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time machine slow in 10.7.5

Since updating to 10.7.5 using the Combo updater, Time Machine on my iMac seems much slower. Anyone else seeing this behavior?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5), iMac 21.5 in.; i5; iPad 32Gb iOS 5.

Posted on Sep 21, 2012 7:23 AM

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635 replies

Jan 20, 2013 7:15 PM in response to Larry Nolan

Yes, I'd already established an account with the same name as I had on the old system, on the new system, before attempting the migration, so it reported a conflict and forced me to rename the incoming account that had the data I wanted to keep, away from the original user name.


So, after Migration Assistent completed, I renamed the new (empty) account out of the way, and renamed the incoming acount to its original name, and then determined the user IDs/names of the new and old users and did a chown -R of the renamed directory to match the account I'd just moved the data over to.


Not too happy about the way Migration Assistant and the Users & Groups preferance panel handled that, as it wasn't obvious how to proceed there, but my plan worked, other than thwarting Spotlight. So all is good now.

Jan 31, 2013 12:01 PM in response to Larry Nolan

Hello,


I've been having speed issues lately with my Time Machine backups so ended up reading the entire thread. I think I did the supplemental update when it was issued, I am however in the same situation.


My setup backs up on a network drive (USB HD connected to another iMac on the network running 10.8.2) and it's been a few days now it needs an hour for an 80MB worth of backup data. Reinstalled 10.7.5, applied supplemental update just to be sure, but things are not pregressing as expected.


Will try deleting the entire Spotlight index and check again.


I have also tried changing the Time machine destination using "tmutil setdestination" command to the mounted sparseimage volume and not the network drive. That way, the backup finished almost instantly, but upon changing the target back to normal (selecting the network disk through TM preferences), I am still getting very long backup times.

Feb 1, 2013 11:58 AM in response to Larry Nolan

I have tried all of the troubleshooting techniques in Pondini's tutorial, however I have been unable to fix the issue. The only way to make TM work as fast as it used to is to set the target to the mounted volume using tmutil setdestination. That way, both backing up and searching though the TM database works blazing fast. However, as soon as I switch back to normal (that is, setting the network drive as the destination) the whole thing becomes sluggish again.


My next bet is upgrading to Mountain Lion, but I am readings about some similar issues over there, too...

Feb 11, 2013 3:04 PM in response to wcrowder

Time Machine automatically skips a number of things, including the Spotlight index, system work files, most caches and logs, trash, etc. See the tan box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #11 for the gory details.


Since many or most of those change frequently, they'd have to be backed-up in full on each backup, taking time and space on the backup drive, without accomplishing much at all.

time machine slow in 10.7.5

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