minum-early-2008-penryn-specs.html
It has USB2 ports & Firewire - connect directly to one of those & the time will be much less (more like 1/2 a day).

Time machine backup from USB drive connected and backing up to Time Capsule

Hi all forum virgin here, so be gentle.
I'll get straight to it. Much net trawling hasn't resulted in a definitive answer on this which surely I'm not alone in
I have: MBP networked to TC (where TM resides) and USB drive connected.
A- I simply want to TM backup not only MBP but USB drive on network as well?
As far as I can see there is no way of selecting this and after TM back has finished the only way I can check is
to enter TM (fancy space screen view) and obviously idrive doesn't appear in finder view.
I have tried connecting to MBP and obviously TM backs it up too and I can see in Enter TM. But I need this
drive on network so a further 2 things here:-
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
C- will it keep in previous backups if I cycle back to that particular one?
Andy help here would be most welcome

Slymon2000 wrote:
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
Sooner or later, yes, as LaPastnague says. It depends on when the backups are done. The first backup of each day is kept for a month; all others are deleted after 24 hours. After a month, the first backup of the week is kept as long as there's room, and the others deleted.
Obviously not a reliable solution.
A better method might be to use a different app to back it up to the TC's internal HD, but that presents another problem. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for an explanation and some possible workarounds.
The 3rd-party apps CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSynch can do network backups (others probably can, too).
So you might be able to "reserve" some space on the TC's HD and use one of those apps. As LaPastnague says, though, that will be relatively slow.
If there isn't enough room on the TC's internal HD, you could get another USB drive and connect it to the TC also (via a powered USB hub) and back up to it. That will be even slower, though.

Slow Time Machine Backup to USB

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