Time Machine Back Ups affecting performance.

Sitting here with a 24" iMac, 2.16 core 2 duo, 3GB ram, so fairly new right? Time Machine did its back ups, and is keepin the hourly thing pretty well. The problem is that I can tell that Time Machine is performing a back up as it noticeably slows my machine down. I then have to go to Preferences, Stop the back up, and let it pick up when I am not on the machine. IS anyone else having these issues? And what might a work around be?

It would be helpful to the rest of us and any future searches if you would tell us how the issue was solved. Please let us know.

Similar Messages

  • Snow Leopard OS will not "see" older Leopard Time Machine back-ups

    I upgraded to OSX Snow Leopard from Leopard using a new hard drive (I wanted a bigger drive so it was actually a fresh install rather than an upgrade). OSX SL could see Time Machine back-ups from the Leopard system initially (before performing an OSX SL back-up). Now that the OSX TL back-up is completed, the previous Leopard back-ups cannot be seen by Time Machine. Any ideas on how/if I can get it to see them (as I could before I did a full back-up)?
    I can see them on the drive, but just can't get to them via Time Machine.
    Thanks!

    Hi, and welcome to the forums.
    Yes, Time Machine normally only shows you the backups for the Mac you're on.
    You need the +*Browse . . .+* option. See #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

  • I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

    I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

    Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
    Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

  • Can I use my time capsule for time machine back ups and as an external storage device?

    I have a time capsule and have set it up so that my time machine back ups are saved on it, but I would also like to use it as an external hard drive. Is this possible?
    I know nothing about computers so please tell me in very basic terms. thankyou!

    By external hard disk we usually mean one plugged into the computer by USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt.
    None of those works on the TC.. it is plugged in by ethernet or use wireless connection.. that means it is a network drive.. not an external drive. The difference might not mean much to you.. but it is totally different to the computer. In the former case the computer has full control of the disk. In the case of the network drive, the disk is controlled by the TC firmware and the files are stored and accessed by network. This has large implications.
    So here is my standard response.
    Store files on the TC.
    This is asked several times a day.. obviously people are struggling with their latest SSD being too small.
    The TC is not suitable for network file server.. but many people having no choice press it into service as such.
    Major issues.
    1. No backup.. no way Time Machine can backup a network drive. No place to backup to.. So all your files will be at risk. And you will need to buy a third party like CCC to do backup.
    2. The TC cannot be partitioned and mixing TM backups and data is not great. It was and is and ever shall be a backup device for Time Machine.
    3. The drive is slow to spin up and quick to spin down.. there is no control. In fact the TC is so lacking in controls for even the router side.. that you cannot do more than the most basic of setups.
    The following are controls on the hard disk side.
    Reformat it. You can name the share. You can do a full archive of the whole disk. This will go at a speed of aprox. 30-50GB/Hr so calculate how long an archive of a full 2TB will take.
    4. iPhoto in particular can easily corrupt its entire library with wireless networking causing a disconnection to one photo. Even if you do this;;; do not move your photo library... you have been warned!!
              Even apple btw say don’t do it.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32           it adds network drives.
    5. iTunes can constantly lose connection to the library. The disk is slow to respond.. itunes on the computer will constantly spit out errors. Even in the midst of streaming the TC can spin down the disk due to caching.
    6. Do not use any live files on the TC no matter what else you do.. if you edit files in whatever program the file must be on the local hard disk.
    7. The only suitable location for most libraries is a computer. You can plug in an external hard disk.
    Read pondini for some work arounds.
    Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

  • Can I make one iphoto library from two time machine back-ups?

    Hi
    I have recently purchased a new Mac Book. I previously had two MacBooks, which I backed up with time machine onto two separate external hard drives.
    I did a straight transfer of all data from one of these time time machine back-ups to my new laptop. I'd like to migrate select data from the second time machine back-up to my new Mac Book, and I'd like to start by transferring photos.
    My laptop has an iphoto library, so I would like to know if I can import select photos from this second time machine back-up, and how do I do that?
    many thanks
    Linda 

    First you need to restore the second Library from the back up. You need to restore the whole library, you can't just gather bits of it, I'm afraid.
    Once that's done you have two Libraries. The easiest way to do what you want is to merge the Libraries with the paid version ($20) of  iPhoto Library Manager This can be set to avoid duplicates. See the Help on it for more.
    This is the only way that will get all the versions and all the metadata.
    Other than that you'll need to export from one Library and import to the other.
    Regards
    TD

  • Will existing Time Machine back ups build after 1 account migration

    I have one i-Mac happily backing up with Time Machine to an external hard drive.
    I have just bought a second i-mac (the old one's filling up) and propose to use migration assistant to move an admin account from the old to the new i-mac leaving two other accounts (and their files etc) on the old one. I see from some posts that it seems as if Time Machine will start a new back up series for the new i-mac's back ups (cos its a new MAC address). But what about the old i-mac? Will that continue to extend the existing (old) Time Machine back up files, albeit without my transferred account and its files? I'd like to end up with the old i-mac continuing to work with and build its Time Machine back ups (less my account and its new files) and have a new back up series from the new i-mac building to a separate partition on the external drive.
    Second minor point: I have read that putting a partition on the external drive is the best way forward as it will stop competition for space and allow changes in one set up in future to have no impact on the other. Is this the best way forward?
    Does this all make sense?
    Sorry but I can't see an answer in the forum to what must be a reasonably common issue in this expanding mac world.

