archive slow and hangs

Question

archive slow and hangs

I have a 1TB TC and a 1TB WD USB drive.

A couple of months ago I ran a TC archive to the WD. It took a while (about 600GB of stuff). As I recall it was pretty much over night.

I wanted to archive the TC again so I deleted all the stuff on the WD - that took awhile. Not working with USB drives I was surprised I could not see the USB drive with Disk Utility. But eventually everything went in the trash and was deleted.

I tried to archive again the TC to the USB attached WD and it starts off fine. However after about 12 hours I am only at 95GB out of 562GB and it looks hung. This is the second time this happened. In two days - yesterday pretty much the same thing - i.e. hung about 25%of the way through.

When I launched Archive the second time I was extremely careful to look at all indicators to see that the WD was empty.

What causes Archive to hang? What transfer rate seems logical?

iBook G4 & MacBook & MacAir, iBooks on 10.3.9 -- MacBook on 10.4.x -- MacAir 10.5.x

Posted on Mar 24, 2010 5:14 AM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 8:52 AM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
I have a 1TB TC and a 1TB WD USB drive.

A couple of months ago I ran a TC archive to the WD. It took a while (about 600GB of stuff). As I recall it was pretty much over night.

I wanted to archive the TC again so I deleted all the stuff on the WD - that took awhile. Not working with USB drives I was surprised I could not see the USB drive with Disk Utility. But eventually everything went in the trash and was deleted.

It's much faster to connect the drive to your Mac and use Disk Utility to Erase it.

What causes Archive to hang? What transfer rate seems logical?

It will be very slow under the best of circumstances. The data has to go from the TC's disk to your Mac, then +*back through the TC+* to the USB drive. So connect via Ethernet if at all possible.

If there are directory problem on the TC's internal disk, it can be difficult or impossible to copy it. If you have Time Machine backups on the TC, do a +*Repair Disk+* on the sparse bundle, per #A5 in the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum.

Depending on what sort of data you have on the TC, you might want to explore alternatives.

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Answer 2

Mar 24, 2010 9:10 AM in response to Pondini

"The data has to go from the TC's disk to your Mac, then back through the TC to the USB drive. "

Are you sure about this? I don't think so. The data moves way, way too fast for that. I get the first n GB very, very fast. At least as fast as a USB connected to the the iMac directly and WiFi and direct connections are similar. In fact Archive blazes until it hangs. I did the first Archive with a MacBookAir WiFi-ed to the TC. In fact that is why I researched and found Archive to bypass the back and forth. It would make sense to have Archive firmware in the TC to Archive without dragging the data all over the network. Makes no sense other wise.

Yeah, and Repair Disk on a sparsebundle seems off the mark also - on this symptom. The sparsebundle transfers as a file. Kind of like a .dmg will move as file even if it is internally corrupt. It is possible the file system on the TC is messed up but not sure how to mount it in order to run DU on it. I can pretty much drag the files around from device to device w/o a problem but that does not take advantage of the d-d speed of Archive.

Anybody else got an idea?

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Answer 3

Mar 24, 2010 9:36 AM in response to Pondini

http://mac.finerthingsin.com/2010/02/08/time-capsule-can-archive-to-an-external- drive/

"Fortunately, the Time Capsule handles the archive all on its own; after starting it from the Airport Utility on your Mac, you can sleep, restart, or shutdown whenever you want. "

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Answer 4

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 9:59 AM in response to Rob Tholemeier

That's interesting. Many folks do complain about how long it takes to archive their TM backups that way.

I had both Apple and one of the "civilian" TC experts in the forums help me draft the Using TIME MACHINE with a TIME CAPSULE *User Tip.* And the Apple fellow helped me word that very part of the green box in #Q6 there.

Since that FinerThings article is very recent, I wonder if perhaps the function has been moved.

And I notice that Apple's http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1281 has been updated recently, too. I don't think the earlier version mentioned that you can quit AirPort Utility while the archive is running.

Have you confirmed that you can sleep or restart your Mac while an Archive is running? Any idea whether it's the same for Leopard and/or various versions of Airport Utility?

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Answer 5

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 10:03 AM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
. . .
Yeah, and Repair Disk on a sparsebundle seems off the mark also - on this symptom. The sparsebundle transfers as a file. Kind of like a .dmg will move as file even if it is internally corrupt.

We've seen threads where folks were having trouble copying TM backups in sparse bundles; doing a +*Repair Disk+* solved it (when DU was able to repair them).

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Answer 6

Mar 24, 2010 10:18 AM in response to Pondini

I know for sure that on my WiFi only MacAir the transfer was massively too fast for going from the TC to the Air and back to the TC USB connected drive. There is no way that data is going back and forth. This was back around the first of the year. It was much, much faster than even dragging a big file from the TC to the Air. Much. Plus I know these TCs are engineering disasters in several ways but it would be so easy to have a firmware process that did a global USB to USB transfers.

I'll fire off the archive again and see if I can close APU.

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Answer 7

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 10:29 AM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
. . .
I'll fire off the archive again and see if I can close APU.

Try Mac Sleep and/or a Restart, too. (If Airport doesn't do the copy itself, but starts a process on the Mac that's doing it, being able to close Airport Utility once it gets started won't tell us much).

Thanks.

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Answer 8

Mar 24, 2010 11:24 AM in response to Pondini

No issue
Time to update your note
can you not test also

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Answer 9

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 11:34 AM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
No issue

Huh? What does that mean?

Time to update your note
can you not test also

No, I don't have a Time Capsule -- Airport Utility with an Airport Extreme is similar, but has no Archive facility. That's why I consulted with a very experienced user who has one, and Apple.

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Answer 10

Mar 24, 2010 11:36 AM in response to Pondini

If you think about it d d is the only thing that makes sense.
running all this data through the computer would be nuts.
just shutting down the machine actually does not disprove d d.
think about it.

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Answer 11

Mar 24, 2010 11:42 AM in response to Pondini

It means you were misled
recommend you do your own testing
if you did you would have seen xfer rates do not match your note

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Answer 12

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 12:01 PM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
If you think about it d d is the only thing that makes sense.

What is "d d"?

running all this data through the computer would be nuts.

Doesn't mean that's not how Apple does it (or did it).

just shutting down the machine actually does not disprove d d.

So did you either sleep or restart while an Archive was running, without killing it?

If so, you're on Leopard, right? What version of Airport Utility?

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Answer 13

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Mar 24, 2010 12:02 PM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Rob Tholemeier wrote:
It means you were misled
recommend you do your own testing

I'd love to . . . if I had a Time Capsule! Want to lend yours?

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Answer 14

Mar 24, 2010 3:06 PM in response to Pondini

d d = direct disk to disk.

You did not read a thing I wrote. Yes, I shut down the Mac but that does not tell you anything.

The transfer could be direct disk to disk block mode and the controlling program on the TC could do a heart beat to the machine that launched it. The best measure is transfer speed. 600GB in afew hours is not running the data over WiFi and back. THINK.

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Answer 15

Mar 24, 2010 3:08 PM in response to Rob Tholemeier

Bottom line: you need to update your note!!!!!!
It has at least one error. May I suggest your borrow a TC and check it out.

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