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.

Similar Messages

Why is my time machine backup so slow even when directly connected with usb 3.0?

On my new 15" Retina running OS 10.7.5 the backup of about 225 GB would estimate about 17 hours and then stall out around 22 GB or so.
Now it seems to hang on the setup.
I've just gone back to my old machine (late 2008 15" MBP running OS 10.7.4) to see if it would work any faster I am getting an estimate of "about a day" on about 280 GB. (Backwards compatible at USB 2.0 speeds of course).
In both instances I am directly connected via USB 3.0 to a Seagate 3TB desktop drive that I reformatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) right out of the box.
I bought this drive to replace my old 500 GB Time Capsule which is much too small to maintain backups for my MBP and my wife's Air. My plan was to run the initial backups hard-wired (for speed) and then attach it to a new Airport Express for subsequent backups.
No network or wireless to potentially cause this lag.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

It's true. I love Google. Miss the maps on the iPhone5 for sure.
Like you say, I end up expanding all my searches in Google to give me more results within apple discussions rather than search here.
I moved the external 3 TB drive over to the Time Capsule via its USB port and it is showing up. So that's one bullet maybe dodged so far.
On a grander scale, I'm currently in the midst of trying to redo my home network and I'm in a little over my head.
I will try to explain...
My previous network ran as follows:
Time Warner cable coax ----------> their provided Motorola modem ----via ethernet---> My old 500 GB Time Capsule creating the WIFI network for my place and feeding three other old style Airport Express devices in various rooms extending the network but essentially just for AirTunes
Also, the Time Capsule ran ethernet cables to my Western Digital TV and Western Digital MyBook Live Duo 4TB drive. Both of these Western Digital devices have wifi built in but I wasn't getting the playback speeds I was expecting so I hardwired them with ethernet for faster service which has been working for a while.
NOW.....
I am replacing the three old Airport Express devices with three new Airport Express devices and making one of them the Master device to create a new network (dumping the old one and trying to start fresh).
Here's my plan and what I have hooked up so far.
TWC coax ----> Motorola modem ---ethernet----> Airport Express #1 (creating WIFI network for Airport Express #2 and #3 AND ---------ethernet-------> Old 500 GB Time Machine-----ethernet #1-----> WDTV Live AND ----ethernet #2------> WD MBLD 4TB AND NOW -------USB-----> 3TB Seagate external for Time Machine drive expansion. ALSO POSSIBLY -----ethernet #3------> Apple TV 2 for the same reasons I have the WD devices hooked up via ethernet. I don't trust the wifi to be fast enough for video streaming.
Now, despite having read wikis and other explanations for Bridge mode, DHCP and NAT settings for routers (in this case, the TM) I still can't figure exactly what mode the TM should get setup with.
Also all of these devices are set up in different pockets on the same shelf so I was worried that all the WIFI signals would interfere with each other (hence all the ethernet).
My plan was to turn of the wireless in the TM and have all of these devices branch off via ethernet. Which brings me back to my uncertainty regarding whether to set the TM to Off (Bridge Mode), DHCP, or DHCP and NAT.
From what I've read I would think it should be in Bridge mode but I also read some things about how bandwidth use in bridge mode can be very high and could cause problems using the internet possibly over my overall wifi network? Although I'm not sure I'm understanding that correctly.
I apologize for my lack of understanding in setting up a complicated network. I've just been wanting to get all of this working the way I've hoped (correctly) for a long time.
Thanks in advance for any more advice!

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.

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.

Why is my Time Machine running so slow?

I am curious why my Time Machine backup is running so slow. I am trying to backup 52.85 GB. I am currently at 17.65 GB and it has taken about 6 hours. The Time Machine "meter" that shows how long it is going to take to finish the backup is telling me it estimates about 14 hours. Thirty minutes it was telling me it was going to take about 12 hours. Now 14? What's the deal? It seems to me the backup is taking way too long. What is puzzling was that the first 15 GBs or so were prett fast. You could actually see the download happening. Now it seems like the meter is stuck and not moving. Inerimittently, the meter will change the number of files yet to be backed up. Can anyone shed some light as to what might be happening.
Thanks!
Edward

