Time Machine Backup EXTREMELY SLOW

I've recently noticed that my Time Machine backups from my Mid 2009 iMac 3.06 to a WD 1tb MYBook take an incredibly long time. For example, an hourly backup where nothing has really changed (350k according to a TM log) takes over 30 minutes. I've been working with applecare and they can't pin it down. I've tried the following and nothing has changed-
- creating a back to a brand new drive
- disabling or deleting every startup program and launch agent
- Created another new user and backed up from there
- Reinstalled OSX to repair Time Machine
- Created a new boot partition on my HD and installed OSX
- I used the same backup disc on my laptop and it worked fine
The strange thing is hat everything seems to work fine. I ran a verify on my disks. I Boot my original OS disc in and ran the hardware test. NOthing finds a problem. I tried writing large files to and from my HD to see if that could be the problem. MY HD reads and writes quickly (2.5gb copies to/from an external drive in less than 2 minutes).
The only thing that has changed in the past 6 month s is that I updated my ram from 4 to 8GB with Kingston ram. Could it be a bad piece of RAM or my logic board? Everything else seems to be working fine.
Anybody experience anything likes this???

kieranroy wrote:
Hey - apologize if this has been covered, but despite much searching, I haven't found a solution to my problem...
After a hard drive crash, I restored using a Time Machine backup. I figured it would be a good idea to start a fresh Time Machine backup going forward.
Does that mean you erased or reformatted the drive?
If you deleted some or all of the backups via the Finder, cancel the backup, reformat the drive, and start over.
Using a LaCie 500GB Firewire 800 drive (formatted MacOS Extended Journaled), after one hour, only 5GB has been backed up. As my MacBook Pro has 165GB of data, at this rate, it will take almost two days.
Does that hour include the "Preparing" phase? If so, nothing at all was backed-up during that time, so the actual rate is probably much faster.
Also note that the first items backed-up contain a very large number of mostly small files; there are things that must be done for each item, so that sort of backup will be longer than saving a few large files that total the same amount of space. The speed of the backup will increase and decrease during the backup; initial estimates are almost always quite high.
I've removed the Time Machine drive from Spotlight indexing. I have ensured Norton AntiVirus is not running. What else can I do to speed this up? It seems extremely slow by all comparisons I've read.
First, be sure the *Partition Map Scheme* of the LaCie is correct. Use the procedure in item #C1 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
Also see item #D2 of the same post (you've already done the first two things). Don't try the +*Repair Disk+* while the backup is running, or if you erased or reformatted it before starting this backup.

Similar Messages

Time Machine backups extremely slow after hard drive replacement

I'm having trouble with Time Machine backups following a hard drive replacement. The Apple Store replaced my MacBook Pro's damaged hard drive three days ago and I successfully restored my system (OSX 10.6.8) using a Time Machine backup. The computer is running fine now, but ever since the repair my Time Machine back-ups take a very long time (>2 hours per backup, versus 30-60 seconds before the repair). I know that the intiial backup of a new computer can take a while but I'm now onto complete backup #10 since the repair and they are not getting quicker. I'm not adding/changing many files or software in between backups. The backups appear to be successful but the external hard drive and computer fan are running nearly constantly, which is concerning (and annoying). Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

Peruse Pondini's TM FAQs, for information.

Initial Time Machine Backup - Extremely Slow/Freeze

Hello,
I recently switched my external HDDs and began utilizing a different HDD in conjunction with Time Machine. I have used this HDD in the past with Time Machine and never had a problem. The initial backup is proceeding at an extremely slow rate and often freezes - as of writing, it is currently standing at 125.3MB of 1.07TB - About 1,172 days. I have erased and reformatted the drive (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), tested data transfer rates to it by transferring files myself (normal rate), repaired permissions, verified my disks, tried the initial backup while spotlight was off and have forced a spotlight re-index, allowing it to go to completion before attemtping a backup - however, no solution has thus far worked. I have not made any large changes to my computer since I switched the HDDs either.
Does anybody know what could be causing such a problem and how to fix this? Many thanks for any help,
- Cptbigt

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Time machine backups have slowed considerably since my installation of Mavericks -- why?

Ever since installation of Mavericks, time machine backups have slowed to a crawl. The message preparing backup used to to take 10 seconds to a minute, now it takes 5 minutes. The status of the backup used to show 10mb's of 80 mb's backed up, and take under 1 minute, now it takes 5 minutes. Finally cleaning up notice, and the time to clean up has increased significantly. My backups go to an external HD (7200rpm) connected vis firewire 800, that has approx 180 gigabytes available of its 1 terrabybyte capacity.

