Time machine back up taking too long

Why is time machine taking so long to back up? I just downladed the update and it's still dragging

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Time Machine Back-up Taking Too much Space

I have only been a Mac owner for a little over three months.
I set up Time Machine with an external hard drive three months ago. My Mac hard drive has used 64.16 GB of space out of 249 GB. Ny external drive (300 GB) however was full and deleting on its own in just 10 weeks. Three days ago I erased everything on the external drive and started over. After the first full back up, 50.61 GB of space was taken. Now three days later it is up to 102.54 GB. What am I doing wrong, or what do I need to do to correct.
This is a 'home use only' computer and daily changes are minimal.
Thanks for any feedback.
Roger

Hi mahlquist,
I have exactly the same problem on three macs running SL. Sometimes it simply wants to backup the whole drive instead of creating an incremental backup. The worst thing is that it deletes old backups first (when there is not enough space for an additional complete backup) without asking you if you want it to do that. So, the best solution is to deactivate the automatic backup in TM and start it manually only. Watch at the TM window, see what it is doing when the backup starts. When it starts to delete old backups, cancel the backup, restart your Mac and then try again. In most cases, TM then works again and creates incremental backups. Another bug is that sometimes it backups even folders that are in the list of excluded folders. I didn't manage to break TM of doing that. So I decided for a reinstall of SL on the machine that was affected.
This is one of the most annoying bugs in SL. TM is nearly unusable in SL. I also tried a complete wipe and install of SL to make sure that it wasn't the upgrade from Leopard that causes the broken TM. But this didn't solve the problem. In general, there are lots of bugs in SL. In the meantime, I would say that SL is one of the most annoying versions of OS X that Apple has ever released. Lots of bugs in such a manner are really new to me as a Mac user for many years.

I have the converter to change pdf to word. Works sometime, other time says conversion is taking too long. Can I get what it has translated so I can use the parts?

I have the converter to change pdf to word. Works sometime, other time says conversion is taking too long. Can I get what it has translated so I can use the parts?

I would ask in the ExportPDF forum, Adobe ExportPDF (read only) (assuming that's the service to which you have subscribed). This is the Reader one.

My Time Machine (TM) is taking way longer "Cleaning up old backups" if i haven't even backed my computer up for that long.

I havent backed up my computer in almost 2 years due to a complication with the Time Machine (TM)
But now it is fixed and it spends hours on "Cleaning old backups"
And when it comes to backing up computers I am always scared to fix it blindly because our Time Machine backs up 3 other computers.
Is there something I'm doing wrong or do I just need more patiences?
HELP!!!

Cancel the backup.....unless you want to wait a few more days to see if it might work.
Erase the Time Capsule drive using AirPort Utility
Start over again with a new backup
Ethernet will be 4-5 times faster than wireless for the first backup

Time machine back up taking 1 day so removed external HD, now taking TWO days?

Hi,
I started my time machine back up last night and the estimated time it said it would take was 1 day. I woke up this morning and there was still another 15 hours left. I am only backing up 533GB - is this normal?
I thought maybe my external drive was effecting the backup so I removed it and when I did the time machine started again, now backing up 324 GB but says it's going to take TWO days?! This makes no sense.
Could someone tell me - is it normal for TM to take a day to back up 533GB (certainly can't be normal for 324GB to take TWO)?
And what are the general tips for helping time machine move faster? I'm running OSX 10.8.5.
Thanks

