Time Machine Backup Takes Hours to complete (Why?)

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Level 1

17 points

Time Machine Backup Takes Hours to complete (Why?)

I have a MacBook Air, running MacOS Sonoma 14.4.1. I have automatic updates turned on. I also have a Western Digital external spinning hard drive, 5 years old, that has about 3 Terabytes of data, partitioned into a Time Machine partition and a separate storage partition. The data on my Mac is encrypted.

The problem is that, my while my time machine does a backup about every 3 hours, each backup takes hours to complete. It is normal for my Time Machine setting to tell me that the backup is 97.8% complete, and with only 4 minutes remaining, but for this same Time Machine window to display this same information for over an hour. I know that my hard disk is working, as I can hear and feel it vibrating. But, the backup simply won't finish. Because of this, I normally can only backup overnight, or, if I backup during the day, I have to end the backup before it is finished, as I need to bring my laptop with me.

Can anyone tell me what might be happening with this? Could it be that my initial encryption of my data is causing Time Machine to take much longer than normal?

Regards,

MacBook Air (M1, 2020)

Posted on May 11, 2024 2:00 AM

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Answer 1

May 11, 2024 2:49 AM in response to LusoCan

There are a few reasons why your Time Machine backups might be taking hours to complete, even though they appear stuck at the end. Here are some possibilities:

Large, Frequently Updated Files: Large files that change often can slow down Time Machine significantly.These could be video editing projects, photo libraries, or virtual machines. Check your Mac's storage for these types of files and consider excluding them from Time Machine if possible.
External Drive Speed and Connection: A 5-year-old spinning hard drive might be slower than ideal, especially if it's connected with a USB 2.0 connection. Upgrading to a newer external drive with a USB 3.0 connection could significantly improve speed.
Disk Activity from Other Applications: Antivirus or other background apps that constantly access the drive can slow down Time Machine. Try temporarily disabling them while your backup runs.
Initial Backup vs Subsequent Backups: The first Time Machine backup of your entire Mac, especially with encryption enabled, will take much longer than subsequent backups that only copy changed files.

Here are some things you can try to troubleshoot the slow backups:

Wait it Out: While it's frustrating to see the progress bar stuck, sometimes Time Machine just needs more time to finish those final steps, especially for the first backup. Give it a chance to complete overnight if possible.
Review Time Machine Exclusions: Identify and exclude any large, frequently updated files that don't need to be backed up every time.
Optimize Your Backup Drive: Verify the health of your external drive using Disk Utility. Consider formatting it specifically for Time Machine with APFS for potential performance gains.
Upgrade External Drive: If your current drive is old or slow, consider upgrading to a newer, faster external drive with a USB 3.0 connection. Solid State Drives (SSDs) offer the best performance but may be more expensive.

If none of these solutions work, it's possible there's a deeper issue with your Time Machine software or the external drive itself. In that case, consider resetting Time Machine preferences or contacting Apple Support for further assistance.

All that said, Note that if you need to unplug the drive to move the Mac, Time Machine does not forget the backed-up files. When you plug it back elsewhere, it should take only a few minutes to get back to where it left off.

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Answer 2

LusoCan Author

Level 1

17 points

May 20, 2024 6:35 AM in response to The_Knowledge_Seeker

Thank you so much for your reply. In relation to what you said: I don't have large files that I work on regularly. I mainly add wordprocessing files. I don't think I have any antivirus software. I have Forticlient, but I don't think that the antivirus part of this software is running, I only use it when I turn on the VPN. Also, I'm now at the point where I've made the initial backups and I'm only making backups once a day. I have turned on the manual backup option, so that my backups are not constantly running. My external disk is connected through a USB connection that may be slowing down the data transfer. My external disk uses a USB plug to a Satechi connector, but I'm not sure what generation of USB port I'm using. It's probably only 2 or 3. I only know that, yesterday, I put my disk to back up, at 11:30am and the backup only finished at 5:00pm. This means that it took about 6 hours to complete. I only had about a week's worth of wordprocessing that was added to my Mac's hard disk. So, it shouldn't have taken this long.

Best regards,

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