My Time Machine backups takes endless

Question

Level 1

29 points

My Time Machine backups takes endless

I have a brand-new Core i7 iMac with an internal HD plus SSD. I have installed Snow Leopard freshly onto the SSD and put my user folders on the HD. Now I configured Time Machine to back up on my external Seagate HD (FireWire 800) and it works alright. However, every single backup takes almost one hour, even if it only needs to copy a few megabytes or even kilobytes! First it "prepares" for a long time, scanning all hundreds of thousands of files, then takes ages to copy the files (as said, only a few kilo- to megabytes) and then again needs endless for "finishing backup" and "cleaning up".

And yes, I have reformatted my external drive and started time-machine all over again, but the result is the same!

I#ve had Macs for many, many years, and have used Time Machine for a long time- on my Core2Duo iMac I used to own, everything went smoothly and incremental backups were finished within no time.

Any ideas??? This really *****, as it keeps the iMac busy almost all the time and this on the side also leads to very significant heating up of the machine (and the external HD, too), so I actually can hear the fan blow, which I have hardly ever heard on iMacs before.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Best,

Marco

Intel iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Posted on Jun 29, 2011 3:23 PM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 29, 2011 4:31 PM in response to MaBi

Start with #D2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

If nothing there helps, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 there to locate and copy the messages from one of those backups here.

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Answer 2

MaBi Author

Level 1

29 points

Jun 30, 2011 12:33 AM in response to Pondini

Hi Pondini- wow, 25.000 points- if you'r not an Apple employee, that is seriously impressive!

Thanks for pointing out that web site; I've known it before and tried most things, however, I havent tried playing with the cable and plugs and stuff, nor switching off Spotlight, as I havent seen any entries in the logs. And just because you asked, the logs for time machine are totally normal, nothing unusual there, just taking WAY too much time (sorry I cant post the log now, as i m in the office on my MBP). So- I'll try cable connections and Spotlight then and let you know...

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Answer 3

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 30, 2011 7:42 AM in response to MaBi

MaBi wrote:

Hi Pondini- wow, 25.000 points- if you'r not an Apple employee, that is seriously impressive!

No, on both counts. 😉

Apple employees very rarely post here, other than the hosts (pink Apple icon) in Using Apple Support Communities. Any that do either don't identify themselves as Apple employees, or have a white Apple icon.

And I'm a piker compared to many; I think Neil is the top -- about 150,000; several others are over 100,000. That's amazing.

I'll try cable connections and Spotlight then and let you know...

Cool. Keep us posted.

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Answer 4

MaBi Author

Level 1

29 points

Jun 30, 2011 11:32 AM in response to Pondini

Tried the firewire connection: cable plugged in firmly and I can copy files to the HDD manually at normal speed, so no connection problem.

Switched off Spotlight on the TM volume: no change, incremental backup still takes WAY too long. Possibly, this is really a problem with my particular config: iMac i7, SSD + HDD internal, TM backup to external FW disk?! In another thread, people with this config are having the same issues....

😟

I might just call Apple?!

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Answer 5

MaBi Author

Level 1

29 points

Jun 30, 2011 11:03 PM in response to MaBi

Incredible, a weird trick helped, which another poster has found by accident: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3144862

Basically, it comes down to a broken event store on the SSD, and you have to trigger TM to do a deep traversal of the disk. And now- it works again! Two scheduled and one manually triggered backup worked flawlessly now!

🙂

Thanks everybody,

Marco

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