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We're users here and don't speak for "Apple Inc."
How is your (external, I'm assuming) Time Machine storage connected? USB 2, USB 3, FireWire, Thunderbolt, or Ethernet network? If network, then is the storage drive connected with Ethernet or a USB device connected to the network router? 100Mbit or Gigabit Ethernet? Does your MacBook Pro have a wired or wireless connection to the network?
If it's over a network, to a Time Capsule or another NAS (Network Area Storage) device then yes, it could take a day or longer. If your Time Machine drive is Thunderbolt-attached, then that seems a bit long, but there are a number of variables, including the size(s) of the files and types of files(s), and whether they're compressed or encrypted.
My mid-2007 MacBook (1.5Mbit/sec theoretical maximum SATA speed, 3GB usable RAM, 500GB 7200rpm hard drive) took almost two and a half days to back up 350GB to a network-attached Lenovo/iomega server I use for Time Machine via a wireless connection. I don't recommend wireless, by the way, because when verification fails (quite often in my experience), then TM erases all the old backups and demands to begin anew. It required about 18 hours to back up the MacBook when directly connected by RJ-45 Cat 5e cable over Gigabit Ethernet on both devices.
My mid-2011 iMac backs up 350GB via FireWire 800 to a 1TB Time Machine drive in an estimated 11 hours. (I don't know precisely, I went to bed and it was done in the morning.
Time Machine (and most every OS X update and App installation program, for that matter) seems to be quite incapable of predicting ACCURATELY exactly how long the process will take.
I also use CarbonCopyCloner to create a bootable system backup occasionally, so I'm not stuck for a day and a half of restoring from TM just to get back up and running.
Ancient computing proverb: "You can never be too rich or have too many backups."
Message was edited by: kostby

Time Machine Back up is too slow

I just bought a WD 1 TB hard drive for my Macbook Pro. I put files on but for some reason the Time Machine's first back up is taking forever for only 54 gbs. Is this normal? It took me just a few minutes to put in the 25 gb of itunes data on it but the Time Machine back up is so slow. Plus the encryption is very slow too.

Hi there Balhabib,
I would recommend taking a look at the troubleshooting steps found in the article below.
Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275
-Griff W.

Time Machine back-up disk too small

Recently I had to restore my system from a Time Machine back-up, all seemed to work fine. Now I have a situation where time machine gives me an error when I attempt a back up, saying there's not enough free space on the back-up drive. The drive I'm backing up is max 500megs, the external BU drive is a TB. I fixed all the prefs but it seems as though Time machine is not deleting old files from my BU drive to make room for new ones. Any ideas?

OrangePanda wrote:
Hi, I have the same problem.
My backup drive (G-Tech Q 500Gb) has 465Gb of space and my Pro has only 434Gb,
Your backup drive is much too small. To work well (and keep a reasonable number of backups for you), TM usually needs roughly 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up. See item #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
yet when I tried to update it says I still need 63Gb of space??? I downloaded the Time Machine buddy recommended here, the message said that some old copies were deleted but still need 64Gb, only had 40Gb.
Did I miss something? should I just wipe my G-Tech and try again?
Short-term, probably. Without the actual messages, we can only speculate, but most likely you've made a lot of changes or for some other reason TM is trying to back-up about 54 gb (the 64 includes about 20% extra for workspace). Copy and post the TM Buddy messages here and we can be sure.
Long-term, you need a bigger drive.

Time machine backups take way too long

Greetings,
Having trouble with Time Machine backups taking way too long. (No, it's not the first backup after some momentous event, as 90% of what I read about slow backups mentions; it's _every_ backup.)
20" iMac purchased Oct 2008. OS 10.6.8. 500 GB internal hard drive. 3 TB external backup drive. Was tested at the local "Genius" Bar, but they found nothing wrong with it. The best they could do is to recommend a restore from Time Machine, and if that didn't work, start clean and reload the OS and then copy my stuff back. I don't think so. I actually did a full Time Machine restore for a different reason, and it didn't help (except that I gained a few GB of disk space!).
My Time Machine backups now take about 39 minutes to complete. I have a 500 GB internal drive and this problem happens regardless of which external drive I use. (I have 3: 2 WD hard drives and one [noisy!] G-drive.) My current backup drive is a 3 TB WD drive with 2 TB of free space.
These are small incremental backups, typically about 35 MB. It doesn't take half an hour to copy 35 MB!
All phases take a long time, but the most irritating one is where TM appears to get stuck for a long time at the beginning and end of the copying phase. For example, at one point it will say something along the lines of Backing Up 7 KB of 34.4 MB. And it'll be like that for minutes on end. Later it will say something like 35 MB of 35 MB and hang there for minutes on end. During these periods the write I/O rate will go up and down, and CPU usage will often be very high (with backupd using 90 - 100%, in addition to highly elevated System CPU usage). In one particular backup the I/O write rate for one part of it looked like a heartbeat on an EKG! I should have taken a screenshot.
At the beginning during the Calculating Changes phase, backupd is using between 90 and 100% CPU.
There is also high CPU usage during the next phase, Preparing. And the number of items being prepared is in the thousands.
It always goes in two rounds because it finds that the root directory (/) has been modified.
I've Googled and searched Mac forums and found nothing useful. I started with a new .plist file and nothing's changed.
Can anyone help? Thanks!
I wrote the above Jun 28. Yeah, finally getting around to posting it. Since then it's gotten worse. I now do a manual backup once a day and it takes almost an hour. I tried re-indexing Spotlight. No good.
Can anyone help? Again, this is not a "first backup." It is _every_ backup.
Thanks!
AEF

