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

Aug 17, 2012 3:06 PM in response to Contradel

Same problem.


Backup drive is FW connected to MacMini. MacMini wired to ethernet.


My MacBook Air was backing up normally, but my MBPro (wired connection) was painfully slow or failing. Have tried all these suggestions. Then I went thru all the settings on the MBA to make sure they match the MBP, and I realized the only difference is the MBA was connected wirelss, and the MBP wired.


I shut off ethernet on the MBP and turned on Airport, and voila normal backup speed (for wireless)


So whatever is hosing Time Machine seems to be specific to the clients mode of connection, and judging from the reports here can affect either wired, wireless, or both.

Aug 17, 2012 3:51 PM in response to Stewart Carlsson

I don't think the backups created are interchangeable for directly connected disks vs. over the network (i.e. the sparse bundle). So this is fine as long as you plan to stick to the same method for incremental backups.


Stewart Carlsson wrote:


Interesting, anyone else tried this?


I gave up and connected my external to my iMac via USB and it only took 56 min to backup 85 GB. Seems that the problem is over the network (wireless/wired).

Aug 18, 2012 7:07 PM in response to 1tombhome

I am using a 2010 iMac and tried a completely new 250+Gb Time Machine copy to a WD Passport USB 2.0 500Gb external HD. It's taking like more than 2 days. Never took that long before. Not a web or wi-fi issue. Before Mountain Lion, should have taken 3-4 hours max. I tested the external hard drive on a another Mac with a large file transfer and there were no problems. I also turned off all the spotlight choices. The issue has something with Mountain Lion.


Has anyone heard from Apple acknowledging the issue and that they are working to resolve the problem?

Aug 19, 2012 7:04 AM in response to 1tombhome

Thanks to dolfke, running "sudo tmdiagnose" in the terninal really worked. I couldn't tell you why, but my TM back up time increased by 10X's.


For ref:


dolfke



How to run tmdiagnose



1) Launch Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)

2) Enter the command text below followed by the Return key on the Terminal command line:



sudo tmdiagnose



3) Enter your admin password when prompted and wait for all of the tmdiagnose processes to finish.

Aug 19, 2012 11:32 AM in response to ArtyYeo

I ran tmdiagnose twice, once while connected by Airport, and once by Ethernet. Still no fix. Airport backups are normal and Ethernet backups are painfully slow.


I don't doubt there's some helpful info in all those reports it produces but I don't have the expertise to understand them.


Glad it's doing something to help some folks, but we don't have a universal cure yet.

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time machine very slow with mountain lion

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