Time Machine backup very slow in Lion

Yep, same here. After indexing for 6 days, it was ok for 2 days. Then the indexing from heII started all over. This is buIIsh!t. Apple really needs to fix this.

Exactly what's happening here - but it's also started slowing down my system while it's running.

Same here. Was working fine on Lion until the 10.7.2 update. Doesn't seem to be lagging on indexing, but once it starts backing up (after 10 minutes) it takes another 10 mins to reach even 1 KB. Ridiculously frustrating.

Backing up via USB 2.0 - and it's not sapping ridiculous CPU power or memory. Apple, fix this!!

MBP mid-2009

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

I am having a similar issue. I have about 70 gigs of information on my HD. Under SL, my external had about 100 gigs of backup data after 8 months. After the Lion upgrade, my .5 TB external was FULL after a month. Apple, can someone please fix this??? I also have noticed that each backup is extreemly large; like 8 gigs every hour, with little to no addition to my HD.

If you are upgrading 8 gigs every how, you must have something like parallels running, and you have configured your backups to backup the parallels hard drive. I cannot think of anything else that generates that magnitude of changes every hour.

Parallels (or VMware I suppose) has an option to disable backing up the virtual machine.

If you are not running parallels or vmware, wow, this is very puzzling.

I have about 150G in use on my hard drive, well over 1M files. My backups started working again with 10.7.2 and I just passed another big test: I went away for 10 days and my backups continued on my laptop while I was on my trip (a Lion feature) and then when I got back, a long and large backup was performed copying all that data over to my official backup. And ever since, nice, fast backups as usual.

I don't like to see people struggling after the 10.7.2 update. I have been lucky with it. Here's what I did a week BEFORE the 10.7.2 update, which might help.

I dropped all my indexes using mdutil. I cannot remember how I dropped the index on the time machine backup and I don't want to experiment, but I think it was something like this... Oh yeah, I didn't disabling indexing, I dropped all my indexes. I am pretty sure I ran this command:

sudo mdutil -E -a

This means erase and rebuild all the indexes. So you'd have to do that while your Time Machine drive is mounted.

If I were you I'd then eject your time machine drive and turn off time machine backups.

Let Mac OS re-index your main drive, which you can monitor from the Spotlight menu. Once that is done, mount your time machine hard drive (backups still off) and keep an eye on the logs and/or your local network activity. Once you are sure it's done indexing (and it might take more than a day depending on your network speed or how your drive is connected), then try a single backup, manually and see how well that runs. If it run's OK try another one an hour or two later. If that runs OK, try turning them back on again.

Another approach is to erase your existing backups and start over. That used to really really bother me, but don't ask me why. I don't like to do that because it's slow but I really don't care what my hard drive looked like 6 months ago.

I wish I could confirm these steps for you. I might upgrade my wife to Lion today or tomorrow. If she has trouble I will fix it in a similar fashion.

I'm back.

I finished my backup on 10.7.2, after two weeks!

It promptly entered 'Waiting for index' (a village in the Lånke area of the municipality of Stjørdal in Nord- Trøndelag county, Norway)

at the first subsequent backup.

So, for me anyway, 10.7.2 has in no way solved the problem. TM is now off.

I wait with anticipation for a fix from Apple.

Message was edited by: Michael Newbery

And if you try to restore anything - well don't bother even trying because its so slow as to be unusable. Takes hours; then you clcik on something and nothing happens so you click again (bug mistake), and then after a few cups of coffee it starts to obey the first click, then ... the 2nd click catches-up.

I needed to restore iSunc ('cos I cannot afford an iPhone and I'm not going to manually type everything into my phone like Apple seem to expect me to do !!) and so no choice but spend hours doing something that should (and under SL would) have taken a few moments.

This is complete rubbish and how Apple have not yet addressed these problems - disgraceful.

And as they are more concerned about selling iClouds and iPhones, etc. - can anybody recommend any 3rd party backup software that works ? Because I cannot go on using my Mac without backups - that would be total madness. Alternatively, does BootCamp work OK - I'll need to clear space and somehow transfer everything across but if performance is comparable to any other laptop then I'm going there (or have Apple withdrawn that as well ?). Sorry if I seem abrupt but Lion has got me really angry with Apple (or maybe it's just sjown their true colours).