I've followed many of the suggestions on this thread (except upgrading to Mountain Lion). My Time Machine and computer has been going for eight days straight backing up 580 gigs and last night there were 30 gigs to go! Something happened and in the middle of the night the computer crashed. I restarted the computer and external harddrive that I use for my Time Machine this morning and continued the backing up of 35.24 gigs. Except now the status window tells me it will take 9,624 days to back up!
I ran the diagnostic command prompt:
sudo tmdiagnose
And here are some of the results (I did not include the lines that identify my computer name and self-identifying info; also a zip file was generated by I did not include it because it is almost 3 megs):
2013-11-09 09:27:43.038 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/bin/fs_usage -w'...
2013-11-09 09:27:53.069 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/bin/top -l 10'...
2013-11-09 09:28:04.859 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Sampling 'backupd'...
2013-11-09 09:28:11.385 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Sampling 'mtmd'...
2013-11-09 09:28:11.451 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Sampling 'mtmfs'...
2013-11-09 09:28:11.517 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Sampling 'Finder'...
2013-11-09 09:28:20.769 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/bin/ls -la /Volumes/'...
2013-11-09 09:28:20.898 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/bin/df -H'...
2013-11-09 09:28:20.964 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/sbin/mount'...
2013-11-09 09:28:21.030 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/sbin/diskutil list'...
2013-11-09 09:28:21.288 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/sbin/diskutil cs list'...
2013-11-09 09:28:21.354 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/bin/bash -c /usr/sbin/diskutil list | /usr/bin/awk '/disk/ {system("/usr/sbin/diskutil info "$NF); print "*********************"}''...
2013-11-09 09:28:29.019 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/bin/hdiutil info'...
2013-11-09 09:28:29.284 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/sbin/netstat -aW -p tcp'...
2013-11-09 09:28:47.321 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/bin/bash -c /bin/ps auxc | /usr/bin/awk '/mtmd/ {system("lsof -p "$2); print("\n\n")}''...
2013-11-09 09:28:47.478 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/bin/bash -c /bin/ps auxc | /usr/bin/awk '/mtmfs/ {system("lsof -p "$2); print("\n\n")}''...
2013-11-09 09:28:47.570 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/sbin/ioreg -ls -w 0'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.096 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'backupd'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.103 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'mtmd'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.104 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'mtmfs'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.105 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'mds'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.111 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'Locum'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.112 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'diskimages-helper'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.113 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'newfs_hfs'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.114 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'NetAuthSysAgent'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.115 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'Finder'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.116 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'Locum'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.117 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'System Preferences'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.126 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'SystemUIServer'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.127 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'iPhoto'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.128 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'MailTimeMachineHelper'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.129 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering system diagnostic logs for 'Address Book'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.130 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'Finder'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.294 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'Locum'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.318 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'System Preferences'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.343 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'SystemUIServer'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.366 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'iPhoto'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.391 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'MailTimeMachineHelper'...
2013-11-09 09:28:56.416 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering recent user diagnostic logs for 'Address Book'...
2013-11-09 09:28:58.687 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/usr/sbin/system_profiler -xml SPParallelATADataType SPAirPortDataType SPBluetoothDataType SPDiagnosticsDataType SPEthernetDataType SPFibreChannelDataType SPFireWireDataType SPFirewallDataType SPHardwareDataType SPHardwareRAIDDataType SPNetworkLocationDataType SPManagedClientDataType SPMemoryDataType SPNetworkDataType SPPowerDataType SPSerialATADataType SPSoftwareDataType SPUSBDataType'...
2013-11-09 09:29:14.646 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Gathering host information...
2013-11-09 09:29:14.649 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Getting Time Machine configuration...
2013-11-09 09:29:14.984 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/bin/bash -c /bin/launchctl list | /usr/bin/grep -e 'PID' -e 'com.apple.mtm' -e 'com.apple.backup' -e 'com.apple.TMLaunchAgent''...
2013-11-09 09:29:15.052 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Making backup disk available...
2013-11-09 09:29:15.086 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Building classic Time Machine snapshot skeletons...
2013-11-09 09:29:16.675 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/bin/ls -lde /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_repair'...
2013-11-09 09:29:16.741 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/usr/bin/xattr -l /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_repair'...
2013-11-09 09:29:17.523 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/bin/ls -lde /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_temp'...
2013-11-09 09:29:17.589 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/usr/bin/xattr -l /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_temp'...
013-11-09 09:29:17.788 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/bin/ls -l /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_repair'...
2013-11-09 09:29:18.614 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Executing '/bin/ls -l /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.spotlight_temp'...
2013-11-09 09:29:19.392 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Building Mobile Time Machine overlay snapshot skeletons...
2013-11-09 09:29:19.393 tmdiagnose[864:4303] Building Mobile Time Machine delta store snapshot skeletons...
2013-11-09 09:29:19.505 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Gathering information about reachable AirPort devices...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.509 tmdiagnose[864:2303] unable to locate any Bonjour services within 30 seconds
2013-11-09 09:29:49.540 tmdiagnose[864:2303] Executing '/usr/bin/mddiagnose -h'...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.708 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/sw_vers'...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.776 mddiagnose[974:707] Getting system version...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.778 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/arch'...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.865 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/what /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Versions/A/Support/mds'...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.866 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/what /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework /Versions/A/Metadata'...
2013-11-09 09:29:49.867 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/top -l 2 -s 2'...
2013-11-09 09:29:54.050 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/bin/df -H'...
2013-11-09 09:29:54.117 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/bin/ls -la /Volumes/'...
2013-11-09 09:29:54.184 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/sbin/mount'...
2013-11-09 09:29:54.251 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/vmmap -resident -w mds'...
2013-11-09 09:29:54.761 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/heap mds'...
2013-11-09 09:29:55.018 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/local/bin/ddt mds'...
2013-11-09 09:29:55.166 mddiagnose[974:707] Sampling 'mds'...
2013-11-09 09:30:01.114 mddiagnose[974:707] Spindumping 'mds'...
2013-11-09 09:30:08.686 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:08.753 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/TimeMachine/Backups.backupdb/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:08.823 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:08.890 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:08.958 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/TimeMachine/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.311 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/TimeMachine/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.570 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Video/.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.637 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Video/.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.705 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/IPOD/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.772 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/IPOD/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.841 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Video/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:23.971 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Video/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:24.041 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Audio/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:24.297 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Audio/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'..
2013-11-09 09:30:24.816 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Photo/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:24.946 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Photo/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:25.077 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find //.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:25.207 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find //.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:35.454 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Audio/Backups.backupdb/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:35.520 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Audio/Backups.backupdb/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:35.587 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Photo/.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 ( -type d -and ( ! -name Cache -or -prune ) ) ! -name Cache -exec echo ; -print -execdir ls -l {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:35.654 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes/Photo/.MobileBackups/.Spotlight-V100 -name *.plist -exec echo ; -print -exec echo ; -exec /bin/cat {} ;'...
2013-11-09 09:30:35.951 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find / -name .metadata_never_index -maxdepth 1'...
2013-11-09 09:30:36.018 mddiagnose[974:707] Executing '/usr/bin/find /Volumes -name .metadata_never_index -maxdepth 2'...
2013-11-09 09:30:36.590 mddiagnose[974:707] Getting crash logs for 'mds'...
2013-11-09 09:30:36.651 mddiagnose[974:707] Getting crash logs for 'mdworker'...
2013-11-09 09:30:36.652 mddiagnose[974:707] Getting crash logs for 'Spotlight'...

