Time Machine/Time Capsule backups successful, but take a long time

I purchased a 512GB Time Capsule about a year ago. Since I got it, backups have been successful, but very slow. An average backup takes about 40-50 minutes, usually for less than 20 MB transferred.
Here are a couple summaries of recent backups (see end of post for full logs):
BACKUP 1:
11 minutes to detect if pre-backup thinning was necessary
18 minutes to copy 281 MB
5 minutes to copy 5.4 MB
4 minutes to start post-backup thinning
2 minutes to delete 1 expired backup
There were no error messages.
BACKUP 2:
4 minutes to detect if pre-backup thinning was necessary
12 minutes to copy 15 MB
5 minutes to detect if pre-backup thinning was necessary
15 minutes to copy 3.8 MB
1 minutes to start post-backup thinning
2 minutes to delete 1 expired backup
This time, there were error messages about "Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:"
My Time Capsule is placed about 5 feet from my laptop, with no obstructions between them. I don't think it's a wireless speed issue, because I use the Time Capsule as my router, and my connection to the net is fine. Also, operations that don't require wireless connections, like detecting pre-backup thinning, also take a long time.
Does anyone have any idea what might be going wrong to cause my regular backups to take so long?
BACKUP 1:
14/09/09 2:09:47 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Starting standard backup
14/09/09 2:09:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Peter%[email protected]/turban
14/09/09 2:09:55 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/turban
14/09/09 2:10:02 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Disk image /Volumes/turban/buttercup_001ec2146608.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of buttercup
14/09/09 2:10:02 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of buttercup/Backups.backupdb
14/09/09 2:21:15 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] No pre-backup thinning needed: 860.3 MB requested (including padding), 280.02 GB available
14/09/09 2:39:05 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Copied 12159 files (281.3 MB) from volume butternut.
14/09/09 2:39:08 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] No pre-backup thinning needed: 529.5 MB requested (including padding), 280.02 GB available
14/09/09 2:44:18 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Copied 11775 files (5.4 MB) from volume butternut.
14/09/09 2:48:43 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Starting post-backup thinning
14/09/09 2:50:11 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of buttercup/Backups.backupdb/buttercup/2009-09-13-132947: 280.02 GB now available
14/09/09 2:50:11 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
14/09/09 2:50:11 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Backup completed successfully.
14/09/09 2:50:18 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Ejected Time Machine disk image.
14/09/09 2:50:22 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[18612] Ejected Time Machine network volume.
BACKUP 2:
14/09/09 9:09:46 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Starting standard backup
14/09/09 9:09:54 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Peter%[email protected]/turban
14/09/09 9:09:54 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/turban
14/09/09 9:10:07 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Disk image /Volumes/turban/buttercup_001ec2146608.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of buttercup
14/09/09 9:10:10 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of buttercup/Backups.backupdb
14/09/09 9:14:06 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] No pre-backup thinning needed: 542.2 MB requested (including padding), 280.02 GB available
14/09/09 9:23:27 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:23:27 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:24:30 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:24:30 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:26:00 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Copied 1223 files (15.3 MB) from volume butternut.
14/09/09 9:31:35 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] No pre-backup thinning needed: 527.5 MB requested (including padding), 280.02 GB available
14/09/09 9:46:07 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:46:07 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:46:07 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:46:07 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Unable to rebuild path cache for source item. Partial source path:
14/09/09 9:46:20 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Copied 11336 files (3.8 MB) from volume butternut.
14/09/09 9:47:06 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Starting post-backup thinning
14/09/09 9:49:14 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Deleted backup /Volumes/Backup of buttercup/Backups.backupdb/buttercup/2009-09-13-082428: 280.02 GB now available
14/09/09 9:49:14 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Post-back up thinning complete: 1 expired backups removed
14/09/09 9:49:15 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Backup completed successfully.
14/09/09 9:49:19 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Ejected Time Machine disk image.
14/09/09 9:49:25 AM /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd[15833] Ejected Time Machine network volume.