I upgraded to Mountain Lion a few weeks ago. Everything was fine with Time Machine until a few of days ago.
Same problem others described: extremely slow, taking hours to back up just a few MB.
I verified the Time Capsule drive and my Mac hard drive - no problems found.
I then erased the Time Capsule and started Time Machine. It did the full backup in a fairly reasonable amount of time (several hours, but not unexpectedly long).
When it started its first incremental backup, it reverted to the same problem: extremely slow, but it did finish eventually.
I then shut down the Mac and restarted (power cycled) the Time Capsule. Then I started up the Mac and told Time Machine to back up now. It backed up 30+ MB in just a few minutes, so it seems back to normal. We'll see how it goes when the next scheduled backup starts up.
But you might try rebooting the Time Capsule (and your Mac).
By the way, when it was in the middle of the extremely slow backup, I disabled Norton Anti-virus and it didn't seem to speed it up any. But I left it disabled after I rebooted the Time Capsule and had a successful incremental backup, so I'm not sure yet if Norton is a factor.

HT1175 I have OSX Lion 10.7.5 and the backup in time machine is extremely slow

I have OSX 10.7.5 installed on my MacBook Pro and the backup to time machine is extemely slow. Time Machine indicates 4 days or more. Why?

Did you happen to update early in the piece.. there is a supplement.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1599
Test regime for software patches is now left to end users it seems.

Time Machine backup painfully slow all of a sudden

For some reason my time machine backups have become painfully slow for some reason. They were fine earlier today, then IIRC I booted windows, then booted back into OSX to run a backup. Despite there being only 1 or two changes (files added to the system) time machine began "preparing backup" by going through all the files on my HDD! Now, it is backing up, but at the rate of about 5 Kb/s!
Something is wrong. I've tried deleting the progress file in the backup folder and "resetting" TM by deselecting the backup drive and selecting it again. Nothing worked. Why would TM be so slow all of a sudden?
Has anyone any ideas?

iBookguy wrote:
No pre-backup thinning needed: 18.98 GB requested (including padding), 205.25 GB available
Copied 105384 files (7.2 MB) from volume Mac OSX.
That is a bit suspicious, but not necessarily wrong. Something caused it to think about 16 GB had been changed (it adds 20% for the "padding" in the message).
How are you running Windoze? Is it on a separate partition? If you're running it via virtualization software, with the vm file on an OSX disk but excluded from TM, that's a possible explanation.
105384 files in only 7.2mb? I doubt it...something seems fishy
Those counts are nearly always very high, and sometimes crazy high. There's some indication it's counting all the metadata, extended attributes, etc., as separate files.
If in doubt, boot up from your Install disc and do a +*Repair Disk+* on your boot volume. Then reboot normally and run another backup. That should trigger a "deep traversal," where TM will compare everything on your system with it's backups, to be sure it's got everything it should.

Time Machine backup very slow in Lion

After installing Lion Time Machine backup (not initial one which is long by default) takes about 40 minutes vs. about 5 minutes in Snow Leopard. Very annoying because it slows down my entire system for such a long time. Any help, please?

Here is a log copied from Time Machine Buddy:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb
2.20 GB required (including padding), 126.68 GB available
Copied 394 files (0 bytes) from volume Pete 02.
Copied 173985 files (861.6 MB) from volume Pete 01.
1.13 GB required (including padding), 125.79 GB available
Copied 13 files (0 bytes) from volume Pete 02.
Copied 158965 files (90 KB) from volume Pete 01.
Starting post-backup thinning
No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
Backup completed successfully.
No additional messages, perfect backup, no need for thinning and it took 45 minutes, almost 10 times slower then in Snow Leopard (same TM preferences, exclusions etc).

Time Machine is EXTREMELY slow.

So I have had my time machine for about two years now, and everything has been going great. I have it set up on a WDS network with my b/g Airport Express, both broadcasting at 11mbps. I do have it set to 2.4 hz even though I have two wireless phones one the same frequency, and I plan on changing that as soon as I get a b/g/n Airport express to replace the b/g one. Recently however I upgraded my internet speed. I should be getting 25mbps download and about 15 upload (or more). However wirelessly I only get less then 1 mbps down load and 3 mbps upload. All this is based on speedtest.net. I did notice that my ethernet wire running to my time capsule is dry and un-wrapping. that shouldn't make a difference though. Does anyone know how I can fix this and regain the speed I should be getting?
~LA

It sounds like you're talking about problems with a +*Time Capsule,+* not +*Time Machine+* backups.
If so, you'll find more help faster in the +Time Capsule+ forum, hiding in the +Digital Life+ section, at: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1253

Time Machine is extremely slow in Yosemite

Hello all. Anyone else having extreme slowness with backups to Time Machine in OS X Yosemite? I started a backup after I did the upgrade (and changed a few things like app installs) and it's backed up about 5.6MB of data in 30 minutes. It still says "Calculating time remaining..." in system preferences for Time Machine.
Is anyone else seeing this slowness when making backups?
Thanks

Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.
Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.
Feedback
Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.
Feedback via Apple Developer

Time Machine is EXTREMELY SLOW. What is the best way to make a complete, reliable copy of the hard drive before i erase the disk?

