Time Machine is slow under OS X Lion.

Only after doing the steps to remove the Spotlight Index solved the problem for me.

I just wish the rare problems that do arise with Macs wouldn't seem to coincide with upgrades.

Thanks for making me realize I didn't need a Lion tamer.

JimInIowa wrote:

. . .

Thanks for making me realize I didn't need a Lion tamer.

😁

Thanks for the chuckle; I needed that today!

Not sure this will be helpful to anyone, but my slowness problem seems to be gone now, after I wiped the Time Capsule disk completely. I started a new backup from scratch and, while its taking its time to do the initial backup of 300GB, the transfer rates seem to be back to normal.

My TM problem is somewhat different.

It appears that TM can no longer do incremental back ups.

Briefly, tried to back up to an external USB HD used by TM for years. Instead of deleting old files to make room, TM insisted on doing a full 220 GB back up and "failed" because only 130 GB was left. I deleted all the old files and TM created a new back up. Seemed OK.

Then, an hour later, after the computer sat unused, TM again said backup "failed" and it needed 220 GB.

Concidentally, or not a BackUP to iDisk also failed.

Neither had ever failed in years of use on the same computer.

3 yrd old MBP, 4 GB RAM.

Ideas?

Is it a full backup, or a backup just of one user home folder?

If it's really a full backup, see #D3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting if not, see #D4 there for some common culprits and ways to see exactly what's getting backed-up.

Full back up.

Thanks for the link. Looks like you've created quite a resource there.

Will review more later.

Thanks again.

I am having the same trouble. 365 kb are being backed up and takes about a hour or more to complete backup. any leads on what may be the solution? Go back to SL?

I believe this is an issue with Lion of all of us are experiencing the same. if we didn't change anything in our OS and "was" working fine with Snow leopard then People, we just need to software update in the future to address this real concern.

Lion does however indexes again your Hard drive. While I can understand that it may be slow after an upgrade to lion(first time back up under lion) the next back ups are really slow even even in small size of data.

The only workaround that i've seen so far is when you start off with a fresh new back with lion which is really not a workaround at all.

@Kissuke3,

Well, it took 5:30 hours to backup 62GB of data. I upgraded from Snow Leopard and excluded taking backup of iTunes Media folder (another 80GB of data) by the way! 🙂

kisuke3 wrote:

. . .

Lion does however indexes again your Hard drive. While I can understand that it may be slow after an upgrade to lion(first time back up under lion) the next back ups are really slow even even in small size of data.

Have you tried the things in the green box of #D2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting?

Yep Pondini. I have this site bookmarked. Thanks to you

Submitted a BR actually heh

I've got a few Macbook Pro's and a Mac Mini all backing up to my time capsule over WiFi. The mini hardly has anything on it and it was able to finish its backup the day after upgrading to OSX Lion. The Macbook Pro 15" took about 2 days. (2008 model)

My 17" Macbook Pro (2009 model) just finished backing up this morning, took 4 or 5 days to finally finish the backup. I wound up connecting with a CAT5e (1 gbps) between the macbook pro and time capsule to speed things up. Even with the 1gbps connection, it took almost 2 days to finish backing up this one. Phew!

If you are using a fairly new Apple Time Capsule, this shouldn't be happening. If, however, you are using an older Time Capsule or a third party drive for your WiFi backups, then the "forever" symptons you describe will happen, if it works at all. Apple has changed the way file services work in Lion, and the result is the inability to communicate with many network storage devices. Lion requires netatalk 2.2 which isn't on most of these devices. This is particularly bad if you are using these devices with Time Machine. LaCie. Western Digital, and Seagate are a few of the drives affected buy this issue....Gererally, I like Lion, but I don't like this "change." I also don't understand why it was necessary for Apple to do this...wired backups for now!

I just completed a fresh install of Mac OS X Lion in a brand new iMac (mid-2011) . I use a portable WD hard drive as the time machine backup disk. Because it was the TM for my old macbook pro, I used disk utility to erase the TM clean. With the TM fresh and clean I attempted the first full back up of 130 GB utilizing firewire 800. The ETA said it was going to complete in 2 hours which was great, but a quarter through the process the computer froze which prompted me to restart. After rebooting I attempted a second round of full back up. Now it says it will complete 130 GB in 3 days! I even switched cables using USB 2.0 and still 3 freaking days! The funny thing is had used my TM for my late 2008 macbook pro which also had a fresh Lion install and worked fine. So I'm unsure if this is a Lion only issue or is this also a Lion + hardware issue on some Macs. You be the judge. I hope Apple fixes this issue ASAP.

Problem solved...it seems after the first "long" hour the speed returned to normal.