time machine slow in 10.7.5

Matzky - How did you revert back to 10.7.4 and did it help?

I reinstalled Lion from a backup, downloaded the 10.7.4. client combo from the apple website and ran it. Some apps weren't working anymore (safari, iphoto) but after reinstalling them also everything is fine and Time Machine is again fast with it's backups.

Count me in as well. The hourly (incremental) backups seem to slow down at the start and end of the process. Thus the problem seems to be related to a specific number of files, not the whole backup? Last night I defragmented my (startup) HD and the first backup this morning did *not* have this problem - the incremental backup was fast and smooth... However, the problem resurfaced tonight. Definitely a bug in 10.7.5. 😟

I have now re-installed 10.7.5 from the latest App Store Lion installer, to no avail. Lion is now re-indexing, but no ETA yet. Have filed a bug report.

I saved my original Lion download from the app store and created a lion install pendrive. Then I used the combo updater from the website to update to 10.7.4.

The problem with extremely poor Time Machine performance is that it's heavily reliant on Spotlight and it is Spotlight that is broken in 10.7.5. If you force Spotlight to reindex a drive/partition (by adding it to System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy and then removing it again) you'll see it takes hours, if not days to complete. The problem is actually here and not directly with Time Machine.

Reinstalling 10.7.5 won't help unfortunately.

Because they, Apple Support, probably don't know. And probably not… the problem is that when you update your TM backup it needs to update the Spotlight indexes to keep track of that.

I too am experiencing Time Machine backup problems described. Slow backups or stopping in process.

The Time Machine runs seemingly OK for the first 2.5GB or so of a backup, then estimates 7 days to back up 589.7 GB)

Running a late 2011 MacBook Pro 2.5GHz Quad Core i7, 16g RAM, OSX 10.7.5. Problem started right after updating from OSX 10.7.4 to 10.7.5.

About 6 hours in, went from 14GB backed up to 32GB of 36GB in the span of about 10 min. (faster than the Firewire 800 in use). Time left has ranged primarily between 7 - 10 hours, now says 35 min.

Assuming this behavior is normal under the right circumstances, when it wanted even more hours to complete when I had a previous backup in place that it had to compare and contrast, maybe it would have finished eventually. Erasing my drive, not always an option, probably sped up the process, too bad I sacrificed all that data.

After researching Time Machine issues, beyond 10.7.5, take away message for me is: Time Machine's processing is more than just copying files, and time required to complete, especially after OS Upgrades and/or long delays between availability of external media, will vary widely enough that it makes it difficult to troubleshoot and know when a long delay is normal or not.

Will continue to recommend other backup products as a primary solution and use Time Machine as extra insurance.

The issues people are experiencing are not normal. I only have about 8GB left back up and it still indicates 10 hours until completion. As others have noted, this appears to be related to the Spotlight indexing issue.

Same here, 4 weeks to go, but I'm only backing up 5GB!!

Hi there folks! Have the same problem heer. Read about some Spotlight index thinner in the library folder to delete, but nothing helpen. I am curious about what Apple had to say about this... And in what time