time machine very slow with mountain lion

Time Machine backups seem very slow with Mountain Lion.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.66 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB

Posted on Jul 27, 2012 7:36 AM

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650 replies

Oct 1, 2012 12:43 AM in response to William Abbott

William Abbott wrote:


I have been having all these same problems and my Time Machine HD is one of the four INTERNAL HDs in my 10.7.5 Mac Pro.



Make sure you have excluded the other partitions in TM Preferences>Options and also in Spotlight Preferences>Privacy (else give it a long time to complete the indexing first).


I hear that both iPhoto and iTunes need to be quit, to ensure Time Machine backs up their data. It may be worth a try, in case their presence actually stalls the process?


I would question the wisdom of having your backup on the same computer, in the case there is a system failure. An external bootable clone is always a good option.

Oct 1, 2012 9:28 AM in response to putnik

I have two backup disks for each of my boot drive and photo s drive, one set stored off site.


From a review of when this disaster struck, I believe it was the 10.7.5 that did me in. New posting in the forum say that returning to 10.7.4 solves everything.


I'll have ro figure out how to do that with my off-site backup boot disk since I cannot use TM in my current 10.7.5 to do it. Wht? Because I erased the unresponsive TM HD trying to get TM to work again.


Best,


Bill

Oct 1, 2012 11:16 AM in response to William Abbott


I erased the unresponsive TM HD trying to get TM to work again.



This is what I did too. I figured I needed a fresh start anyway but from what Pondini says, it should have been possible to pick up from where I left off.


http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html


I have heard that 10.7.5 may have problems but don't know how you would now get back to 10.7.4 unless it is on one of your backup disks and you can update your data on it, then clone it back again.


Since their may be many other users with this problem, and you may have lost the TM timeline anyway, perhaps a good clone backup scheme could get you by, until a fix comes.

Oct 1, 2012 1:20 PM in response to JJzz123

I remembered that caution is the better part of valor so I chose as Step One in getting my Time Machine back on track was to reinstall 10.7.X from the App Store from whence it came.


I say "10.7.X" because a priori I could only assume that the download would be the latest and, theorectically, the greatest. I was right; I have reinstalled 10.7.5.


The good news: Time Machine is now backing up two HDs with a total of about 1.2 GB onto a newly erased 3 GB internal HD in my Mac Pro.


The current estimated time to completion varies and is now "about a day;" the number varies with time. That is much better than the 200+ days I was once promised!


So my saga is ended, at least for now, and I now remember the lesson of my prior experience:


When all else fails, reinstall the system.


I have been an Apple user (Apple II+) beginning in 1980 and a Mac user since my Mac Plus in 1986, so I've been though a lot of ups and downs.


Good luck to you all,


Bill

Oct 2, 2012 12:07 AM in response to Bill C

Hello


before reinstall try


Step1) Disk Utilities.app -> First Aid -> Repair Disk Permission (approx 10 minutes to run on my 120GB SSD system disk, it may require more on larger HDU


Step2) Disk Utilities.app -> First Aid -> Verify Disk


Step3) (required if step 2 shows errors): Disk Utilities.app -> First Aid -> Repair Disk


I personally did on all my MBP disks including 750GB HDU where most of the data still seats.


this seems to have solved at least temporarly the problem...crossing fingers



Some other have solved the problem by disabling Spotlight completely when doing a backup


Step1) From terminal.app do:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist


<require password>


Step2) close all applications


Step3) try TM incremental if you have some TM backups which are consistent OR make a new TM backup


During TM process doing at Terminal prompt: "top" ... and when top started typing "ocpu" to sort on CPU usage, you should see process "backupd" hitting very often the top of the list with very high CPU use. Depending on your Mac processor type and disk speed will be sometimes 100+% of one core, also keep in mind that TM has long preparation phases where most of IO are reads on both TM destination AND internal DISKs so be patient. If process "Backupd has a very low CPU use this means that your backup is starving because of the bug/limitation we're discussion in this thread.


Step4) re-enable Spotlight doing:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

<require password>


These for me are just possible workarounds... Adding myself to community of:


Apple wake up people


regards, tiziano

Oct 2, 2012 12:34 AM in response to TizianoT

Wow this is still going on. Not happy about having to pay for basic functionality but I downloaded Server.app for 20 bucks, fixed it and haven't looked back.


I'm used to these issues on my Windows machines, and do find trouble shooting fun. But when I enter my Apple verse, I expect things to just work. A tweak here, an update there, fine. but this has gone on entirely too long.


Now I have an iPhone5 that can't stay connected to any AES encrypted WAP. Never in my 30 year history with Apple has it taken this much rabbit hole troubleshooting to restore a basic, promised functionality.


The age of innocence for Apple users has ended. Might as well dive into Windows and Android. They are in no way worse than this. Apple products don't "just work" anymore.

Oct 2, 2012 5:41 AM in response to 1tombhome

This is rediculous. Apple, in the last few months, has really fallen on their sword if you ask me. I just upgraded my AppleTV and they managed to brick the blasted thing. Had to disconnect it, hook it to my MPB and refresh it from scratch. IOS6 is buggy beyond belief and now this with 10.7.5. I just did a full backup on my wife's MBP and my MPB a few weeks ago and all finished in a relatively short period of time. 106Gb for her in 6 hrs and 300Gb for me in about 14hrs. I decided to get a larger drive and in the mean time went from 10.7.4 to 10.7.5. Now my backup is going to take 9 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! are you frigging kidding me?????????????????????


I'm really ticked. Old Steve is rolling in his grave. Tim C. Fix this now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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time machine very slow with mountain lion

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