peterjm wrote:
I checked all of the steps in #D2 of the Troubleshooting Guide.
One other thing thing you might try, is a +*Verify Disk+* (not permissions) on your internal HD. That will not take anything like 40 hours! If it reports problems, you'll have to boot from your Install disc and use it's copy of DU to repair it. Post back if you need to do this but aren't sure how.
I think it's very fishy that Repair Disk took 40 hours -- it seems like any operation that touches the hard drive on the Time Capsule takes a long time. Maybe the hard drive is having problems? What sort of problems could a drive have that would make everything VERY slow, but still successful?
Try connecting via an Ethernet cable; see what effect that has. Everything should be faster, of course, but not wildly. Just as an example, I'm doing backups to a USB hard drive via my Airport Extreme, about 15 feet from my iMac. When I first started that way, I did a full backup via Ethernet (about 21 gb/hour), then erased it and ran again wirelessly (about 12 gb/hour).
Even 5 feet apart, you may have some sort of interference or other communications problem; if Ethernet is many times faster, then you may need to have your TC and/or wireless card examined.

Similar Messages

My macbook pro takes a long time to start up, my macbook pro takes a long time to start up

my macbook pro takes a long time to start up, my macbook pro takes a long time to start up

up to 10 mins

Time Machine See's...but won't "mount" time capsule

Bought 1TB Time Capsule 1 week ago. Did initial backup direct ethernet and all subsequent via WiFi. Everything works fine. However, today I noticed my 7AM backup failed. I am told it can't mount the hard drive. I go into SYS PREF to reselect the time capsule as the Backup Disk, it shows the Time Capsule, I select it, enter password, but about 2 minutes later get the message:
Time Machine Error
No backup volume has been selected
To select a backup volume, open Sys Pref and choose Time Machine
I do..and the loop of futility continues.
I have no problem getting into the Time Capsule through Finder and have successfully moved a file from my desktop to the capsule so I know I am connected and it works.
Also doesn't return anything when I click "Browse Other Time Machine Disks" from the Time Machine menu bar menu. I see my sparsebundle through Finder.
Any ideas on how to get it to recognize the time capsule? It sees it, but won't let me mount it after I enter password.
Have tried rebooting, powering everything down, etc. Everything else is working fine ...the wifi and the ability to access via finder. Basically I have a very expensive wireless router.
Thanks.
24' iMac Dual Core Mac OS X (10.5.2) PROCESSOR: 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, MEMORY: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Did clean Archive and Install and now it works. Been ok for a few weeks now.

Time Machine Backups Seem to take a long time

I'm running OS X 10.5.8 on a G5 iMac, and I've noticed some strange behavior recently when Time Machine does it's back ups. I back up to a LaCie external drive with a capacity of 465 GB and it currently has 65GB available. When Time Machine does it back ups, it seems to take a very long time, eventhough not much has changed. It might go for 30min to an hour. Sometimes the back up fails. I've tried to stop the back up, but that doesn't stop Time Machine, and also System Preferences becomes unresponsive. I can't quit or force quit System Preferences. I have to turn off the iMac to quit System Preferences by holding in the power button. I'm not sure if this is a Time Machine issue, or an issue with the external HD. I know the iMac is a bit dated, and due to be replaced. The HD is also at least 3-4 years old, and has only been used as my Time Machine back up. Any ideas on how I might fix this? Thanks!!

ELFritzen wrote:
I had problems verifiying and repairing the LaCie HD. At first the the computer would hang on "verifying" the HD. I finally got the HD verified by switching the on/off/auto switch on the HD from auto to on. At this point verification went quickly.
That doesn't sound good.
Try different port(s), cables, and combinations of the two (a plug that works fine in one port may not make good contact in another).
Do you have (or can you borrow) another HD you can try?
Or another Mac you can try with that drive?
As an extra measure, I tried to repair the HD, but again the program hung up and I had to reboot.
Just for future reference, there's no point to verifying an external HD -- just run Repair. They both do all the same checks. Starting with Verify on your startup drive makes sense, since, if there's a problem, you have to start from another source to repair it.

Time machine makes no backups - External HD is no longer recognized

My external HD is only used for backups with time machine.
About 30 days ago I took the usb out of my Mac, so the time machine did not work.
Now I put the usb back in my Mac and the external HD is not recognized any more. I did do nothing else with the HD.. I did a software update, thought that that would solve the problem, read a lot of suggestions on this forum, but i cannot solve it. Maybe you have a suggestion?

cobruijn wrote:
I took the usb out of my Mac
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
Did you dismount that drive first?
Now I put the usb back in my Mac and the external HD is not recognized any more.
Can you see that drive in Disk Utility? Have you tried a different USB port? Does the drive show any signs of working, such as noise or lights?

