Philippe Mingasson

Q: Time Machine extremely slow on Mavericks ?

Hi all !

I've installed Mavericks this morning on my Retina MacBook Pro.

Time machine seem to be SLoooooowwww !

When I clic "start backup", it takes forever to "prepare the backup" and then I when it finally starts to send the data over ethernet (via a thunderbolt adapter), it just doesn't get there. After half an hour, I got something like a few Mb transferered.

Anyone's got the same issue ?

 

Best regards,

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 10:27 AM

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Q: Time Machine extremely slow on Mavericks ?

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  • by Ronald_Paris,

    Ronald_Paris Ronald_Paris Sep 23, 2014 3:49 PM in response to Philippe Mingasson
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    Sep 23, 2014 3:49 PM in response to Philippe Mingasson

    Do no if it can help but I had exactly the same issue.

    Time Machine is connected to a an external HD from Western Digital (My PassPort 1 To, 2,5 inch). On this HD, I have done 2 partition. One 850 Go for time machine formatted with the Apple format (Mac OS extended) and the other 150 Go in ExFAT used as a huge USB Key.

     

    All was perfect with the previous OS and becomes a nightmare with Maverick. The solution which is not perfect but allow to run Time Machine is to eject the partition in ExFAT to have only the partition needed for Time Machine connected. Once it's done, the flow becomes normal quite fast and never blocked.

     

    Hope it can help! Apple should move ahead to solve this so annoying issue. We are paying a fortune our devices, it's to avoid to face those bloody issues copy/paste from the PC wold.

     

    Ron

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 5:12 PM in response to Philippe Mingasson
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 17, 2014 5:12 PM in response to Philippe Mingasson

    Sign me up, too. A fresh installation of Mavericks (long story) and my first backup on a freshly erased Toshiba HD, formatted Mac Journaled with GUID interface.  Been going for hours and it shows 146.6 mb of 400 gigs backed up. I don't have anywhere near 400 gigs of data, so there's THAT, but even if I have only 200 gigs, isn't it going to be thousands of hours at this speed?

     

    OK, checking just how slow this is, it's taking about 10 seconds to back up one-TENTH of a MEGAbyte.

     

    Serious problem ...

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 5:15 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 5:15 PM in response to SCLerer

    What is the connection between the Toshiba HD and the Mac?

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 5:38 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Oct 17, 2014 5:38 PM in response to Loner T

    USB.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 5:47 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 5:47 PM in response to SCLerer

    1. The first backup typically estimates 1.5 times used disk space.

    2. If the source has a large number of very small files, it can be slow. 

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 6:02 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Oct 17, 2014 6:02 PM in response to Loner T

    All this is moot, because it gave me an error about "disconnecting" the drive, even though it has not at all been disconnected.

     

    Oops! Despite error message, it still seems to be backing-up. Now at having backed-up 170.2 megabytes of 399.79 gigabytes.

     

    That said, 10 seconds per 1/10 of a MEGAbyte is slower than dialup.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 6:03 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 6:03 PM in response to SCLerer

    What type of enclosure do you have for the Toshiba?

     

    Have you used it before as a backup destination? If yes, was the speed the same as it is now?

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 6:18 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Oct 17, 2014 6:18 PM in response to Loner T

    I have not used the Toshiba before. I bought it because it was such a good deal, but the guy who tried to downgrade from Mavericks (not at all successful) and then re-installed it after the downgrade failed did a Time Machine backup onto an Armor SP. After I managed to retrieve my mail, contacts, bookmarks, music, photos, etc. from a the pre-downgrade Time Machine backup on a WD MyPassport (not by restoring but by copying files within backups), the Armor "prepared for backup" forever. So then I formatted the Toshiba Mac journaled with GUID and tried to use it for Time Machine.

     

    At least it finished "prepare for backup," so I'm grateful for that.

     

    As you can probably tell, I'm not a sophisticated user at ALL, but I will say that he told me that that the original downgrade failed, in part, because the WD MyPassport put some kind of encryption on the files, and he told me that carried onto the files themselves on the backup drive.

     

    So could that be part of the problem?

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 6:29 PM in response to SCLerer
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    Oct 17, 2014 6:29 PM in response to SCLerer

    Sorry, about not completely answering your question.  I don't understand what you mean by "enclosure." It's a little pocket HD.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 6:46 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 6:46 PM in response to SCLerer

    Just wanted to make sure this not a bare HDD that you put into a disk enclosure for backup purposes, because sometimes the "chipsets" used in such enclosures can be sub-par for performance.

