iPad Backup Issues

The BackOff program worked great for me.

I was having a similar problem with my iPod Touch, and was canceling the backup so I could sync (when the backup starts, there is a circle with an x in it in the iTunes window to cancel the backup). I had read in a post here some time ago that turning off the iPod before syncing would fix the problem. So now I turn the iPod off before syncing and don't run any apps in between turning it back on and syncing it. No more problems with backup or syncs. I'm guessing that the problem isn't apps that take up a lot of room, but a hung app that didn't close completely/cleanly. I'm especially careful to do this before upgrading the iPod since I believe that this might be why many people have problems when upgrading their iPod Touches. (In case you don't know how to turn the iPad/iPod off: Press and hold the sleep/power switch until a slider with a red button appears (it says "slide to power off), and slide the slider. I really hope this helps.

My problem is not speed (low but acceptable) but space. The Backup is created in my C:\Documents and Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync where I don't have enough space. How to get the backup on a different disk? I am trying to update the OS on my iPAD.

To change the backup location you can do so in the iTunes Edit Preferences as described in this Apple document:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751

Thanks, but when I upgrade this is not going to work I guess. Will have to use the trick reommended.

The fact that Apple does not even weigh in on this issue, and it clearly is an issue, seems to me to be consistent with Apple's apparent policy to try to ignore problems and quietly fix them in future releases. This is very upsetting.

I am having the same problem. I have about 7GB used on my iPad. My iMac has USB 2.0 ports which should be capable of a transfer rate of about 30-40Mb per second. So, uploading an exact image of my iPad should be theoretically done in under 4 minutes at a 30Mb rate. If you have a very old system with USB 1.1 it could take up to 40 times as long but I doubt many people have that.

I just upgraded my ipad to 4.2.1. I got good news, my backup used to take 24+ hours to finish now only took about 3 mins. I checked the backup files and Apple now used the iphone type to do the backup, not the other mdinfo type. So Apple did realize they did something wrong and correct it.

northernclimate wrote:
To change the backup location you can do so in the iTunes Edit Preferences as described in this Apple document:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1751

That is where the iTunes library is stored. The backup isn't stored in the iTunes library. Changing the location of the iTunes library isn't going to make the backup any faster.

Here is everything you what to know about the iPad's backup and where it is store.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079
As you can see, you can't move the iPad's backup to another location.

The reference to http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4079 by Mr. Brewer sounds great. However, I believe the referenced article has not been updated for iTunes 10. It specifically references iTunes 9 and related apps.

I suspect iTunes10 has tweaked the backup and syncing functions but will continue to seek apple support help to determine this. The referenced file path in the for-mentioned article (Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/) doesn't exist on my machine. Using Spotlight to find anything "Backup" on my machine also resulted in a dead end.

On a positive note, the previous posting referencing the app "BackOff" (which is free BTW) worked for me. I also had to reboot my ipad to get it to perform a manual backup which it completed today (first time in several weeks). This was confirmed by the indication in the iTunes>Preferences>Devices window.

My guess is that the backup is filed in some obscure binary system folder. Has anyone else located it?

Just checked this again and found that the file path referenced starts from the user so the full path to correctly locate the Backup directory is: [HD]/Users/ username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup

There are a number of interesting files within each backup folder found at this location, most of which are binary.

So please disregard my previous posting on this topic.

Um... The tilde (~) in the path indicates that it starts in your user folder. i.e. +~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup+ and +HD/Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup+ are the same folder.

I should have indecated that I did check the location of the backup folder for iTunes 10 to make sure my statement was correct. I was curious...

I also have a space problem because I have a 32GB SSD as my C: on Windows 7. However, I've worked around it by creating a symbolic link under the MobileSync folder to another folder on a conventional HDD. I think this would work for Vista too, but it won't work for Windows XP as there's no built-in symbolic link creator, called mklink.

1. Create a folder where you'd like your backups would be stored. For me, this was D:\Misc\iPad-backup\.

2. Move all the contents of C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\ to D:\Misc\iPad-backup\.

3. Open up a command prompt with administrator privileges. Navigate to the MobileSync folder (Tab is your friend!) and type the following:

C> rd Backup
C> mklink /d Backup "D:\Misc\iPad-backup\"

This deletes the Backup directory and creates a symbolically linked folder in its place (hence the /d option). iTunes will think the Backup directory still exists and will write the backups there, and the files will be stored in that other folder to which the symbolic link points.

This probably won't work too well with removable media since their drive names can change, but I guess that's another workaround. Hope this helps someone!