Wifi is connected to internet but takes a long time to work?

When i open my computer and connect to any kind of wifi it does it fine. But when i go to safari or firefox it claims it has no connection. I test the connect through network diagnostics and its all working just fine. Still no internet. After a couple of minutes pass and restarting the programs multiple times it works great no issues. But once i put it to sleep or connect to a new wifi same thing.It was working fine up until i did a recent firmware update? Wondering if thats the problem.... Its a brand new macbook running lion.. Any help would be great! Kinda irretating to wait for your internet for awhile.

I am also having the same exact issue. I thought my MBP was having issues and was about to bring it to Geeksquad to have them check it out. It takes me a full 2 minutes to connect. Its also having issues waking up from sleep (takes longer than before) and when the screen dims, it takes much longer to get bright once I interect with the MBP.
In the words of Liz Lemon. Blerg...

Mac Mini very slow at 4 gig memory, upgrade to 16 still slows down but takes a longer time

I bought a Mac mini a year ago. With an i7 and i terabyte and it cam with only 4 gig of ram. It worked fine for a while and i installed some apps then it started to get very slow. seeing the colorful "hourglass " turn round and round quite a few times. Then i went to the activity monitor where it told me that the memory used was about 3.89 gigs. I purchased a memory cleaner app from thr app store which helped a bit.
Today i upgraded to 16 gig memory and bang my computer ripped. The activity manager said i was using 6 gigs of ram and had 9.8 remaining.
after being on the internet for a couple of hours and using Firefox with about ten tabs open the computer started to get very slow again.
I checked the activity manager and it read 6 gigs used and the cash read a whopping 9 gigs. Did not think i would need the memory cleaner any more but after doing a clean it worked better.
Why did i get a whopping 9 gigs in the cash ? which is what it read after my computer slowed down again.

You may want to post in the Mac Mini forum, this is the iMac forum. If you would like me to I will ask the moderator to move the thread.

Time machine: cannot access backups

Time Machine seems to backup correctly: it reports the correct time of backup and I can see the right timestamp in Finder.
However I cannot access any backup in the Star Wars interface: when I open it I see some time indications by the timeline, one second later I see the timeline without any time indications except Now and Today. Thus I cannot access my backups.
Any idea how to troubleshoot?
Thanks and regards

Please review this information.
http:/pondini.org/TM/B6.html

Photo editor window takes a long time to load

when i try to open a JPEG photo in photo editor in safari 2.0.4 with Java 1.4.2.
During the first try, the photo editor didnt load. Just the blank window got displayed.
After a system restart, the photo editor displays the Java screen, but takes a long time to load(more than an hour and it is still loading) and while it is loading, user is unable to use safari browser
Mac OS X (10.4.7) Java 1.3.1 and Java 1.4.2 is installed in the Mac OS X machine.

Hi arunarun,
What site are you visiting for the photo editor?

Time Machine will not backup Time Capsule drive

I was filling up my time capsule so I bought a new 2GB drive for my backups. It is attached as an air disk on the Time Capsule as I also use it to backup other computers in the house.
My problem is that I am now using the HDD in the time capsule for my iTunes and iPhoto library, so that they can also be shared, but they are not being backed up by TM.
I have checked my excluded drives list and the Time Capsule drive isn't in there.
Any ideas/help/advice on how to get the time capsule backed up too?

Sorry, but Time Machine will not backup a network drive (i.e. TC's HDD or any USB HDD attached to the TC). It can backup TO a NAS such as TC or a USB HDD attached to the TC. You can transfer your music to another external HDD that is connected directly to a Leopard-loaded Mac and TM can backup that up to TC/HDD attached to a TC.

Time Machine Error. Backup is too large for the backup disk. Backup requires 289.28 GB but only 177.01 GB are available.

My Mac has not been backing up for some time. Tried Apple Support, but couldn't figure out problem.
Receive the following error...
Time Machine Error
This backup is too large for the backup disk. The backup requires 289.28 GB but only 177.03 GB are available.

See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If that doesn't clarify the situation, post back with:
How much data is on your internal HD (and any others being backed-up)?
How large is your Time Capsule?
Is there anything else on the TC besides these backups? If so, what and how large?

