Time Machine slow, bogging down computer.

Question

Time Machine slow, bogging down computer.

I am having problems with Time Machine backups taking forever and, at the same time, bogging down my computer to the point I cannot use it.

For example, a 70MB backup yesterday took almost 5 hours. a 500MB one today is on hour 5 and still going. I have it set to back up while I'm at work (it's my home computer) but when I get home and it's still going I cannot use my computer at all without cancelling the backup due to lag, spinning beachballs, and apps crashing.

The hard drive it's backing up to is a 1TB Iomega drive connected via USB with 500 gigs of free space currently. I've got a 2011 MacBook Pro running 10.8.5, 500gig hard drive with 70 gigs free. I have run backups with my normal apps running and with virtually all apps quit, including Finder and Dropbox, which doesn't seem to effect the time spent backing up. I do not have any virus scanners running. I've tried different USB cables in case it's a faulty cable. I have gone through Pondini's guide dozens of times, nothing's helped.

Do you guys have any more suggestions? I dream of the days long past where Time Machine would work in the background and I'd never notice it. Backing up is now an all-day ordeal with nothing else able to happen in the meantime. I'd like it to do it's hourly back-ups and get away from using TImeMachineEditor to only do daily back-ups, but I can't have my computer unusable every time it tries to back up.

Also, somewhat related; I tried to update my back-up drive to a 2TB Western Digital and to a 1.5TB partition on a 3TB Western Digital drive but was unable to get Time Machine to complete a back-up to either drive; it kept crashing and burning at various stages. I had followed Pondini's guide to the letter with formatting them yet never got anywhere. That's why I'm using my older, smaller drive; it's the only one I can successfully get to back up. Any thoughts on that?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Sep 19, 2013 1:44 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 16, 2013 1:02 PM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

This may not help, but what does Disk Utility say if you run a "repair disk" operation on that drive?

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Oct 16, 2013 2:01 PM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

Try a reset of Time Machine - A4.

Time Machine Troubleshooting

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Answer 3

Oct 17, 2013 7:45 AM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

William Boyd, Jr: Other than taking over an hour to do a repair disk, it came up saying the volume was okay.

Eric Root- I've done that before but I will do it again this weekend when I have some time, just to make sure.

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Answer 4

Oct 21, 2013 3:36 AM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

I had the same problem with slow backups. Called Apple 5 times and went through all the hoops checking plists, airport, and then erasing using my airport utility and the first backup of about 25-30 gigs went fine, but the second backup would take between 1-2 hours. By the time it was finished it was ready to do another backup.

After looking at community fixes I found that my Comcast Norton Anti Virus was the problem. Upon speaking for the 6th time to Apple I was told that should have been the first thing they asked, since antivirus programs check each file going to the time capsule. Even unchecking the scan external drives did not help.

I removed the Norton AV from my system and replaced it with the IAV from apple store (free) and my backups are back to normal. I timed a 100 meg using Ethernet/LAN and it took 9 minutes 32 seconds from clicking backup now, searching for backups, preparing backup, backingup, and cleanup. My Wifi connection on 10 megs took only 1 minute 29 seconds.

Now my backups run so fast I don't even see them working. Also the constant updates to Norton were casuing my backups to be 100 megs or more each time due to daily Norton updates. Now I get backups in the order of 10-20 megs - depending up what I have put on the machine. If I put music on it increases the size of the files installed.

I recommend anyone having this slow time capsule problem to turn off your full antivirus program no matter what you are using and watch the difference in speed. I am so happy! No more 2 hour backups and 45 minutes to 1 hour preparing backup! good luck

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Oct 21, 2013 6:01 AM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

If you aren't running any antivirus software, try running repair disk on your internal hard drive. Perhaps that is failing.

You can also try a little diagnostic program's wrote to help show what might be causing these problems. Download EtreCheck from http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck, run it, and paste the results here.

