bcw82

Q: Time Machine is extremely slow in Yosemite

Hello all. Anyone else having extreme slowness with backups to Time Machine in OS X Yosemite? I started a backup after I did the upgrade (and changed a few things like app installs) and it's backed up about 5.6MB of data in 30 minutes. It still says "Calculating time remaining..." in system preferences for Time Machine.

 

Is anyone else seeing this slowness when making backups?

Thanks

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 1:19 PM

Close

Q: Time Machine is extremely slow in Yosemite

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

Page 1 Next
  • by jbarnett12,

    jbarnett12 jbarnett12 Oct 21, 2014 2:13 PM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (10 points)
    iPad
    Oct 21, 2014 2:13 PM in response to bcw82

    Yes I am having this problem to the point I reformatted and repartitioned my external drive I am using in Time Machine - the first backup went fairly quickly but now any subsequent ones are painfully slow and I still have no real answer from apple support

  • by WAS_UK,

    WAS_UK WAS_UK Oct 25, 2014 6:59 AM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 25, 2014 6:59 AM in response to bcw82

    Sadly, me too.  I've noticed that Time Machine is a great deal slower after upgrading to Yosemite.  My initial backup to Time Machine after Yosemite upgrade stated 21.9GB and took over 21hours!  A subsequent backup a few hours later stated just 58MB and even that took over 30minutes.  Interestingly, nearly 10mins of that was while it was displaying "preparing backup".   However, transferring a 7.5GB file to the same NAS drive via Finder took approx 15mins.  Does anyone know why Time Machine is so slow or if there is a fix for this?  I will watch this thread with interest. 

  • by Bernard A,

    Bernard A Bernard A Oct 25, 2014 7:09 AM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 25, 2014 7:09 AM in response to bcw82

    Yes, add me to this list.  Not only is backup slow but so is access.  Clicking on a sidebar item requires several seconds wait before the files in that item open.  Also, though not reproducible each time, some components, e.g., Pictures folder, do not allow access to backups earlier than the Yosemite installation date.

     

    Finally, this thread does not open correctly in Firefox or Chrome, only Safari.  In the other browsers the Reply buttons do not appear.  Curious.

  • by JonBasher,

    JonBasher JonBasher Oct 27, 2014 2:57 PM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPad
    Oct 27, 2014 2:57 PM in response to bcw82

    Same problem, trying to do a full back-up, 406GB, 24 hours later its managed to transfer 16GB ! - have even tried ethernet connection to see if that would speed things up but NO ! Very frustrating !

  • by vedsingh,

    vedsingh vedsingh Nov 4, 2014 8:54 PM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 4, 2014 8:54 PM in response to bcw82

    This is just terrible. It is trying to do 36 GB of backup and has completed 760 MB in 1 hr..I am not sure if Apple is even monitoring this forum thread..no reply yet from Apple?

  • by JonBasher,

    JonBasher JonBasher Nov 5, 2014 12:25 AM in response to JonBasher
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iPad
    Nov 5, 2014 12:25 AM in response to JonBasher

    As of today, in 10 days TM has managed to back up 100GB, only another 300GB to go, so that will be 30 days........

  • by mswarren,

    mswarren mswarren Feb 18, 2015 8:23 PM in response to JonBasher
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2015 8:23 PM in response to JonBasher

    Is it possible that there has been a solution that I missed since JonBasher's post on Nov. 5?  Right now, I am staring at "5.77 GB of 340.21 GB -- About 15 hours remaining!" 

  • by Roofless,

    Roofless Roofless Mar 17, 2015 8:14 AM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 17, 2015 8:14 AM in response to bcw82

    I'm having the same issue. Backing up now to a MyBookLive NAS connected via Ethernet (not wifi). Backup has been running for 2 days, so far it only did 76 GB of 366. At this rate it will take more than a week to finish the backup, which is crazy. This is an initial backup, so I expect it to take longer, but why this long?

     

    There's nothing wrong with the drive, in fact, it's a replacement for another MyBookLive that failed diagnostics (but was otherwise working). I attempted to do a full backup on the old drive and it also was this slow, so I eventually stopped it.

     

    Is there a way to boost the priority of Time Machine so it runs faster relative to other apps?

