Why, Why, Why does backup and restore take so long?

Here is my personal experience. I recently switched from an older net gear router (g,b) to an Airport Extreme. The back ups while with my net gear took painfully long. Cant say exactly how long, but longer than I was used to with the iPhone. I figured it was bcz the ipad was larger and just accepted it. Well since switching to the Airport Extreme the back ups are a lot faster. This is with the same amount of content as before.

iPhoNettie

I am having exact same problem. I have synced mine several times and for some reason tonight, it is stuck on back up at 5 % for over 2 hrs now. It is not frozen, just very slow!!!! I guess I should just call Apple support in the a.m. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

Same problem with extremely slow backup - takes hours. Been an issue since I got my 64GB WiFi on release day. Also have same issue with my iPhone.

The slow part is the "Backing up XXX's iPad" (or iPhone). Clicking the little "x" will cancel the backup portion and move on to the sync which completes pretty quickly. The whole problem is with the "Backing up ....".

I am syncing to my work laptop, a fairly recent model Dell (about 1 1/2 years old) with XP pro).

This is some kind of bug with backup routine, maybe partiuclar to some certain app or combination of apps....

For what it is worth, I am having the same problem with my new iPad. I have 51 apps installed, no photos yet, no video. I selected some photos and a couple more apps and tried to sync it. 24-hours later it is not done. I started over, thinking something was wrong, and here I am another 2 hours into the same process. Oddly enough, this once took only a short period of time, one of the first couple times I tried this. I wish I knew what the difference was.

I tried turning off the backup process but that didn't work. I am sad because this takes my iPad "offline" for long periods and is very frustrating. How can it be like this?

Thank you in advance for any insights you can offer.

I know this may not be the total answer for you, but please be sure that you are using the iPad connector & NOT your old iPhone connector. I was just using the same connector for both and realized that the iPad was taking forever to sync. When I changed it to the iPad connector, it worked much better.

Here is how I fixed my probelm...

Thanks to jghu, who got me thinking alone different "lines."

I was using the correct cord for my iPad (we don't have iPhones). However, his advice made me look at the basics. I had been trying to sync by docking my iPad to the keyboard. I removed it and tried to do the same via the extra stand I ordered. Same problem. Finally, I just connected it directly. What took 24-hours to do just took place in about 60 seconds.

If you have not already done so, *try hooking your iPad up to the computer directly* - No base, no chargers.

How do you like airport extreme? I have a netgear now but I am thinking of changing to the AE. I am a windows person though, so I am not sure how it will integrate for me but according to the information I've read on it, its compatible.

Great to see it is working - hope everybody reads this post!!

I hook my iPad up directly to the computer (no dock) with the iPad cable. It always takes a long time to backup and I let it go overnight because of this. Really unfortunate. As I said in an earlier post, this is a brand new computer I built only a few months ago and I use the same USB port to transfer files to/from an external WD Passport drive and the speed is fine with that.

Hi there, KVB71, I'm a windows person too and the integration went ok. No issues except fixing the IP address that was automatically assigned. I called Apple and they took care of it for me. I do like it much better than the net gear I had. With the net gear every time I "woke" my iPad up it took a little time to reconnect, but with the the AE the reconnection is immediate. It seems a little faster too. I was due for a new router and I'm glad I went with the AE.

I think you'll be happy with it.

iPhoNettie

Thanks. I'm not all that techie but if apple support is helpful then it should make it a good transition.

Yes, they were very helpful. When I bought the AE, the Apple salesperson it was very easy to set up-it took u thru the installation step by step, but for me it wasn't as simple bcz although it gave me the error that the ip address was invalid but I'm not tech savvy enough to have known how to make it work so rather than beat my head against the wall I called apple and the tech took me thru it step by step. So if u get it you will be good to go either way.

There sure are a lot of us for a previous poster to say this is not an issue.
My iPad backup takes forever. I use the cord that came with it and I plug it directly into the computer. I don't have any comic books or goodreader or videos. It was almost dead and I figured it would be the next morning but it completely charged and backed up after about 8 hours.

I sure hope Apple does something about this---that's a little crazy.

I am having the same problem good pc set up (6gb ram, quad processor, 64bit operating system), but to back up so far 9gb of data on the ipad - took 5 hours!!! initally (the jpy por getting the ipad was so replaced with sheer frustration of not being able to try it out) and then today it has now been backing up for 3hrs 45mins so far.

9gbs....... total madness. As this is a very common problem it seems after searching google.

Cancelling back up means it syncs super fast - it is the backup which is causing the problems.

I can normally back up 250gb+ in less than a hour (which I do every night) onto an external hard drive.

Turn off backup completely. Restoring a backup is like doing an oil change then using the same oil again. Also it is for the lazy.

Download Backup Disabler (Google it) and you will not have this problem.