I found the solution here
http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/15/disable-itunes-backup-for-ios-devices/
Quit out of iTunes and launch the Terminal, then enter the following defaults write command:defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool YES
- Relaunch iTunes, connecting iOS devices will sync but without a backup copying over
Quit iTunes again and launch Terminal, entering the following defaults command:defaults delete com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled
Relaunch iTunes and connect an iOS device to confirm backups are working again
The instructions above are intended for Mac OS X, but Windows users can disable the device backups by launching iTunes with a flag attached to it, this can be executed from the Run menu or by right-clicking iTunes:
"%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt DeviceBackupsDisabled 1
To reenable backups with windows, change the 1 to a 0 and run iTunes exe again.