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Backing up with Time Capsule. Why is it so slow?!

C

cool1boy1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 18, 2013
9
0
I know there are a lot of threads relating to what I'm going to ask but the more I read, the more confused I become. Please offer me some suggestions.

I have a MacBook Pro (2007) and a very recently purchased iMac desktop (2013).

I'm trying to backup my stuff onto my Time Capsule using Time Machine and it's ridiculously slow. I've tried everything:
  • Plugged in my TC to the router
  • Plugged in my TC to the iMac
  • Wirelessly tried connecting iMac to TC
..and to backup 150 GB the minimum time it stated was 12 days currently my TC is plugged into my iMac and wirelessly accessing my modem and it currently states 148 days for a backup.

Is this supposed to be this slow? Any suggestions on making this faster?

If it helps for clarification, I have an iPhone 4, iPad (3rd generation), Apple TV, Time Capsule (2nd generation), many other external hard drives. My dad also has a MacBook Pro (2011). Syncing between all these devices with my MacBook Pro and iMac would be nice as well.

Please help me out, thanks!
 
It seems like your hard drive is acting up. If you still have warranty than you should have Apple take a look at it. My Time Capsule took about 7 hours to backup a total of 220GB through WiFi.
 
boto said:
It seems like your hard drive is acting up. If you still have warranty than you should have Apple take a look at it. My Time Capsule took about 7 hours to backup a total of 220GB through WiFi.
Click to expand...

My TC is 2 (maybe almost 3) years old. Do you think it's a problem with my iMac's harddrive or the TC?
 
Slow Time Capsule

Time machine is very slow on first backup particularly with WiFi to Time Capsule so be patient. What you describe is normal for 1st backup.
The time indicated usually reduces rapidly, so after a while and will indicate the correct backup time. I have found first backup takes about 24 hours for 800GB.
For faster backup, I suggest you use Ethernet cable instead of WiFi or better still Thunderbolt.
 
I'm having the same issue with my Time Capsule. Trying to back up my new iMac with about 1.2Tb of data onto a new Time Capsule.

I have followed all the advice on forums regarding getting the back up done through ethernet but whenever I reset the TC and start afresh, it always prompts me to join my wireless network. I have read that I can use an older version of Airport Utility to get TC to connect through ethernet rather than wifi but when I try to install it I get an error saying it is not compatible with the new iMac.

I am now watching the back up slowly progressing but is going to take 11 days to finish.
 
Did you try restarting the TC? Alas, it can be moody sometimes...
 
erikjorg said:
The time indicated usually reduces rapidly, so after a while and will indicate the correct backup time. I have found first backup takes about 24 hours for 800GB.
Click to expand...

It's been a few days since I've been trying to back it up. Currently it states approx 5/6 days remaining. In total, I've been trying to back this up for probably a good 78 hours now and it's struggling to backup 150 GB.

----------
leman said:
Did you try restarting the TC? Alas, it can be moody sometimes...
Click to expand...

I've tried restarting it a few times. I've tried moving it around my house and still no noticable improvement.
 
blueroom said:
Do the initial backup with wired Ethernet or just be patient. How old is the TC?
Click to expand...

The TC is 2 to 3 years old (2nd generation). When you say wired, should I wire my:
  1. iMac directly to the TC or
  2. TC directly to the router/modem or
  3. iMac to the TC to the router/modem
 
In my house all stationary devices are wired.

Is your modem setup as a bridge? If not then make it a bridge, what brand of router/modem is it?
The ONLY thing on the modem should be the TC's WAN port. Also if it's a WiFi router/modem turn off the WiFi (the bridge mode should do that automatically)

iMac and MacBook wired directly to the TC, also backup initially only one Mac at a time.

Wireless is like a one way country road with a lot of traffic, GigE is a multi way superhighway.
 
cool1boy1 said:
The TC is 2 to 3 years old (2nd generation). When you say wired, should I wire my:
  1. iMac directly to the TC or
  2. TC directly to the router/modem or
  3. iMac to the TC to the router/modem
Click to expand...