Thanks for your efforts. Here are my answers, comments, and further info:
I believe I have repaired permissions on my drive as part of my troubleshooting. And I'm sure I checked SMART status, which came up with a thumbs up, so to speak. I'm trying again. I don't see any useful messages in any logs on the console. I'm looking at "All Messages" and there is so far nothing useful. Oh, I think you must mean repair as in "Repair Disk," not "Repair Disk Permissions." I believe the "genius" at the Apple store did that or something just as good. The machine checked out fine according to them.
Checked SMART status just now: passed. Ran Quick Drive Test: also passed.
Oh, I installed "Time Machine Buddy". Occasionally, and only occasionally, I get a "deep traversal needed message" like this (I copied this from .Backup.log):
Running preflight for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
        Scanning nodes needing deep traversal
        Node requires deep traversal: /Users/alanfeldman/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Database/apdb reason:contains changes|must scan subdirs|fsevent|missed reservation|
        Calculating size of changes
        Should copy 2919 items (27.8 MB) representing 7116 blocks of size 4096. 546805181 blocks available.
Preflight complete for "Macintosh HD" (mount: '/' fsUUID: BF606E9A-5FD0-3B92-8D76-33DC63E7B2B1 eventDBUUID: 30DD929D-8982-46C2-BAE6-F0BD1E73916A)
Time elapsed: 1 minute, 39.000 seconds
But the vast majority of the time I do NOT get this message. But if there's something wrong with this apdb file, what can I do to fix it?
Note that there is usually, if not always, a lot of CPU activity or I/O (disk) activity, but not a lot getting done.

Time Machine backing up way too many files

A little while ago I noticed Time Machine was taking forever to perform its hourly backups on my work computer (MacBook Pro, 10.6.8). I downloaded TimeTracker and Time Machine Buddy, and compared TM's performance between my work and home Macs. Let me lay out my observations and the problem for you:
- Regular backups routinely take 20-30 minutes on the work computer; sometimes longer; they usually take about 1 minute at home.
- My wife works at home so both Macs are used about the same amount during the day.
- According to TimeTracker, these normal backups basically have the same makeup on both Macs. Around 40-60 MBs of data, and the biggest single file tends to be something in a web browser "Application Support" folder, e.g. Firefox's places.sqlite file at 40 megs.
- When I noticed this, I even excluded that browser file from TM. Didn't have an effect.
- The biggest difference between the two Macs that I can glean from Time Machine Buddy is the sheer number of files being prepared and copied. At home, it's a few thousand, maybe 3-4. At work, more like 100,000. In fact, all of my overnight backups were identical: 60,744 files copied (14 KB) followed by 28,176 files copied (9 KB). So, it's clearly not linked to the size (data-wise) of the backup. (Again, this was less data after I excluded that FF folder. I've since re-instated it.)
- I don't see anything in the TM Buddy log about a "deep traversal."
- Can't imagine it's an external HDD issue since (I assume) all the TM preparations should be happening on the Mac side, but for what it's worth, this started with one drive (USB 2.0) that I then restored to a larger partition of another drive (FW 800), and the issue persists.
I've seen lots of other threads about endless TM backups and regularly copying mountains of data, but hadn't come across anything that seemed to match my peculiar situation.
Thanks for your help!