  • by Roofless,

    Roofless Roofless Mar 19, 2015 8:04 AM in response to Roofless
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 19, 2015 8:04 AM in response to Roofless

    So two days after my previous post, my backup running all along, I'm now up to 97 GB of 366 -- averaging 10 GB per day. I can't leave my machine running non-stop until this backup completes, which would take another 27 days at the current speed. I can't pause the backup and resume later, the only option I see on the menu is Skip This Backup, which means I'd have to start all over if I tried it again.

     

    Time Machine is useless to me as it stands. Is there really no fix for this? I even tried using renice to boost the CPU priority of the backupd process from 0 to -5, but it made no visible difference (so I reset it to 0). I had no problems doing backups, including the initial one, with previous OS X releases, using a My Book Live NAS drive.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 19, 2015 11:33 AM in response to bcw82
    Level 9 (70,011 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 19, 2015 11:33 AM in response to bcw82

    Apple doesn’t routinely monitor the discussions. These are mostly user to user discussions.

     

    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

     

    Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.

     

    Feedback via Apple Developer

  • by Roofless,

    Roofless Roofless Mar 19, 2015 1:15 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 19, 2015 1:15 PM in response to Eric Root

    Thanks Eric, I used the first feedback link to submit a bug report. If I get a response I'll update this thread.

     

    I know Apple doesn't monitor these forums, but I thought another user might know of a workaround. There a many different threads on this same issue, though my performance might be considerably worse than what others have reported. If the initial backup could complete in days rather than weeks, I would be okay with that.

  • by Roofless,

    Roofless Roofless Mar 20, 2015 6:07 AM in response to Roofless
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Mar 20, 2015 6:07 AM in response to Roofless

    It turns out this wasn't a Time Machine issue (for me). After my previous post, I began to suspect that the problem might have been caused by the fact that I replaced my old MyBookLive drive with a new one, which has a different IP address from the old one, and that Time Machine was trying to access the drive using the old IP address and eventually failing and finding the new IP address. So, I stopped the backup, re-installed the MyBookLive software, shut down my MacBook, my Netgear switch, and AT&T U-verse residential gateway, and restarted everything. I kicked off a new initial backup yesterday evening, and lo and behold, it completed overnight!

  • by CKSmith,

    CKSmith CKSmith Jun 8, 2015 6:12 PM in response to bcw82
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 8, 2015 6:12 PM in response to bcw82

    I have the same problem. Yosemite 3 on 2010 Mac Pro. I installed & formatted a new hard drive just for Time Machine. It's an internal SATA drive, so speeds should be faster than anything but Thunderbolt or SAS. I'm seeing around 12 GB per day backed up.

     

    Interestingly, "the watched pot never boils" is for the first time proven. After I saw only 46 GB backed up in 4 days, I decided to reboot. Time Machine said it wouldn't start just then, but would wait an hour: "Next backup: 20:35"   I noticed that the drive (used only for Time Machine) reported 272 GB used (not the 46 GB Time Machine said it had backed up before my reboot).

     

    I went on and did something else, and at 20:45, found it had backed up 5.63 GB in 10 minutes! Dramatic improvement! BUT now it's stuck at 5.63 GB at 20:55 with no further progress.

    Part of the bug may be that the Preference panel isn't reporting properly the extent of backups?

     

    Examining Activity Monitor showed almost no Disc activity for backupd, and 0.0 CPU for that process. It's now 21:11 and no further progress; still stuck at 5.63 GB (Activity Monitor says backupd has written 5.26 GB with no changes in several minutes of observation).

  • by skecus,

    skecus skecus Sep 28, 2015 9:04 AM in response to CKSmith
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 28, 2015 9:04 AM in response to CKSmith

    I was experiencing the same issues. Normally I backup manually to a USB 3.0 external drive.  I found that if I plug in the disk than turn on Time machine my backups (100gb+) seem to get stuck at calculating with little to no disk activity. What I've done to correct this is to reboot my Mac with the external drive attached, than turn on Time Machine.  After doing this I was able to backup 100+ gigs in little over an hour.  I've tested this multiple times with the same results.

     

    Hopefully this helps.

Page 1 Next