Disclaimer: Although EtreCheck is free, there are other links on my site that could give me some form of compensation, financial or otherwise.

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Answer 6

Oct 22, 2013 7:47 AM in response to etresoft

Sherri39401- I am not running any sort of anti-virus.

Eric Root- I tried the reset of Time Machine. If anything it's worse; took 10 hours to do a 11 gig backup, then right after it was on hour 4 of a 28MB transfer and was only halfway through.

Etresoft- That is a nifty little program! Here's the report I ran this morning:

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2

1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

8 GB RAM

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB

AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 2 days 21:8:55

Disk Information:

Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 disk0 : (500.11 GB)

disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Dominick (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (109.47 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R
UJ-8A8

USB Information:

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Iomega Iomega 1 TB

disk3s1 (disk3s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Shinako (disk3s2) /Volumes/Shinako: 999.86 GB (302.04 GB free)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Western Digital My Book 1140 3 TB

disk2s1 (disk2s1) <not mounted>: 314.6 MB

SORUKA (disk2s2) /Volumes/SORUKA: 2 TB (422.46 GB free)

SORIKO (disk2s3) /Volumes/SORIKO: 999.98 GB (999.31 GB free)

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Kernel Extensions:

com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver (1.0.2)

com.LivestreamProcaster.driver.ProcasterAudioRedirector (2.0.0)

com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.1)

Problem System Launch Daemons:

[failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Problem System Launch Agents:

[failed] com.apple.accountsd.plist

[failed] com.apple.AirPlayUIAgent.plist

[failed] com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication.plist

[failed] com.apple.pbs.plist

[failed] com.apple.printtool.agent.plist

[failed] com.apple.rcd.plist

[failed] com.apple.tccd.plist

Launch Daemons:

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.versioncueCS4.plist

[loaded] com.daz3d.content_management_service.plist

[loaded] com.ea.origin.ESHelper.plist

[loaded] com.freemacsoft.appcleanerdaemon.plist

[not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinblanker.plist

[not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinserver.plist

[loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backup-auto.plist

[loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.helper.plist

Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist

[failed] com.logmein.LMILaunchAgentFixer.plist

[not loaded] com.logmein.logmeingui.plist

[not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagent.plist

[not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagentatlogin.plist

[loaded] com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist

[failed] net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist

User Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae.plist

[loaded] com.facebook.videochat.Jessie.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

[loaded] com.iLike.Agent.plist

[loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist

User Login Items:

Quicksilver

Last.fm

WeatherBug Alert

UnhideLibrary

Dropbox

Mail

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Adobe Version Cue CS4

Flash Player

Flip4Mac WMV

Growl

Java

Perian

WacomTablet

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewer.plugin

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin

AmazonMP3DownloaderPlugin1017287.plugin

DirectorShockwave.plugin

DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin

Flash Player.plugin

FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin

iPhotoPhotocast.plugin

JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

LogMeIn.plugin

LogMeInSafari32.plugin

LogMeInSafari64.plugin

QuickTime Plugin.plugin

Silverlight.plugin

Unity Web Player.plugin

WacomNetscape.plugin

WacomTabletPlugin.plugin

User Internet Plug-ins:

Move-Media-Player.plugin

npadaptiveplugin.plugin

Picasa.plugin

Bad Fonts:

None

Top Processes by CPU:

18% firefox

5% plugin-container

4% WindowServer

3% hidd

2% Transmission

1% Last.fm

1% EtreCheck

1% mds

0% Mail

0% SystemUIServer

Top Processes by Memory:

464 MB
firefox

295 MB
mds

74 MB Quicksilver

57 MB Mail

57 MB plugin-container

57 MB Transmission

41 MB Skype

41 MB Finder

41 MB WindowServer

33 MB Dropbox

Virtual Memory Statistics

4.60 GB
Free RAM

859 MB
Active RAM

1.20 GB
Inactive RAM

1.35 GB
Wired RAM

22.20 GB Page-ins

17.74 GB Page-outs

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Answer 7

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Oct 22, 2013 10:22 AM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

You have an awful lot of failures in Apple system software. Plus you have a number of 3rd party kernel extensions and at least one "clean up" tool. Those always cause problems. I suggest removing any software listed under Kernel Extensions, Launch Daemons, and Launch Agents. Use the official uninstaller or uninstall instructions from the vendor. You can keep Adobe and the Wacom driv, but everything el needs to go.