I noticed that after upgrading to Lion my backups were taking forever - nothing had changed except the operating system!

I finally gave up of watching it "indexing backup" (not related to Spotlight - I checked) and I erased my TC disk.

After an initial back-up via ethernet (5 hrs for 300gb), it is now backing up perfectly via wifi.

Problem solved - for now.

jpr76 wrote:

... and I erased my TC disk.

After an initial back-up via ethernet (5 hrs for 300gb), it is now backing up perfectly via wifi.

Problem solved - for now.

What do you do now when you need to recover a file from your Snow Leopard days (e.g. iSync.app because Apple automatically deleted it as part of the Lion installation (without asking/telling/warning/saving))?

yep - far from satisfactory. Nevetheless, deleting my backup history was preferable to carrying on watching it labour thru backups and slowing the system down as a consequence.

As it turns out - as long as I can restore my current configuration in the event of loss, I am happy.

Hi,

When you say Lion is 'slow', what is the definition of slow? I have had this problem, taken it to apple genius, and had the hardware replaced twice now (the latest replacement being today). The first time, apple backed it up in 2.5 hours in the apple store. Today, they didnt want to connect it to their network, gave me new hardware and sent me home. So far, in 4 hours, it has backed up 3.12GB. It is going to take 4 days it 'estimates'. I fully expect this ti blow out to 8 days if history serves correctly. I've only had problems since upgrading to Lion.

I dont have knowledge or confidence to go playing with log files etc. Any thoughts?

I also seem to have to use wifi as the time capsule is not recognised by an ethernet cable. Plug in a USB key though, and recognised immediately! I've tested the ethernet port (connecting from mac to the internet router) and no problem, so I know its not a bad ethernet port.

I am at my wits end and would like to know I have a backup (my life is on this mac).

Any help or thought appreciated. Apple genius no help so far.

@SydneyGirl1: when you say you got new hardware do you mean your laptop or your router? If your Time Capsule won't allow you to plug an ethernet cable into it, there's something seriously wrong with it. If you're doing it wirelessly and your near the router, it should not take so long. I have been able to do 130Gb initial backup in a few hours.

So in summary, get a new Time Capsule that let's you use the ethernet cable. Also, make sure your turn off your WiFi on your Mac when you've plugged in the ethernet in case there's some confusion about which network interface it's going to use. How can you tell the Time Capsule is not recognized by ethernet? DO you mean that you can't access the internet? Or do you mean you cannot access the Time Capsule for backups?

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for replying :-) The new hardware I mentioned is a 1TB time capsule. This is the second one they have given me in the last 3 months (ever since I had problems - once upgrading to Lion).

My mac seems fine.

When connnecting an ethernet cable from my mac to the time capsule, the mac refuses to recognise the time capsule.

I have tested that that the ethernet port on my laptop works, by connecting the laptop directly to the router via eithernet cable (and switched off wifi) - and it works fine.

The only way I seem to be able to recognise the time capsule is via wifi; and it takes AGES to do a backup. It is running now, and has been for 21 hours and completed 38.57GB! I know it'll finish the total amount (170GB) in a couple more days, then appear to 'hang' - ie it wont be able to fully close/finish/sign-off the backup.

So, my issue is that I keep getting new time capsule hardware, and yet still cannot get backups to work when I am at home. The first new Time CApsule was backed up in the apple store, and finished in 2.5 hours. When I got it home I had a few set up issues, but then it was fine. It then failed the other day. I am now on my 2nd new time capsule & this time they did NOT back it up in the apple store, just sent me home. I still have the same problem.

Any thoughts?

If it works at the store, but not at home then this suggests interference on your WiFi channel.

Airport Utility > Manual setup > Wireless > Radio channel selection

Change it from Automatic to Manual, Edit and select a different channel (e.g. 36/11).

Now see if it works any better.

WiFi transmission can be killed by anything from microwaves, wireless phones, remote cameras, neighbor's wifi, etc. It's a bit of a crapshoot...