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Resuming back does not work.

I am attempting to back up my computer via Time Machine to an external HDD, when I do so it takes a long time to backup 500GB over USB2, about 20hrs and I can't be away from my computer that long. The problem is that if I stop it before it's finished it won't resume, it just say's it's working for a long time and I give up, all night and through to the morning in one case, so what am I doing wrong?


It can't be very much as it's a pretty simple UI, not many options to mess up.


It will back up but I have to format the HDD each time and begin from scratch, obviously not something want to have to do every time I want to back up.


Thanks.

MacBook (13-inch Late 2007), Mac OS X (10.7.3), 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

Posted on Dec 24, 2012 12:45 PM

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Posted on Dec 24, 2012 12:52 PM

Hello:


I am confused...


The first TM backup does take quite a while. Subsequent ones are quite rapid.


In any event, you will need to allow the system to complete the first full backup without interrupting it.

Barry

7 replies

Dec 24, 2012 1:43 PM in response to Hamper

If you can't be away from your computer that long, try going to System Preferences/Time Machine and clicking on the Options button. This will allow you to exclude items from the backup. Get a reasonable size backup and back it up. Then go back to the Options button and remove some previously excluded items and do a second backup at your leisure. Repeat until you have everything backed up.


I have done this multiple times in the past. It takes a bit more effort, but limits the required backup time.

Dec 24, 2012 5:21 PM in response to Hamper

Hamper wrote:


I can't believe I can't interrupt the first back up, I've never heard of that.

You can, but it's not a good idea, especially if it's been running for a while. The next backup will be very slow, and will require a good deal of extra space temporarily.


If your backups to a USB drive are running at roughly 25 GB/hour (500 GB / 20 hours), something else may be wrong. That should run, very roughly, at 40-50 GB/hour under normal circumstances.


See #D2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting for some possible solutions.

Resuming back does not work.

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