Applying Privileges to 2.25 million items

[philipandrews]

Generally how long do you think it should take to apply file Sharing & Permissions privileges to 2.25 million items? I needed to delete around 7 TB of old time machine backups but because some of the files have restricted privileges it would not delete. I started this process yesterday morning, its been going for around 24 hrs now and is still applying privileges. Is there a way to check if its hung up?

 

[Fishrrman]

What I'd do (and I realize you're not me):
- Force a power down.
- Reboot
- Erase the problem backup drive using disk utility
- Start over with the backup.

And... afterwards...
STOP using time machine, and START using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper...

 

[chrfr]

Generally how long do you think it should take to apply file Sharing & Permissions privileges to 2.25 million items? I needed to delete around 7 TB of old time machine backups but because some of the files have restricted privileges it would not delete. I started this process yesterday morning, its been going for around 24 hrs now and is still applying privileges. Is there a way to check if its hung up?

I agree with the previous post that suggests just erasing the drive. Time Machine disks are pretty strange and changing permissions is not likely to be successful.
I disagree with the previous suggestion to stop using Time Machine. Cloning disks and using Time Machine or some other true backup system are not the same thing.