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Answer 8

Oct 22, 2013 1:12 PM in response to etresoft

I agree. I can clean out some of them, but what should I do about things I use regularly? Is there a way to get many of these to not run automatically?

Also, how do I get rid of things like ea.origin or valvesoftware without uninstalling the games that required them for instalation?

Log Me In seems to be dominating the errors, however it has been the only way I've successfully been able to access my home Mac (this one) while at work; something I need to do regularly. I know it's off topic, but has anyone had success with something with greater stability?

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Answer 9

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Oct 22, 2013 6:02 PM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

GoaliGrlTilDeath wrote:

I agree. I can clean out some of them, but what should I do about things I use regularly? Is there a way to get many of these to not run automatically?

Also, how do I get rid of things like ea.origin or valvesoftware without uninstalling the games that required them for instalation?

The idea is not necessarily to get rid of them forever. Just remove them to see if they are causing the problem. If you remove all of those things and Time Machine starts working great, then you know one of them caused the problem. If you remove them an it doesn't help, then you could have a hardware problem with either your internal drive or your Time Machine disk.

Log Me In seems to be dominating the errors, however it has been the only way I've successfully been able to access my home Mac (this one) while at work; something I need to do regularly. I know it's off topic, but has anyone had success with something with greater stability?

Have you tried Back to my Mac?

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Answer 10

Oct 22, 2013 7:13 PM in response to etresoft

Alright. Cleared out everything I could. Time Machine isn't going any faster, however, my computer isn't bogging down while it works, so vast improvement.

What would be my next step? Take a look at the hard drive for potential instability? What can i do beyond a verify disk?

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Answer 11

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Oct 22, 2013 8:33 PM in response to etresoft

Let's see that that last reply, shall we?

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Answer 12

etresoft

Level 8

46,098 points

Oct 22, 2013 8:39 PM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

GoaliGrlTilDeath wrote:

Alright. Cleared out everything I could. Time Machine isn't going any faster, however, my computer isn't bogging down while it works, so vast improvement.

What would be my next step? Take a look at the hard drive for potential instability? What can i do beyond a verify disk?

Improvements are good. You can try some of these things...

Boot into your recovery drive and repair your startup disk. Repair disk permissions too.

Try to backup again to one of those newer drives and see what happens.

Create a new directory on your Time Machine drive and try to copy about 100 MB into it. How long does it take? Delete that test directory when you are done.

Print out your latest EtreCheck results.

It is beginning to look like a failing startup drive. On a MacBook Pro, those are quick and easy to swap out (not counting restoring from backup, of course).

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Answer 13

Oct 23, 2013 11:35 AM in response to GoaliGrlTilDeath

Getting rid of Norton Anti-virus completely solved my problem with slow Time Machine backups and had the additional benefit of making my whole system respond much faster.

And don't just "disable" it. That didn't work for me. Use the uninstall process supplied by Symantec (in the Symantec applications directory). You will need to reboot your Mac afterwards to completely remove it.

My Time Machine incremental backups now run literally in seconds to a couple of minutes. Fabulous!

By the way, I believe a recent update supplied by Symantec was the Time Machine killer. Prior to just a few days ago, my backups were not awful. But I know now that without Norton running at all, things are much, much faster.

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Answer 14

Oct 23, 2013 7:04 PM in response to etresoft

Copying 250MB to the drive I'm using for Time Machine took a measely 4 seconds.