Time machine will not backup but does restore

My Time machine will not backup, but will restore from prior backups - the last made three months ago (end of January). Can anyone help? When trying to run a backup the screen shows:
Select Disc (which I have already done)
704 GB of 1 TB available
Oldest backup: none
A continuosly revolving progress bar
"Preparing Backup"
Note that when I run Time Machine in order to restore, all backups prior to Jan 30th are there.
I am running OSX Mountain LIon Version 10.8.3

Mickmannock wrote:
I followed the proceedure described to delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist. However I note that there are very many versions of this file in other locations.
There shouldn't be. Delete any others.
Make sure the one you deleted was in your top-level /Library folder (not the Library folder inside your home folder). If you got the right one, when you went back to the Time Machine Preferences window, it should not have shown your TM drive or anything else.
I am running Parallels 8 and windows 7 in a Virtual machine, but these do not appear to have created problems in the past - over two years now.
You probably should exclude the VM files from Time Machine backups. That shouldn't be the cause of much of this problem, but may be a problem in the future. The reason is, to OSX, a VM file is one huge file -- if anything at all is changed, TM considers the whole thing changed, and will back it up again, taking time and lots of space on your backup disk.
Have you Verified your internal HD, and Repaired any other disks being backed-up, and your backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting?
What are you backing-up to (external HD, Time Capsule, etc.)?

Time Machine fails to backup HD and stalls computer when backing up to external HD (Western Digital WD5000MT) when using Firewire 800 but works fine using USB

I have a mid 2012 MBP (MacbookPro9,1) running Mountain Lion 10.8.2. When I start a Time Machine backup to an external Western Digital HD (WD5000MT) connected using a Firewire 800 cable, my open programs stop responding and in general my computer freezes up not allowing me to open activity monitor or the console utility. I can't even shut down or restart my computer and must hard boot to reset. Though removing the firewire cable that goes to the external HD can sometimes get my system working again. However, the WD external HD also has a usb port and when I connect it to my computer via a USB cable, Time Machine seems to backup my system fine without stalling my computer. This same external HD worked fine with Firewire 800 using my old late 2007 MBP running snow leopard. I should note that my brother has the exact same model WD external HD and he also had issues with the firewire port on his MBP running mountain lion. I have run the disk utility checking for disk/file permission errors and the drive itself seems fine. I initially formatted that drive as ExFAT but while troubleshooting reformatted to HFS+ and still had the same issue. I tested using a different firewire 800 cable but still had the same issue. Can't think of anything else to do. I don't have another firewire-compatible device to test if it is the HD vs the firewire port. I would prefer to use the firewire port for quicker transfer speeds but I'm stuck with USB for now. Any suggestions?

Maybe these will help:
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11194
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275 (note - older article)
Have you tried looking at the Western Digital web site to see if you can find anything?
http://support.wdc.com

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was 2012. how do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?

Restore using Time Machine to new hard drive, but last "full" backup was in 2012. How do I restore the rest of the Time Machine backups, particularily IPHOTO libraries for each user?
I entered Iphoto for my user and only photo up until 2012 were in the library. I thought the restore would do the incremental Time Machine backups too.....
Running 10.8.2

It usually means you are running Mavericks but have an earlier version of iPhoto. Open the App Store and upgrade your version of iPhoto to the Mavericks version.
The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.The iWork apps are free with a new iOS device since 1 SEP 2013. They are free with a new Mac since 1 OCT 2013. They are also free with the upgrade to OS X Mavericks 10.9 if you had the previous version installed when you upgraded.
iWork and iLife for Mac come free with every new Mac purchase. Existing users running Mavericks can update their apps for free from the Mac App Store℠. iWork and iLife for iOS are available for free from the App Store℠ for any new device running iOS 7, and are also available as free updates for existing users. GarageBand for Mac and iOS are free for all OS X Mavericks and iOS 7 users. Additional GarageBand instruments and sounds are available for a one-time in-app purchase of $4.99 for each platform.

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image "/Volumes/Data-1/Dan's iMac.sparsebundle" is already in use.

I keep getting this error when trying to backup time capsule with time machine. The backup disk image “/Volumes/Data-1/Dan’s iMac.sparsebundle” is already in use.

Make sure that no other Macs are backing up at the time.
Pull the power cable from the back of the Time Capsule
Count to ten
Plug the power cable back into the back of the Tme Capsule
Wait a few minutes, then try a backup again.

Time Machine/Time Capsule backups successful, but take a long time

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for