First question:

Are you using your TC as your home router... or do you have a different router, and only using the TC as a backup device?

If it is your router... then directly connect your iMac to the TC using an ethernet cable.

If you already have a router, and you are just using the TC as a backup device... Attach both your iMac and your TC to the router using ethernet cables. Turn off wireless on the iMac. Configure your TC as follows:
- Internet: DHCP
- Wireless: Off
- Network: Off (bridge mode)
This will allow your TC to be on the home network as a device... and either wired or wireless computers can back up to it.

/Jim

----------
blueroom said:
In my house all stationary devices are wired.
Click to expand...

+1 It is just more stable.

/Jim
 
cool1boy1 said:
I know there are a lot of threads relating to what I'm going to ask but the more I read, the more confused I become. Please offer me some suggestions.

I have a MacBook Pro (2007) and a very recently purchased iMac desktop (2013).

I'm trying to backup my stuff onto my Time Capsule using Time Machine and it's ridiculously slow. I've tried everything:
  • Plugged in my TC to the router
  • Plugged in my TC to the iMac
  • Wirelessly tried connecting iMac to TC
..and to backup 150 GB the minimum time it stated was 12 days currently my TC is plugged into my iMac and wirelessly accessing my modem and it currently states 148 days for a backup.

Is this supposed to be this slow? Any suggestions on making this faster?

If it helps for clarification, I have an iPhone 4, iPad (3rd generation), Apple TV, Time Capsule (2nd generation), many other external hard drives. My dad also has a MacBook Pro (2011). Syncing between all these devices with my MacBook Pro and iMac would be nice as well.

Please help me out, thanks!
Click to expand...

Definitely something wrong there. I recently updated my internal HDD on my 2008 iMac, and decided to do a fresh TM backup after the fact. It took about a day to copy 750GB wirelessly from my iMac to my TC. This was using the 5GHz band.
 
It's sort of nuts to do an initial backup using wifi. It takes forever. Hook up to the Time Capsule using Ethernet for the first backup then wifi after that.

The last time I did an initial backup of 450GB, it took about 4 hours over Ethernet.
 
Last edited:
cool1boy1 said:
It's been a few days since I've been trying to back it up. Currently it states approx 5/6 days remaining. In total, I've been trying to back this up for probably a good 78 hours now and it's struggling to backup 150 GB.

----------



I've tried restarting it a few times. I've tried moving it around my house and still no noticable improvement.
Click to expand...

You might try rebuilding ACL (access control lists) and a permissions repair as described in my post here. That has fixed this slow initial backup issue for others.
 
I just got my 2TB Time capsule yesterday, like most of the comments from previous readers its taking along time to copy 665.45GB over a ethernet cable. I think i started it about 7 in the afternoon yesterday and left my Imac on all night, putting the display to sleep but not the computer in energy settings. When i woke up i found it has only copied 145GB, since yesterday the number of days has dropped from 3 days to 2, but it seems too long any advice or pointers on what i can to improve the speed as I don't like leaving my Imac on all night.
 
mrmarts said:
I just got my 2TB Time capsule yesterday, like most of the comments from previous readers its taking along time to copy 665.45GB over a ethernet cable. I think i started it about 7 in the afternoon yesterday and left my Imac on all night, putting the display to sleep but not the computer in energy settings. When i woke up i found it has only copied 145GB, since yesterday the number of days has dropped from 3 days to 2, but it seems too long any advice or pointers on what i can to improve the speed as I don't like leaving my Imac on all night.
Click to expand...