You said "Try to backup again to one of those newer drives and see what happens". What did you mean by that? I do have a newer external I had intended to use for back-ups, however I was never able to get Time Machine to successfully back up to them. I think, now, that that was a symptom of whatever problems I'm having now.

I will do some disk repair and get a new EtreSoft read-out. After the hockey game's over. Can't restart my system while I'm streaming a game. That'd be terrible!

Luckily (if it can be called luckily) I'd been doing research about upgrading my internal hard drive for a little while. Was hoping to have more time to save up for a proper, large SSD, though 😀

Douglaswilliam- I did say in my original post and at least one of my responses that I am not running any sort of virus scanner. Sorry.

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Answer 15

Oct 23, 2013 8:34 PM in response to etresoft

After an extensive disk repair and permissions repair, this is the report I get:

(It's worth noting, now the machine is acting super-sluggish. I think it's knows we're on to it...)

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,2

1 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores

8 GB RAM

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 512 MB

AMD Radeon HD 6750M - VRAM: 1024 MB

System Software:

OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Uptime: 0 days 0:9:6

Disk Information:

Hitachi HTS725050A9A362 disk0 : (500.11 GB)

disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Dominick (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (114.02 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R
UJ-8A8

USB Information:

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Iomega Iomega 1 TB

disk1s1 (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Shinako (disk1s2) /Volumes/Shinako: 999.86 GB (296.79 GB free)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Western Digital My Book 1140 3 TB

disk2s1 (disk2s1) <not mounted>: 314.6 MB

SORUKA (disk2s2) /Volumes/SORUKA: 2 TB (422.49 GB free)

SORIKO (disk2s3) /Volumes/SORIKO: 999.98 GB (999.31 GB free)

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Kernel Extensions:

com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver (1.0.2)

com.LivestreamProcaster.driver.ProcasterAudioRedirector (2.0.0)

com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.1)

Problem System Launch Daemons:

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.versioncueCS4.plist

[loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.backup-auto.plist

[loaded] com.timesoftware.timemachineeditor.helper.plist

Launch Agents:

[not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.CS4ServiceManager.plist

[loaded] com.wacom.wacomtablet.plist

User Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.202f4087f2bbde52e3ac2df389f53a4f123223c9cc56a8fd83a6f7ae.plist

[loaded] com.facebook.videochat.Jessie.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

[loaded] com.iLike.Agent.plist

[loaded] com.valvesoftware.steamclean.plist

User Login Items:

Quicksilver

Last.fm

WeatherBug Alert

UnhideLibrary

Dropbox

Mail

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player

Flip4Mac WMV

Growl

Java

Perian

WacomTablet

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewer.plugin

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin

AmazonMP3DownloaderPlugin1017287.plugin

DirectorShockwave.plugin

DivXBrowserPlugin.plugin

Flash Player.plugin

FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin

iPhotoPhotocast.plugin

JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

LogMeIn.plugin

LogMeInSafari32.plugin

LogMeInSafari64.plugin

QuickTime Plugin.plugin

Silverlight.plugin

Unity Web Player.plugin

WacomNetscape.plugin

WacomTabletPlugin.plugin

User Internet Plug-ins:

Move-Media-Player.plugin

npadaptiveplugin.plugin

Picasa.plugin

Bad Fonts:

None

Top Processes by CPU:

27% mds

9% mdworker

3% WindowServer

2% EtreCheck

2% Last.fm

1% coreservicesd

1% fontd

0% ps

0% SystemUIServer

0% Dropbox

Top Processes by Memory:

287 MB
mds

123 MB
Dock

115 MB
Mail

90 MB WindowServer

74 MB Finder

74 MB Dropbox

57 MB WacomTabletDriver

57 MB SystemUIServer

57 MB Quicksilver

49 MB com.apple.dock.extra

Virtual Memory Statistics

4.91 GB
Free RAM

1.56 GB
Active RAM

299 MB
Inactive RAM

1.23 GB
Wired RAM

642 MB
Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

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