GFIVE wrote:
Same problem here!
There is a new "me too" feature in Apple Support Communities. Check the bottom of the initial post:
I will however upgrade to Lion in a few days. I'm hoping this will fix this annoying problem.
Be very, very careful with that strategy. Installing an operating system update to a system already exhibiting flakiness is usually a bad idea.
I suggest a good backup using a cloning tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner. Time Machine is best for backups, but if you know you are going to need a backup, a clone is a good thing to have.
Once you have that backup, erase your hard drive, install Lion, reinstall the latest version of your applications, and then migrate over only your documents.

Time Machine Snapshots are taking too much HDD space

It has taken so far over 155 GB as you can see on this link.
http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g445/comics_addict/ScreenShot2011-11-22at112 226PM.png
It appears under "Other" due to me disabling the snapshots on the terminal but unlike I read it still hasn't erase the items from memory.
Any help?
Thanks for your time.

Local snapshots are periodically condensed into daily or weekly snapshots to minimize the space used on your disk. If your disk is low on space, Time Machine stops creating new snapshots, and some or all existing snapshots may be removed to make space available for applications to use. If sufficient disk space becomes available again, Time Machine resumes creating local snapshots. This means your disk will have the same amount of available space as it would if Time Machine were not enabled.
OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs
Disk Space considerations:
Local snapshots require space on your internal HD (and any other disk/partition that Time Machine is backing-up). Time Machine will, however, delete some or all as necessary if it gets too full. The exact criteria are not documented, but appears to vary depending on the size of the volume. On a very small volume (under about 50 GB), it may be as little as 75%; on larger volumes (1 TB or more) it may be as much as 90%. This is doneindependently for each disk/partition. Time Machine does not send any messages when it deletes snapshots.
Pondini's excellent blog on Time Machine: 30: what are local snapshots?

Back up taking too long

Had a hard drive failure during a synch on my Dell laptop. Re-installed a new hard drive and programs and started synch again. Step 2, the back up, has been running for nearly 4 hours now. It's a 4S 64gb and almost full. Any ideas as to how much longer this might take?

Further to this, I am not backing up to the cloud but the PC.

Backing up taking too long

I'm letting TM to back up my files for the first time.
There is about 180GB to back up and still coping files after 10+ hours.
Is this normal?
The disk is a brand new 1TB external HD via firewire800.
Please advise.

Hi! Let it run overnight. Spotlight may also be indexing the drives at the same time and this really slows things down so I'd let it run for 12-24 hours on the first run. Tom

Time machine back up external too?

Will the TM back up my external drive as well as internal? I have all my music and pictures on an external drive currently. Will TM back up the external drive that contains all my music and picture files provided the external is always plugged in and "on" throught the USB port on the imac. (I will have a seperate External drive for TM) Thanks.

kroes wrote:
It reads Master Boot record and Fat 32 (MS-DOS).
I have been using this for two years with my macbook with no problems and have it hooked into my imac with no problems but it seems to be formatted with windows? How could it even write or read files? What do I need to do to format it GUID? Do I have to wipe the drive? What do I do with all my photos and music that is already on the drive?
I thought I'd read that TM would only back-up Mac OS Extended partitions on GUID or APM drives (even though OSX can read FAT32 partitions on MBR drives), but now I can't find that documented anywhere, so I'm not sure. (I don't do Windoze.)
Perhaps Kappy or V.K. (the "gurus" of such things) will clarify this.

Backups taking too long

My Time Capsule backups are taking too long. Time Machine says it is indexing. However, I have had my Time Machine configured since I installed Lion last year and it has been making automatic backups every hour since. Why is it 'indexing' now, and why is it taking so long?
Thank you

Visit pondini.org for all things Time Machine.

Time machine back-up disappeared

Since I upgraded to Mountain Lion, when I attach my portable disc to do a Time Machine back-up, it no longer appears attached. The other part of the partition (my itunes library) still appears. How do I regain access to the Time Machine partition?

It's not clear whether you were able to do any backups to this drive at all. If not, it's probably not formatted properly. See #5 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for instructions.
If you did get any successful backups, there may be a problem with the drive, or the backups may be corrupted. Try to repair the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Time machine back up taking too long

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