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Time Machine backup very slow in Lion

After installing Lion Time Machine backup (not initial one which is long by default) takes about 40 minutes vs. about 5 minutes in Snow Leopard. Very annoying because it slows down my entire system for such a long time. Any help, please?

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 12:10 PM

Reply
488 replies

Sep 23, 2011 11:37 AM in response to clanger9

clanger9 wrote:


One week later and - right on cue - Time Machine is back to its perpetual indexing trick.


It appears that Time Machine in Lion schedules a complete re-index of the full backup set every seven days. If so, this is insane. Can anyone confirm this behaviour?


Seems about right.


But I think that's not the only problem. I've switched to wired lan now (because over wi-fi it's unusable), and backups take between 4 minutes (fastest ever for my system) up to 60 minutes, even though my usage of the computer during the week doesn't really vary. It should always take about 4 minutes as long as I don't install updates or sync my devices.

When it takes more than 15 minutes, it doesn't do anything special and my computer is not busy doing other things. It's just being slow.

Sep 23, 2011 3:40 PM in response to petewaw

The same problem for me:


<code>

Sep 23 23:53:48 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: 21.25 GB required (including padding), 462.46 GB available

Sep 23 23:53:48 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)

Sep 24 00:16:43 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Copied 384041 files (17.0 GB) from volume HD.

Sep 24 00:18:08 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: 427.6 MB required (including padding), 444.93 GB available

Sep 24 00:20:21 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Copied 93189 files (631 KB) from volume HD.

Sep 24 00:23:39 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Starting post-backup thinning

Sep 24 00:23:39 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: No post-back up thinning needed: no expired backups exist

Sep 24 00:23:39 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Backup completed successfully.

Sep 24 00:24:12 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Starting standard backup

Sep 24 00:24:12 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Backing up to: /Volumes/TREKSTOR500G/Backups.backupdb

Sep 24 00:25:42 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: 429.3 MB required (including padding), 447.31 GB available

Sep 24 00:27:05 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Copied 77078 files (40 KB) from volume HD.

Sep 24 00:27:05 WaveMotion com.apple.backupd[220]: Backup canceled.

</code>


First backup with my new Mba with usb disk: no problems

Second backup: after ten minutes canceled by me...


I tried with 2 different disk

Sep 25, 2011 5:56 AM in response to petewaw

One thing....my iMac (snow Leopard upgraded with lion) works fine with TM


iMac:


661.1 MB required (including padding), 183.12 GB available

Copied 3015 files (14 KB) from volume HD.

Backup completed successfully.



MBA:



Waiting for index to be ready (101)

411.9 MB required (including padding), 447.51 GB available

Copied 93340 files (2.2 MB) from volume HD.

Backup completed successfully

Sep 28, 2011 11:50 AM in response to wavemotion

shift is a safe boot, so i would assume that shift + option-esc would be some derivative of a safe boot.


i am experiencing the extremely slow Time Machine bacups with a 15" macbook - 1.5 MB takes well over 20 minutes. system was working perfect prior to Lion.


This slowness was still present when starting a brand new Time Machine fw800 drive, deleting Spotlight indices, repairing permission, etc. Coincidentally, deleting the indices and having Spotlight re-index solved the forever "Preparing..." stage that was hapening prior.



Rumor has it that 10.7.2 has an acutal fix for Time Machine. I am hoping this is true.

Oct 2, 2011 12:27 PM in response to Thomas Beck

No such luck for me.


What worked well for me was manual backup mode. I run a backup once or twice a day. It runs in a reasonable amount of time, doesn't spend forever indexing the backup at the end, all is good. It was SO good, and I was using wired instead of wireless and saw your point, and tried to switch to hourly, and within a day it was back to the same old slow thing.


Hope it's fixed soon!

Time Machine backup very slow in Lion

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