I was given an older iMac (from 2010) on the condition i first create a complete, reliable copy of everything on her hard drive and then wipe it clean. Is Time Machine the best way to do this so that she can use this data when she needs it? I started Time Machine but it is so slow, at this rate it will take at least 10 days to do the first backup. I'm already on the 3rd day now at about 2.5 GB per day. Is there a better way that is reliable? perhaps some kind of disc copy? This iMac has 4gb memory,processor: 3.06 gHz Intel core i3, model iMac11,2, 1 processor, 2 cores. thank you

Choices.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested
Time Machine Versus Clones and Archives
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Time Machine backup very slow on WD My Book For Mac external HD

I have been using a Western Digital 1 TB external HD (My Book For Mac) to backup my data today for the first time, using their SmartWare software. Everything went smoothly, I backed up 91 GB of data in 2-3 hours.
At the same time, I have also Time Machine activated, which started backing up my files a while ago, but it is crawling at 8 MB per minute. A quick calculation tells me it will take 180 hours to back up 90 GB (?).
I have 2 questions:
1. Are SmartWare and TimeMachine supposed to be run exclusive of each other?
2. If I just ran TimeMachine, why is it so slow? I use a USB 2.0 connection that worked fine for the My Book's own software.
Thanks for your help!

You should first repartition and format the drive. Most likely it is setup for use on Windows. Try this:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Do not use the WD software. If it's you wish to create a bootable backup of your drive as well as keep a TM backup, then you should create two partitions on the drive. One for your non-TM backup and one for TM. For the bootable backup use third-party software such as SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SilverKeeper - Download at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Note that many WD drive systems cannot be used for bootable backups. You can find information related to this at the WD web site.

Why is Entering Time Machine Backup SO SLOW ???

I have been using Time Machine (TM) for almost 2 years and when I enter TM - its is SLOW when I go back the timeline. I have the email window open when entering TM and it is taking minutes to fill in only 50 or so emails (I know I have 1000's).
Any suggestions to help this????
I have an external hardrive for TM connected to Time capsule.
Skip

60 seconds !!!
I solved it!
What I did:
I interrupted a running incremental backup after 20 minutes by switching off Time Machine in the control panel. In the log the message was:
     Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Then I rebooted the iMac from the Snow Leopard DVD and repaired the SSD and the FireWire Drive. In both cases no failures could be found.
Then I restarted the iMac from its internal SSD and waited until Time Machine started again (after one hour). Now there was something new in the log:
              Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Speedy HD
              Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
This backup took just 12 Minutes and was much faster than the previous incremental backups which took 30..45 minutes.
Now I tried the ultimate thing: I ordered Time Machine to make a new incremental backup. See what happens:
30.06.11 21:10:23 Starting standard backup
30.06.11 21:10:23 Backing up to: /Volumes/Archiv 1/Backups.backupdb
30.06.11 21:10:32 No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.83 GB requested (including padding), 911.84 GB available
30.06.11 21:11:03 Copied 9117 files (647.1 MB) from volume Speedy HD.
30.06.11 21:11:08 Copied 9365 files (647.1 MB) from volume Speedy Medien.
30.06.11 21:11:10 No pre-backup thinning needed: 1.08 GB requested (including padding), 911.18 GB available
30.06.11 21:11:15 Copied 2811 files (1 KB) from volume Speedy HD.
30.06.11 21:11:18 Copied 3059 files (1 KB) from volume Speedy Medien.
30.06.11 21:11:22 Starting post-backup thinning
30.06.11 21:11:22 No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist
30.06.11 21:11:23 Backup completed successfully.
I don't know what made the difference and I do not know how long Time Machine behaves well from now on. But I hope, that the problem is solved.

