Very slow mobile home syncs (Mac OS X 10.7)

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Very slow mobile home syncs (Mac OS X 10.7)

I have a mobile account set up on my Lion server (10.7.1) that I access from two mac clients (an iMac and a MacBook Air) - I've only been doing this since Lion/Lion Server came out so I can't compare the performance with Snow Leopard.

The problem I'm seeing is very, very long times to sync from either client machine back to the server.

This applies to sync on log in and log out, as well as the regular syncs that take place while I'm logged in.

For example, before I went to bed last night, my iMac (mid 2010 27" i7 16GB RAM running Lion 10.7.1) started a home sync of 1.37GB total size.

When I got up this morning, around 10 hours later, the same sync was still going - now at "78 of 118 items - 1.37GB of 1.37GB - 83% complete".

It's not stuck, because I do see the name of the sync'd file changing every few minutes.

This is over a gigabit ethernet network. I have a similar problem when the MacBookAir tries to sync (usually over WiFi but I have tried once or twice with it connected by Ethernet to see if it made any difference - none).

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously considering abandoning mobile accounts, going back to local ones and just syncing a small subset of my files between the iMac and MacBookAir.

Has anyone else come across a problem like this? Found a solution?

Systems info:

Server: mid-2007 mac mini, 500GB 7200 rpm HDD, 4GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.7.1 Server

iMac: mid-2010 27" iMac, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM running Mac OS X 10.7.1

MacBookAir: 2011 13" MacBookAir, 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM, running Mac OS X 10.7.1

Gigabit ethernet network

Good signal/data rates on Wifi

Mobile account size around 45GB

Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 22, 2011 12:27 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 5, 2011 7:55 PM in response to damianr

I would love to see an answer or some input towards this. I'm considering setting up an identicle solution in my house so I can log-in to each machine but maintain synced AND take my user account with me via my MacBook Pro and have it sync when I get home.

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Answer 2

damianr Author

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Sep 6, 2011 12:11 AM in response to damianr

In the end, I 'solved' this problem by throwing money at it and buying myself a mid-2011 Mac Mini server (any excuse!).

After the initial slow sync (my home weighs in at around 45GB) subsequent syncs take a matter of seconds now instead of hours.What does tend to slow things down (to minutes rather than seconds) is if I swap between machines - for example, if I've been logged in as the mobile account on my MBA, log out then log in as the same account on my iMac.

Nevertheless, orders of magnitude improvement in performance so that the mobile accounts are now usable.

Perhaps my poor old mid-2007 Mac Mini just wasn't up to the task - though seeing as it's mostly just I/O, and it has a 1GB Ethernet port and a 7,200rpm 500GB disc in it (which I fitted, upgrading the original 5,400rpm 80GB HD) I'm quite surprised.

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Answer 3

damianr Author

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Sep 7, 2011 12:38 AM in response to damianr

The other thing I've noticed that can slow down syncs significantly is if the server where the user's home directory is based is performing a time machine backup of itself at the time the client machine tries to sync.

I think this was a significant factor with my mid-2007 mini as it spent a considerable proporion of each day backing up (due to other backup related issues which I've since solved).

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