     

    If you look at About This Mac -> More Info -> System Report -> USB, does this show up as a USB3 (5 Gbps) or USB2 (480Mbps) connection? USB Superspeed is USB3, USB High-speed is USB2.

     

    Are you using any encryption for your backup drive?

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 6:50 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
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    Oct 17, 2014 6:50 PM in response to Loner T

    USB 2.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 7:28 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 7:28 PM in response to SCLerer

    1. Do you have another Time Machine destination configured for this Mac? If yes, does it also use USB and does that exhibit the same behavior if used.

    2. This is a risky suggestion causing you to lose time, but if you are willing then cancel the backup (this may take a long time). Remove some large folders that you are aware of like Documents which change a lot from your TM backup. Test a backup of say just Applications.

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 7:47 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 17, 2014 7:47 PM in response to Loner T

    My last response is not showing up for some reason.

     

    I recently had a friend try to help me downgrade from Mavericks (for various reasons). I had a Time Machine backup on a WD MyPassport, but I didn't know what I had and he didn't look into it in detail. Seems the WD had encrypted the files and for other reasons concerning, I think, that my original Mac has me as just one of several users and I'd just been backing up me as a user, the OS files were not backed up and trying to restore from that Time Machine essentially blew out the OS (as I understand his explanations). For some reason, probably my mistake, it has also been formated as case sensitive.

     

    He could not downgrade the computer but after much work, he did manage to install Mavericks anew. He backed up his installation on an Armor drive.

     

    Although he said he had saved my "Backup Data" I did not have much of it, including bookmarks, contacts, etc. So I copied those (did not restore them) from the WD Drive. Then I tried using the Armor to do a Time Machine backup. It never got out of the "preparing for backup" stage.

     

    I had a third hard drive, the Toshiba, on hand, so I erased/formatted it as Mac journaled, with one GUID partition, and started up this iteration of a Time Machine Backup. Preparing went OK, but the backing up has been unbelievably slow. As I watch it just now, it takes about 5 seconds to back up one tenth of a megabyte.

     

    So, at this point, I think I'm stuck doing an "initial" backup. The WD Passport has some kind of funny formatting and encryption, and the Armor can't get out of preparing.  Although, all things considered, why NOT us the WD to make a backup of it now? The only reason I hesitate is that he said something like the security/encryption is applied to and follows the files after they get back to Mac.

     

    I'm certainly willing to stop the backup and see what's on the Armor and maybe erase it and start over with it with just the Applications folder.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Oct 17, 2014 8:14 PM in response to SCLerer
    Level 7 (24,800 points)
    Safari
    Oct 17, 2014 8:14 PM in response to SCLerer

    1. If you are using a Time Machine backup, it backs up volumes and partitions, not specific users, unless such exclusions are explicitly placed in TM Options.

     

    2. WD has client software that does try to mimic TM, but if encryption is enabled, the same utility from WD should be allowed and used to restore files. WD utility may have additional features like per user backups, which TM does not explicitly have. I would not touch the WD backup, because it is the only one that has the potential of a clean restore using what WD provides. I will research the WD software, because I do not use it and am a bit circumspect about TP software in general.

     

    3. It is likely that the prepare phase on WD was doing a "full" rather than an incremental backup because it lost context when OS was reinstalled. The WD should maintain a synced catalog on both the internal and external drive, but software short cuts undermine such applications. It may also be doing encryption-during-backup, which will slow it down further, but that is research I need to do. If you have WD documentation check if it uses per file encryption or a higher granularity of encryption like partition level or disk level. It may be possible to unencrypted it, as necessary, later.

     

    4. Since the Toshiba was erased (and is unlikely to be used to try and accomplish a "forensic" recovery), I suggest using the Toshiba as a "play" drive, not the WD.

     

    5. I would recommend testing a small backup on the Toshiba. If you have another Mac, it may be worth it to test a small backup on the second mac/Toshiba to ensure that the Toshiba is not failing. Since you mention a good deal, I assume it is a "new" unused drive which no one else had hammered into submission.

  • by SCLerer,

    SCLerer SCLerer Oct 17, 2014 8:22 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Desktops
    Oct 17, 2014 8:22 PM in response to Loner T

    OK. I'm going to stop this backup and see what shows up on the Armor, which my friend said a backup he did after her reinstalled Mavericks. Both the Armor and the Toshiba were new before all this started. Then I will try a small backup on the Toshiba and see what happens.

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