Time Machine slow, bogging down computer.

I am having problems with Time Machine backups taking forever and, at the same time, bogging down my computer to the point I cannot use it.
For example, a 70MB backup yesterday took almost 5 hours. a 500MB one today is on hour 5 and still going. I have it set to back up while I'm at work (it's my home computer) but when I get home and it's still going I cannot use my computer at all without cancelling the backup due to lag, spinning beachballs, and apps crashing.
The hard drive it's backing up to is a 1TB Iomega drive connected via USB with 500 gigs of free space currently. I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro running 10.8.5, 500gig hard drive with 70 gigs free. I have run backups with my normal apps running and with virtually all apps quit, including Finder and Dropbox, which doesn't seem to effect the time spent backing up. I do not have any virus scanners running. I've tried different USB cables in case it's a faulty cable. I have gone through Pondini's guide dozens of times, nothing's helped.
Do you guys have any more suggestions? I dream of the days long past where Time Machine would work in the background and I'd never notice it. Backing up is now an all-day ordeal with nothing else able to happen in the meantime. I'd like it to do it's hourly back-ups and get away from using TImeMachineEditor to only do daily back-ups, but I can't have my computer unusable every time it tries to back up.
Also, somewhat related; I tried to update my back-up drive to a 2TB Western Digital and to a 1.5TB partition on a 3TB Western Digital drive but was unable to get Time Machine to complete a back-up to either drive; it kept crashing and burning at various stages. I had followed Pondini's guide to the letter with formatting them yet never got anywhere. That's why I'm using my older, smaller drive; it's the only one I can successfully get to back up. Any thoughts on that?

Sherri39401- I am not running any sort of anti-virus.
Eric Root- I tried the reset of Time Machine. If anything it's worse; took 10 hours to do a 11 gig backup, then right after it was on hour 4 of a 28MB transfer and was only halfway through.
Etresoft- That is a nifty little program! Here's the report I ran this morning:
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2
          1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB
          AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 2 days 21:8:55
Disk Information:
          Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Dominick (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (109.47 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-8A8
USB Information:
          Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
          Iomega Iomega 1 TB
                    disk3s1 (disk3s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Shinako (disk3s2) /Volumes/Shinako: 999.86 GB (302.04 GB free)
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Western Digital My Book 1140 3 TB
                    disk2s1 (disk2s1) <not mounted>: 314.6 MB
                    SORUKA (disk2s2) /Volumes/SORUKA: 2 TB (422.46 GB free)
                    SORIKO (disk2s3) /Volumes/SORIKO: 999.98 GB (999.31 GB free)
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Kernel Extensions:
          com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver          (1.0.2)
          com.LivestreamProcaster.driver.ProcasterAudioRedirector          (2.0.0)
          com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower          (1.5.1)
Problem System Launch Daemons:
          [failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist
Problem System Launch Agents:
          [failed] com.apple.accountsd.plist
          [failed] com.apple.AirPlayUIAgent.plist
          [failed] com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication.plist
          [failed] com.apple.pbs.plist
          [failed] com.apple.printtool.agent.plist
          [failed] com.apple.rcd.plist
          [failed] com.apple.tccd.plist
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
          [loaded] com.adobe.versioncueCS4.plist
          [loaded] com.daz3d.content_management_service.plist
          [loaded] com.ea.origin.ESHelper.plist
          [loaded] com.freemacsoft.appcleanerdaemon.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinblanker.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinserver.plist
          [loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backup-auto.plist
          [loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.helper.plist
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist
          [failed] com.logmein.LMILaunchAgentFixer.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeingui.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagent.plist
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagentatlogin.plist
          [loaded] com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist
          [failed] net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae.plist
          [loaded] com.facebook.videochat.Jessie.plist
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [loaded] com.iLike.Agent.plist
          [loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist
User Login Items:
          Quicksilver
          Last.fm
          WeatherBug Alert
          UnhideLibrary
          Dropbox
          Mail
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Adobe Version Cue CS4
          Flash Player
          Flip4Mac WMV
          Growl
          Java
          Perian
          WacomTablet
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobePDFViewer.plugin
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
          AmazonMP3DownloaderPlugin1017287.plugin
          DirectorShockwave.plugin
          DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin
          Flash Player.plugin
          FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
          iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
          LogMeIn.plugin
          LogMeInSafari32.plugin
          LogMeInSafari64.plugin
          QuickTime Plugin.plugin
          Silverlight.plugin
          Unity Web Player.plugin
          WacomNetscape.plugin
          WacomTabletPlugin.plugin
User Internet Plug-ins:
          Move-Media-Player.plugin
          npadaptiveplugin.plugin
          Picasa.plugin
Bad Fonts:
          None
Top Processes by CPU:
              18%          firefox
               5%          plugin-container
               4%          WindowServer
               3%          hidd
               2%          Transmission
               1%          Last.fm
               1%          EtreCheck
               1%          mds
               0%          Mail
               0%          SystemUIServer
Top Processes by Memory:
          464 MB   firefox
          295 MB   mds
          74 MB    Quicksilver
          57 MB    Mail
          57 MB    plugin-container
          57 MB    Transmission
          41 MB    Skype
          41 MB    Finder
          41 MB    WindowServer
          33 MB    Dropbox
Virtual Memory Statistics
          4.60 GB  Free RAM
          859 MB   Active RAM
          1.20 GB  Inactive RAM
          1.35 GB  Wired RAM
          22.20 GB           Page-ins
          17.74 GB           Page-outs

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