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Level 2

176 points

How long should an iPhone 3G back up take?

Most of the time I just cancel the backup because it takes so dang long. We're talking over an hour here.

I have a 16Gb 3G which contains the following:

7.6Gb Audio
3.22Gb Video
991Mb Photos
668Mb Other
2.1Gb Free Space

Should a backup take that long? Should iTunes backup every sync?

Also, updates to applications take forever to apply. Is this normal?

Thanks

iMac Core 2 Duo, G5 2Ghz iMac, G4/533 upgraded to 1.33GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.4), iPhone 3G, 1st Gen iPhone

Posted on Jul 27, 2008 9:35 AM

Best reply

Allan Sampson

Level 10

123,677 points

Posted on Jul 27, 2008 10:17 AM

Your "Other" is high.

The backup stores all data not included with the sync process such as iPhone settings, SMS messages, notes, recent calls, call favorites, photos captured by your iPhone, 3rd party applications, and any data created and stored by 3rd party applications.

It should not take over an hour, not even close.

I suggest trying a Restore with iTunes.

View in context

21 replies

Aug 14, 2008 2:15 PM in response to Jailer Joe

exactly "*** is it doing? and why isn't there an official explanation and fix from apple ? Are they crazy ? They must know that most back-ups are taking way to long and people wont/can't put up with it .

Jailer Joe Author

Level 2

176 points

Aug 14, 2008 2:35 PM in response to barefoot2

Funny you should ask. I literally just got off the phone with Apple Support (any kind of phone support is a last resort for me, even Apple). They suggested to turn off automatic backups. Brilliant.

FYI, I reset my iPhone to factory specs and rebuilt it from the ground up 3 more times to try and pin point the problem app(s). Everything goes well until I start using apps that actually store data (FileMagnet, CarCare, iXpenseit, etc.). Once I start entering data into an app the backups go from 5-10 minutes to and hour, two, three or more. I'm not even entering large amounts of data either. Just a couple of entries in the aforementioned apps and BAM! slooowwwwwwwwww backups.

Guess I'm stuck with this problem. Clearly not every 3G owner has these issues. I'm lucky I guess.

Aug 14, 2008 4:26 PM in response to barefoot2

With 20 added apps my backup takes about 1 minute.

Aug 14, 2008 4:30 PM in response to Jailer Joe

The problem then is the apps, not the phone. The phone appears to make incremental backups, only backing up data that has changed. It gets this information from the app. So some apps are probably saying that all of the app's data have changed when you run that app.

Aug 14, 2008 9:42 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

i looked in my settings on my 3g and on the front page , if you scroll down past wallpaper , general , mail etc. I found tons of preference settings for a dozen apps ! I turned them all off and reset . I'll let you know what happens .

Jailer Joe Author

Level 2

176 points

Aug 22, 2008 7:25 PM in response to Jailer Joe

I'm happy to say that the 2.0.2 update really helped my backup times. Instead of 4-5+ hour backups I'm now down to about a half hour. I can live with that considering all the apps I have installed.

How long should an iPhone 3G back up take?