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.

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).

Why is my Time Machine backup so much larger than the files being backed up?

Mac Mini Server 10.7.1 on a 2011 Mac Mini Server
Here are the drives on my system:
Here are the items excluded from backup:
Note that Server HD and Archive are the only non-excluded disks and the estimated backup size is 563.2 GB (this corresponds with the actual usage on those drives.
However, when I run time machine, it keeps going until by 2TB backup drive is nearly full! And that's with only a single backup instance and nothing else on the drive:
What's going on here??? If I don't backup the other external drive, the backup size doesn't blow up like this.

Just to clarify, the reason why Time Machine backups are generally small is that TM makes extensive use of hard links. symbolic links are small files that point to a different file system entry, while hard links point directly to the original file data on disk (hard links are unintuitive - they are like having multiple doors into a room, except that you can place the doors anywhere you like and still get to the room). So even though there may be dozens of backups of a disk, most of the backed-up items will only have one data source on disk, with only items that have changed needing new representations.
I suspect that when you try to backup a time machine backup, it is converting the hard links into separate on-disk representations - basically taking every pointer to a given piece of on-disk data and creating a new file from it. I'm not sure if that would be a linear or geometric size increase (it sounds like the latter), but either way it's going to get ugly fairly fast.

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.

Why is my Time Machine Backup Taking More Space then my Hard Drive?

I have a Late-2009 MacBook model with a 250GB hard drive. My external drive is 1TB. I use it for Time Machine backups as well as other storage. My backups on that drive are a bit less then 900GB, which is 90% of that disk. My hard drive is only 250GB so how is it over 3 times as large? I would like to have more storage for other files. What would you recomend doing? Can I partition the external disk?

How time machine works is that it makes an initial back up and from there it scans your system for changes. When it finds a change it adds the changes on top of your current backup. So if you have a folder full of pictures then rename them or change them, etc it'll resave/archive the pictures ontop of what it already backed up. It doesn't keep a single "state" of backup. This allows you to "look back in time" and see if you can find something you might have accidentally changed or deleted or etc. Once the disk becomes full it will delete the oldest backups to keep archiving newer files.
I would suggest that you partition your external drive to a size that allows you to keep free the desired extra storage space you're looking to use. For example partition the drive to two 500GB partitions one for storage one for time machine.

Why is my time machine backup to large to install from?

I'm trying to setup my new MacBook from a time machine backup of my old IMac. My backup file is 250gb and there is over 400gb of space on the hard drive but it keeps coming up with a message saying there is not enough space to do the install.
I've had to leave my IMac at home interstate and need my iBook setup the same - unfortunately doing another backup with only the essential files and configurations is not an option. The situation seems strange though - is there another way?

lplex wrote:
I need help with TM, too, as it tries to do a full backup after I restored my Macintosh HD from TM as suggested by Disk Utility.
If you're on Snow Leopard or Lion, and did a full system restore by starting from the Recovery HD (Lion) or your Install disc (Snow Leopard), Time Machine should have figured it out and done an incremental backup.
If it didn't, and you're on Lion, and your backups are on a local disk (ie, not on a network), you may be able to tell TM to "associate" the restored disk with the backups manually, per #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. That usually works, but not always.
If you're not on Lion, or your backups are on a network, there's no way to force it.
Message was edited by: Pondini -- omitted the link!

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 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 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 *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.

Why is Entering Time Machine Backup SO SLOW ???

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