Time Machine extremely slow on Mavericks ?

I am experiencing very slow write performance over the network but very quick write. This seems to be with both smb and afp protocols. Since time machine uses afp, you may be experiencing the same issue.

I'm having the same issue... whether I connect my external drive via USB or Thunderbolt, the backup takes forever to "prepare the backup", backs up only a few MBs at a time, and is constantly pausing to "calculate the time remaining".

What used to take minutes to backup is now taking over 12 hours regardless of the connection. It is practically unusable.

Same issues here. Too slow, even on USB.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

Similar experience here. External Time Capsule backup is EXTREMELY slow after upgrade to Mavericks (from 10.7.5). No apparent difference whether WiFi or Ethernet directly into the Time Capsule. "Calculating time remaining..." message stays on indefinitely, with very slow transfer. Also noticed new behavior where the "Time Machine Backups" volume no longer mounts or shows in Finder. I'm hoping these are transient issues that are related to a first-time backup with the new OS. We'll see. (MBP, late 2011, non-Retina, 16GB RAM).

Seems to have been the same for ML.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1411049

Same issue here for my 21.5-inch, Mid 2011 (2.7GHz i5 Quad Core, 16GB RAM). I actually performed a clean and fresh installation of Mavericks (no upgrade from Mountain Lion). The Time Machine backup to the external Firewire 800 is incredible slow. Never had that issues with Mountain Lion before.

Don't forget ... when you just install a brand new operating system, the first backup is going to be a full system disk backup. Customarily, you might expect that to take hours. Future backups will be incremental and occur faster.

Hi,

It took now over 1 hour to backup 5GB of 306GB. And it's mostly larger files.

It's not about the time it takes for the whole backup. It's the slow write performance.

I think the average write performancre for FireWire 800 is 50MB/s ... which is about 175GB/h.

Same problem here on Mavericks.

Backup had copied 7KB in 30 minutes.

Yes, 7 kilobytes... of 90 gigabytes. I haven't worked it out, but I'd say we're looking at around nine months for the backup to complete at that speed.

Tried two different WiFi APs and also tried wired LAN via USB, same on all three. Was fine on Mountain Lion.

Not sure what to do now??

Just leave it running. It eventually goes faster over time.

My 306GB Backup was finally completed after 4 hours. It went faster and faster. But the 1st hour it was unusual slow.

I have the same :-)

I just clicked on "Backup Now" and it backup'ed again 400MB. But nothing was stored on the HDD in the meanwhile.

That's to be expected on a whole new OS with a time machine update after install

Others here wouldnt recommend it, but on a new OS install, since I have a giant pile of HD, ...i just grab another HD and create a new fresh Time Machine backup

after its complete, I take the original HD with the OLD backup and format/erase it.

Im a tad too lazy to wait, as you yourself mentioned, 1 hour for TM just to PREPARE to backup. Nope, no,...not gonna do it.

I updated 4 Macs to Mavericks and id rather make a wholly NEW Time Machine backup on another HD and erase the original.

Since I keep about 12+ redundant archives of my important data, I have no worry on earth of ever losing data.