Time Machine backup *incredibly* slow following full restore

I recently suffered a catastrophic failure of my hard disk, but was fortunately able to perform a full restore from TM, to a brand new disk. The restored system is as close to perfect as I would hope, with the usual minor omissions, such as recent mails etc.
However, I am finding it impossible to resume backing up to the TM disk that I was using previously, It takes a fair time to determine what needs to be saved, but then proceeds at a snail's pace - i.e. data saved is being measured in Kb, rather than Gb!
Could this be related to the FAQ issue about re-using the TM backup from a 2nd machine? It doesn't prompt me to re-use anything but I guess it might be getting confused under the covers. If so, is there any way I can 'fool' it into realising that it is still the same machine as before?
Note that I have run Disk Utility on the TM backup disk, and it all seems fine. Note also that I am connecting to the disk using Firewire, as I always have done.

Jim Mcdonald wrote:
I'm in the midst of a full backup using 10.6.3 on a new MBP. I turned it on nearly 4 hours ago, and it's backed up only 2.8 gigs out of 141. Now, that's slow.
Is this related to this thread (first backup after a full restore)? It doesn't seem to be.
What is the destination for your backups? If it's a Time Capsule, via WIFI, it's going to be quite slow, even with an excellent WIFI connection. I'd be inclined to cancel the backup, connect via Ethernet, and start over.
Whatever the destination, try the things in the green box in #D2 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.
If none of that helps, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget. It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window. Please start your own thread, with full details, and copy and post all the messages for the backup, too.

Time Machine Backup is slow (perhaps corrupt?) after Mountain Lion upgrade

Hello!
I managed to download and upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion yesterday. Before the upgrade, I performed a backup via TM just in case. Now, in Mountain Lion, the backup prepares and begins around 12GB of backups but never gets passed 2MB of data transferred. The TM logo keeps turning, the external HDD is clicking and the activity light is blinking to indicate communication.
I vaguely remember having a slow backup after upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion, but never *this* slow.
Has anyone else encountered a similar issue or know of any diags I could do? As a prerequisite to this, I have attempted to verify the disk in Disk Utility but it seemed to be taking a long time (around 2 hours without completion) to verify, too.
Thanks =]

I am also experiencing very slow backups since upgrading to ML. You didn't go into specifics on your hardware setup (type of machine, backup drive, etc).
I'm using a MB air (Mid 2011) with a Thunderbolt display. I have a G-Tech 2 gig external drive connected with Firewire 800 through the Thunderbolt display.
My backups had always been pretty quick. Now they can take up to half an hour or longer depending on the amount of data to be processed.
One suggestion for you is to obtain a time machine log viewer. I use "logviewer for time machine" that I got in the Mac App store. I think it is $0.99, but there other apps that are available for free. This is nothing more than a log viewer that you refresh and see each step of your backup including any errors. A lot better than right clicking the spinning circle around the clock in the menu bar for status updates.
I am baffled on why the slowdown. I am think of opening a case with Apple Support.
Take care

Time Machine Backup Soooo Slow

I've been having no luck getting a full backup with Time Machine. At one time was working but then things just fell apart. I've done the reformatting correctly but things always seem to hang and nothing in the log. Now it started at 6:22 PM and at 10:21 PM I'm only at 6.7 MB of 198.45 GB backed up using FireWire (cable is good). Here is the log below ... normally this would take only minutes ... what could be wrong? Backing to a 1 TB La Cie from the Apple Store with a 599 GB partition for the iMac backup. The remaining partition has not been used.
Oct 4 18:22:40 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3716]: Backup requested by user
Oct 4 18:22:40 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3716]: Starting standard backup
Oct 4 18:22:40 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3716]: Backing up to: /Volumes/iMac - Backup/Backups.backupdb
Oct 4 18:22:44 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3716]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Oct 4 18:22:45 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[3716]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 238.33 GB requested (including padding), 570.46 GB available

This morning it's hanging at 158.95 GB of 198 GB. Nothing in the log for backupd but I not the System log is cranking out error messages since about 5 am that look like this:
Oct 5 08:06:04 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10af00.mdworker[11494]): Exited abnormally: Bus error
Oct 5 08:06:04 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 ReportCrash[11495]: Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdworker2008-10-05-080557Barry-Kanes-Computer-761.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
Oct 5 08:06:14 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 ReportCrash[11497]: Formulating crash report for process mdworker[11496]
Oct 5 08:06:16 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 com.apple.launchd[1] (0x10af00.mdworker[11496]): Exited abnormally: Bus error
Oct 5 08:06:16 Barry-Kanes-Computer-761 ReportCrash[11497]: Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/mdworker2008-10-05-080609Barry-Kanes-Computer-761.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
Is there some other process the has run amok and is taking up all the system? Not sure what this log means.

Time Machine Backup EXTREMELY SLOW

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