    I then tried to move it (TM back up files) off with Restore, whilst preserving the TM back ups but I couldn't seem to do it to the i-Macs hard drive nor to partition that to allow this to happen (assuming the lack of a discrete partition was the problem).
    That's likely correct. This only works if you restore one entire partition to another, and check the +Erase destination+ box.
    The problem was that I could not (maybe for the same contiguous reasons) create a new partition on the old i-Mac just to temporarily move the TM back up to. Without it I could not 'empty' the WDC firewire drive and partition it prior to returning the TM back ups to it albeit contiguously in a dedicated partition.
    Unfortunately for me to retain the TM back ups for the account I moved to the new i-Mac, I will have to leave that account on the old i-Mac as well. I can't see a way around that? If I delete the account on it then surely I will lose the ability to Log onto it and then to click TM and see back in time on that account?
    If I understand you correctly, that will be true eventually, but not immediately, as TM will, eventually, delete it's copies of anything that's no longer on your internal HD. That will depend, of course, on how long TM can keep it's backups. But while they're still there, if you log on with Admin privileges, you should be able to view the old backups.
    Not sure I explained myself clearly. Sorry. Having understood from your earlier help that 'migrate' actually means 'make a copy in another place', I have the migrated account in two places: one now dormant, on the old i-Mac and two, where it is migrated to (the new i-Mac). But TM continues to back up all accounts, indeed everything, on the old i-Mac by dint of its MAC address. So to see the migrated account's past history I assume I have to access the version on the old i-Mac. To put it another way, when logged into one account on the old i-Mac I believe it is not possible to see the TM history and files of another account on that i-Mac despite TM backing the entire HD. You have to be logged in to that account to see it. On the new i-Mac, with its different MAC address, TM is busy creating the first TM back up and I assumed that in the migrate it did not bring TM history as I had read that it is MAC address specific.
    The only issue (apart from having this account's history spread over two machines (pre-today on the old i-Mac's TM and today onwards on the new i-Mac) is that I have all the files on both machines. I am not worried about security only unnecessary usage of disk space. It isn't critical, there's lots of it, but it just seems wasteful and untidy. Unless you guys know otherwise?
    If I understand what you've done, you do have duplicates of the current contents, but only one copy of the old backups (on the old F/W drive).
    On the old i-Mac I have the two accounts I wanted to stay there plus the now dormant account I migrated. TM continues to work away at memorising ALL these although there will be no further changes to the dormant migrated account as I will not be running it on the old i-Mac. On the new i-Mac I have the migrated account of which TM is now creating its first (huge) back up but starting today. There is no history here. So I have copies of everything; its just that the old history of the migrated account remains on the old i-Mac and a new history (does that make sense?) is building from the new one. My point was that if I were to delete the dormant account from the old i-Mac, then I could not access it to use TM with it. I believe TM only shows the history of the account and screen you're in at the time?
    There is an option in TM that will allow you to selectively +Delete all backups of+ selected items. +Enter Time Machine,+ locate and select the item(s), click the "gear" icon in the Finder window's toolbar, and select the +Delete all backups of ..+ option.
    What you can't do is, keep the backups of only previous versions of things that were changed or deleted. It's all or nothing.
    Not sure I understand this. What would have been nice but I do not think is possible is to have moved the account to the new i-Mac together with the TM's back ups of that account and continue to build it up (whilst having access to its history) on the new i-Mac. If that were (is?) possible I could have totally deleted the old account and with it its files from the old i-Mac, freed up some HD space and had a full AND growing TM history all on the new i-Mac.
    Many thanks for staying the course and for your continuing help.

  • HT201250 I have thousands of pictures on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac I don't want them lost.  I do time machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough for making sure my pictures don't ever get lost?

    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?

    tgs6164 wrote:
    I have thousands of photos on my Mac.  If something happens to my Mac obviously, I don't want to lose the photos.  I do Time Machine back ups to an external hard drive once a week.  Is this good enough to make sure my pictures don't get lost?
    Purchase a couple of these when they go on sale.
    Start burning all the photos onto DVDs. 
    At least you'll have all your photos if your computer, time machine or any other backup you use goes bonkers.

  • I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and i can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help

    I had to reformat my OSX 10.5.8 and I can't restore my emails from my time machine backup from an external hard drive - only the latest (post backup) time machine back ups are available to restore. Please can any help? I can find the mail folder in my libraries, but the Restore Button is grayed out

    OSX treats the reformatted drive as a different one; it's the same as replacing it, and the old one is no longer connected.
    See #E3 in  Time Machine - Troubleshooting to see and restore from the "old" drive.
    And, you may not want to restore via the Finder; see the blue box in #15 of  Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • External hard drive for time machine back-ups

    Can anyone please suggest the best external hard drive to use for time machine back-ups on my iMac?
    I also use a 1TB external hard drive for my iTunes library, but I've noticed that it can be slower to access the music than if I used the iMac hard drive......any suggestions? My iTunes library is currently sitting at around 200GB.
    Thanks.
    Brian

    i'd recommend a firewire 800 drive. many folks here speak highly of drives supplied by [OWC|http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire> and [LaCie|http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11156].
    JGG

  • Setting Up a New Mac From Two Different Time Machine Back-ups?

