123xyz123xyz

Q: slow time machine backup

Hello,

 

I have the newest version of iMac and I want to make an time machine backup on my external USB 3.0 harddrive. But the transfer rate is very very slow. The system shows an backup-time of about 100 days (!!!!!) to save 450 GB. What's going on? The harddrive is also really new and works normally if I use it as a normal harddrive (also with other Macs)... Who can help me????

iMac (27-inch, Late 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Nov 24, 2013 4:53 PM

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Q: slow time machine backup

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  • by Robear777,

    Robear777 Robear777 Feb 22, 2015 12:51 PM in response to Eric Ross
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 22, 2015 12:51 PM in response to Eric Ross

    brl123, your solution worked for me and the associated video was a nice addition.

     

    FYI, the problem I had started after switch to Yosemite so your solution is still very relevant (at least to some of us)

     

    Thank You!

  • by JR67,

    JR67 JR67 Mar 9, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Cobyflier
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2015 9:25 AM in response to Cobyflier

    I was my antivirus the whole time.  You think the hard drive mfr would have mentioned it!

     

    Thanks guys

  • by jibunmirai,

    jibunmirai jibunmirai Jul 6, 2015 5:15 PM in response to JR67
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 6, 2015 5:15 PM in response to JR67

    Yes, I have Avast on my mac and it was slowing TimeMachine backups to a ridiculous crawl.

  • by jimthepost,

    jimthepost jimthepost Aug 18, 2015 6:07 PM in response to Pondini
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 18, 2015 6:07 PM in response to Pondini

    Restarting in Safe Mode and restarting normally fixed my slow Time Machine problem.  I'm also running Mavericks.  My latest TM backup took just a few minutes.  Thank you!!

  • by Gary.worldmanager,

    Gary.worldmanager Gary.worldmanager Sep 26, 2015 12:19 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 26, 2015 12:19 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    Hello all, I too had a VERY slow back up today and turned off my Trend Micro antivirus software and now its FLYING!

  • by Marzoa,

    Marzoa Marzoa Sep 29, 2015 7:21 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 29, 2015 7:21 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    Same problem here. I don't have antivirus or any specific security software. I tried several trick I've read here and there like removing the *.inprogress file, also deleting the whole folder of the last backup done, of course I checked the HDD I am using for Time Machine with the System Tool and even forced "Repair" even when no errors were found. None of such tricks worked.

     

    But then I read here about booting in Safe Mode and I gave it a try, and it worked.

     

    This is a Mac Mini (late 2012) running OSX Yosemite 10.10.5, BTW

  • by kolbjørn,

    kolbjørn kolbjørn Oct 1, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Big Hilly
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 2:16 AM in response to Big Hilly

    Boot into Safe Mode and restart - as Big Hilly suggested.

    This worked for me. Thanks!

  • by mr.keith,

    mr.keith mr.keith Nov 25, 2015 3:19 PM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 25, 2015 3:19 PM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    The problem for me was that I had moved the time machine backup files off to another drive and then back after formatting the original drive in a different way (this time, encrypted+case sensitive+journaled). Backups were roughly 1GB per hour and with 2TB this was never going to work. I moved the old backups into a different folder and then created a fresh backup in less than 5 hours.

  • by Ellen Baniszewski1,

    Ellen Baniszewski1 Ellen Baniszewski1 Jan 1, 2016 5:42 PM in response to TooManyBoxes
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jan 1, 2016 5:42 PM in response to TooManyBoxes

    Thank you for your post. Avast has started to slow down many processes on my Macbook Pro, and I had to disable it in order to do backups. Avast was also slowing down Mail.

  • by GK1951,

    GK1951 GK1951 May 14, 2016 9:06 AM in response to Ellen Baniszewski1
    Level 1 (4 points)
    May 14, 2016 9:06 AM in response to Ellen Baniszewski1

    I'm running a MBPro Early 2011 10.6.8 and had installed a 1TB SSD. When I reconnected the 2TB drive FW TM wanted to start all over again. When I gave into that and let it start it was taking forever to get going.

     

    I shut down every open program and turned off  WIFI, and only ran TM in system prefs - you can see the progress bar and speed -  and Activity monitor to watch the carnage then restarted my BU. Read and Writes speeds went from 1 or 2 mb/sec to 78megs/sec. It would occasionally pause up to 10-15 secs. while the Finder did some heavy lifting then it would pick back up.

     

    568 gigs backed up in 4 hours. Then the finder was busy for about a day indexing it all.

     

    You can watch what is happening in Activity monitor>Disc Activity and open a window for CPU history. Very useful for seeing how a process works, and finding slow processes & what's hogging the CPU.

  • by avibrazil,

    avibrazil avibrazil Jun 2, 2016 1:00 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 2, 2016 1:00 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    time machine enters stand by if it senses there is disk activity, or files involved in backup are being used, source and target.

     

    So find ways to decrease disk activity to speed up Time Machine backup:

    - stop antivirus software

    - close unused apps

    - make spotlight stop indexing files that live in the disk used for backup

     

    The last item solved my problem. It's done in Settings ➡ Spotlight ➡ Privacy and then add to the list all volumes that live in your backup disk.

     

    HOpe that help !

  • by Steve.bh,

    Steve.bh Steve.bh Jul 16, 2016 7:04 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (16 points)
    iPad
    Jul 16, 2016 7:04 AM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    THanks guys. I was having this problem too.  My newly acquired thunderbolt drive was creaking along with an estimated finishing time of three days.  Then I read these replies and  shut down everything possible: antivirus, internet connection, dropbox, all open programs. I estimate it will be done in just under five hours.

  • by Steve.bh,

    Steve.bh Steve.bh Jul 16, 2016 8:39 AM in response to Steve.bh
    Level 1 (16 points)
    iPad
    Jul 16, 2016 8:39 AM in response to Steve.bh

    IN the end it raced along, finishing in just under another two hours, not the five hours I had estimated.

  • by Phil Voss1,

    Phil Voss1 Phil Voss1 Oct 2, 2016 4:13 PM in response to 123xyz123xyz
    Level 1 (109 points)
    Oct 2, 2016 4:13 PM in response to 123xyz123xyz

    Virus protection software seems be a culprit in a lot of these slow back up issues. I used Sophos. I went into preferences and turned of "live protection", and the backup speed immediately started going much faster.

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