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).

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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.

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.

How do I access my iphoto library on time machine backup external drive using Lion, originally saved from old computer and system

how do I access my iphoto library on time machine backup external drive using Lion, originally saved off old computer and system. It's not letting me open the folder???

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After upgrading to ML, time machine seems very slow. I usually make back up once a week. First back up took nearly a day, but completed successfully.

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Suddenly, time machine is very slow. Used to take up a minute and now more than half an hour. Does anybody know how this can happen? Indexing the back-up disk is off, but Timde Machine keeps on indexing!

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same issue here...

Restore data (iTunes Library, Photo's, files etc.) to Snow Leopard from a Time Machine backup made on OSX Lion?

Hi,
I have OSX Lion and have been backing up to Time Machine, I now want to do a clean install of Snow Leopard (not from backup), but can I restore my data (iTunes Library, Photo's, files etc.) to Snow Leopard from a Time Machine backup made on OSX Lion?
Thanks.

You should be able to restore iTunes and iPhoto files if the Lion system was running the same version of those applications that you'll have on the Snow Leopard system. However, you won't be able to restore files for applications like Mail, Address Book, or Safari, as the versions of those won't match.

Time Machine remains very slow despite October 5th update - Mac OS X 10.7.5 (11G63)

I just updated my BMP with OS X Lion update (10.7.5). The update says that it fixes the Time Machine speed (very very slow). Well, despite this patch I still have 18.6 MB backuped in 5 minutes, among 4.16 GB... Still have to wait for.
Who is facing the same issue ?
Regards,
F

Finally, the backup accelerated and came back to a more usual speed.

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 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.
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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.

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.

Time Machine backups not available after Lion upgrade

I just upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion a week ago. Today I went to my Time Machine (backups on a Time Capsule), and can't access old files. Past dates are shown in purple, with dates since the Lion update in the usual gray. However, none of them show any files. Any ideas?

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055

Will Time Machine backup of SL erase Lion at the same time?

I normally wait before downloading new OSX's from Apple, but didn't this time and regret it. Before installing Lion, I did a Time Machine backup of my iMac. My question is: how do I restore my iMac to that last backup with Snow Leopard? I want Lion off my iMac (for now), but I DON'T want to have to reinstall all my applications, lose my iTunes Library, lose my iPhoto and Aperture libraries or all of the other applications I have. So - do I load the Snow Leopard disc.. erase my hard drive, reinstall Snow Leopard then restore from Time Machine, or can I just select the last restore from Time Machine and it will delete Lion for me? The reason I ask is because I want my internet back without having to manually reconnect through Network Preferences every 10 minutes. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Restore to a multiple disk setup should work fine. But there are as always some tricks to it.
See our expert Pondini's explaination and follow his links.. I suggest you actually spend some time understanding how TM works.
http://pondini.org/TM/32.html
I would also recommend spending a few dollars and buy CCC or superduper. Make a backup of each drive. These 3rd party backup programs are more flexible and you can create direct images of the drives. It makes recovery a much much easier process.
If it is a Mac Pro put in another disk for TM backups and use a USB or even esata card and external sata drive for backups using CCC. Doing it that way you can make a bootable image of your main drive.

After 10.8.1 update, time machine is VERY slow

I have read in these rooms, as well as in tons of other forums, many time machine problems folks had after upgrading to ML. I did not have those problems. I use a regular external disk connected via USB. It's worked great for over a year. Since the upgrade to ML, my time machine did about half a dozen backups. They all worked at the "normal" speed that they always had. Today, I got the 10.8.1 patch, and when I started the time machine backup, it took forever. It looked like I suddenly inherited the problems everyone else had been having before. After 2 hours I had backed up about 200 MEG of the 27 GIG backup. I tried some forum-suggested tmdiagnose, and shutting Sophos, but nothing changed the situation.
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Re: OS X 10.8.2
Here are some rough comparative measurements of Time Machine/AFP throughput. Source machine is a modern iMac running OS X 10.8.2, connected through a Gigibit network to a modern Mac mini running 10.8.2 either as a stand-alone client or with Server 2.1.1. In Activity Monitor, I visually monitored the Network, getting a rough number for the average throughput. The Server software is installed on the mini's internal drive; the 10.8.2 client is installed on an external FW800 drive. The destination of the Time Machine backup is a freshly-erased 900 GB partition on another daisy-chained FW800 external drive. To switch targets, I merely restarted the mini using the correct startup volume, all other things being equal.
APF Target: OS X 10.8.2 (File Sharing Preference Panel):
1) Finder copy to a shared folder on the target's Startup Volume: 50 MB/sec
2) Finder copy to a folder on an external HD (connected to the target via FW800): 35 MB/sec
3) Time Machine: Create initial sparse bundle: 5 minutes.
4) Time Machine copy rate: < 5 MB/sec.
APF Target: OS X Server 10.8.2 (Server 2.1.1: Time Machine & File Sharing services enabled):
1) Finder copy to a shared folder on the target's Startup Volume: 100 MB/sec
2) Finder copy to a folder on an external HD (connected via FW800): 35 MB/sec
3) Time Machine: Create sparse bundle: 30 seconds
4) Time Machine copy rate: 35 MB/sec.
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1) Time Machine throughput to a 10.8.2 client is 5x slower than on Server 2.2.1.
2) Creating the sparse bundle takes 10x longer on 10.8.2 client than on 10.8.2 Server.
3) Time Machine throughput to a 10.8.2 client is 7x slower than a Finder copy to the same external volume on the same machine.
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5) So worst-case Time Machine throughput to an external drive on a 10.8.2 client is 20x slower than the best-case Finder transfer to a startup-volume share on 10.8.2 Server.
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Time Machine - Restore very slow - impossible to use

Hi,
As far as I can tell my Time Machine backups are OK. When I click the back-in-time arrow with a very small file selected it takes several minutes before I can use it again. The TM gives the impression of having frozen. Similarly if I use the Finder to look at the backup files on the external disk the machine spends very long periods of time 'fetching'. I have no reason to suspect my hard disk - it is the same with another disk. I've read all of the postings on this Forum. I am thinking about re-installing my OS from Install DVD (10.5) and updating to 10.5.5!
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I have now re-installed my system from the instal disk, then the latest combo update. Have checked all the disks to make sure they are OK and healthy. All to no avail - Time Machine simply will not run as intended on this machine. (It works just dandy on my Intel MacBook).
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I'm at my wits end. It occurs to me that this is a system problem rather than a Time Machine problem.
Any ideas are much appreciated.
Bob

Time Machine backup very slow in Lion

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