    Greetings Apple People,
    I am planning on getting a new iMac. Right now my wife I are still using our separate MacBooks from college. Both of them have Time Machine back-ups. We would like to setup our new iMac to have two different users. Is it possible to setup each of the users on the new iMac from our respective Time Machine back-ups?
    I know you can do this seamlessly with one Time Machine back-up, but can you do it from two different back-ups, essentially merging the two, while keeping the separate user profiles?
    Thanks!

    Follow the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide using one computer as the source on first boot. Then, hook up the second computer and use the Migration Assistant to transfer the second user account and nothing else. Don't use the TM backup because it's much slower doing it that way than directly from each machine.
    27" i7 iMac (Mid 2011) refurb, OS X Yo (10.10), Mavs, ML & SL, G4 450 MP w/10.5 & 9.2.2

  • How do I delete Time-Machine back-ups on external HD

    Hello everybody, I would like to delete all the Time Machine back-ups on my external hard drive and create a new full back-up.  This is because after several months my HDD is quickly filling up and I would like to clean out all the old back-ups.  What is the best way to do this?  Sould I simply delete the old back-ups through finder, or is there another and better way to do this?  Many thanks for your help!

    peiper1 wrote:
    ....... the suggestion to enter the TM "Star Wars" display only applies to back-ups residing on my internal SSD, right? ...
    No.
    peiper1 wrote:
    ...Also, if TM is backed up to an external HDD, why does it also keep back-ups on the MBA's internal SSD?
    As far as I know it doesn't. You may be meaning this...
    Time Machine Local Snapshots Laptops
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
    peiper1 wrote:
    .. I would like to delete the back-ups on my external hard drive, do I still do it the same way?  ...
    Follow Pondinis Instructions for Deleting Backups on the TM external Drive.

  • I am trying to move previous Time Machine back ups off an external drive to my new Time Capsule. How do I do that?

    I have my previous time machine back ups on an external drive and I want to move those to my new 2tb Time Capsule. How can I make this happen?

    You probably cannot do it..
    The backup is very different from a local drive to a network drive.
    Look through the Pondini KB.
    http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    You can move the backup from a local to another local disk or network to another network.. but there are issues even doing that.
    IMHO.. don't... just start a new backup and keep what you already have saved up.. if you don't need it in 6months time.. or a year.. then you can wipe it.

  • Merge 2 time machine back ups on 1 back up drive?

    I was running low on space on the USB drive I use to back up my Air, OS 10.6.5 with TIme Machine, and I had a new USB drive handy, so I just used the new drive.  Now I have 2 USB drives and each has a time machine back up file, "Backups.backupdb"
    I'd like to free up the first USB drive, and have the use of all of those old TIme Machine backups on the new drive.
    It's clean up time, trying to reorganize my back ups and drives... is there any way to save the old Time Machine back ups from the old drive in usable format?
    Thank you for any help
    (btw, I do not want to upgrade to the latest versions of Mac OS's)

    Funny you should mention... it was Pondini's TM FAQs that sent me here
    If they answered this question, I missed it.
    I have also read up on http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
    But neither could tell me how to manage the back up files when I had already started another external drive as backup disk.
    I am currently copying all the files from the original back up drive to the new drive under another folder, it's taken  about 10 hours so far, estimates 6 hours more to go.
    And on the apple bulletin, it said I should uncheck "ignore ownership on this volume", which I failed to note.
    Thanks for the link though, its a great one.  If I missed it there, (and I checked Troubleshooting too) please let me know?

  • How do I prevent my hard drive being used for time machine back ups?

    I want to install Snow Leopard but it tells me that the OS cannot be installed because the disk is being used for Time Machine back ups. I don't recall setting up my hard drive to be used this way (why would I?!) but now I can't seem to

    Did you have TM turned on at any time? If so, and if you had no external hard drive attached, could it be that it created its own backup on a portion of your hard drive? I don't use TM, but I believe I read that this may be possible. Take a look at Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities) and report what you see on the left - under the top heading, is there more than one partition showing, such as here:
    (I have two partitions: one for Snow Leopard, the other for Lion) - what does yours show?

  • I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?!  T

    I cannot install ODX Yosemite over OSX Mavericks as my Mac Book Pro (early 2011) advises that the disc "Mackintosh HD" is used for Time Machine back ups. This is not the case however as I use a separate external HD for this purpose, help please ?!
    Thanks

    Check this link out...
    OS X: Cannot install on a volume used by Time Machine for backups
    I was apart of this thread and it helped the OP...
    Re: System installer thinks my main drive is my time Machine backup and won't install.
    KOT

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