No pointers. It is what it is. Leave your iMac on, and let the display turn off. These machines are quite happy to run 24/7, so don't let it worry you. After the initial backup is done, the subsequent backups take very little time to complete, since they only back up the changes which are (under normal usage) usually very small. Depends on what you work on, of course, but let it be, and don't worry about it. :)
 
Time capsule heating issue

Hi, I have seen a lot of time capsule who have gone wrong after a couple of year of usage, it does seem like a faulty disk to me. The time capsule has a well documented heating issue, I am sure there are a lot of threads on that topic here.

In last september I bought a new Macbook pro and and transferred my time machine backup from my hold MBP on to the new, it took about 2 hour to transfer 350 GB over Gigabit ethernet cable. If you want the fastest connection use the appropriate cable.

After that I did a full backup of the new MBP over ethernet cable (350 GB) and it took about 2 or 3 hours.

So there is certainly a problem with your TC, sorry. Is it still under warranty?




cool1boy1 said:
It's been a few days since I've been trying to back it up. Currently it states approx 5/6 days remaining. In total, I've been trying to back this up for probably a good 78 hours now and it's struggling to backup 150 GB.

----------



I've tried restarting it a few times. I've tried moving it around my house and still no noticable improvement.
Click to expand...
 
IlikeMacsSoMuch said:
Hi, I have seen a lot of time capsule who have gone wrong after a couple of year of usage, it does seem like a faulty disk to me. The time capsule has a well documented heating issue, I am sure there are a lot of threads on that topic here.

In last september I bought a new Macbook pro and and transferred my time machine backup from my hold MBP on to the new, it took about 2 hour to transfer 350 GB over Gigabit ethernet cable. If you want the fastest connection use the appropriate cable.

After that I did a full backup of the new MBP over ethernet cable (350 GB) and it took about 2 or 3 hours.

So there is certainly a problem with your TC, sorry. Is it still under warranty?
Click to expand...

I don't agree. It doesn't sound like something is wrong with the Time Capsule. I'd try mounting it as a regular drive with an ethernet cable and copying a file to it without Time Machine. See how fast it is with the ethernet cable, just on a local file transfer not via Time Machine.
 
Why use a time capsule and a router... they both are the same thing... you can hook any external drive to your mac and back up over Firewire,Thunerbolt, or USB with Time Machine... if you have both a router and a time capsule they could be interfereing with each others wifi signal... and getting 2 routers to work with each other is very tricky... BTW even if the routers are on 2 different channels they will still interfere with each other becasue of how Wifi channels in the 2.4 GHZ band are spaced... in the US channels 1,6 and 11 don't overlap... as do channels 2 and 7... 3 and 8.... 4. and 9.... or 5 and 10.... all channels must have at least 4 channels between them to not interfere...
 
seanm9 said:
Why use a time capsule and a router... they both are the same thing... you can hook any external drive to your mac and back up over Firewire,Thunerbolt, or USB with Time Machine... if you have both a router and a time capsule they could be interfereing with each others wifi signal... and getting 2 routers to work with each other is very tricky... BTW even if the routers are on 2 different channels they will still interfere with each other becasue of how Wifi channels in the 2.4 GHZ band are spaced... in the US channels 1,6 and 11 don't overlap... as do channels 2 and 7... 3 and 8.... 4. and 9.... or 5 and 10.... all channels must have at least 4 channels between them to not interfere...
Click to expand...

There are some good reasons not use your TC as a router. In my case... my ISP modem is located in the same room as (and immediately behind) my iMac. That means that if someone was to break into my house... and do a smash and grab... they would likely take my iMac and the TC attached to it. Instead... my TC's (all 3 of them... and soon to be 4) are located in a different part of the house in a secure location.

Our TC's all have their WiFi turned off. There is no need to have them on because they are hard wired into the home network. Hence the iMacs (wired) and the MBAs (wireless) can all back up to their respective TC destinations. Everything is secure... and the setup is stable.

/Jim
 
flynz4 said:
There are some good reasons not use your TC as a router. In my case... my ISP modem is located in the same room as (and immediately behind) my iMac. That means that if someone was to break into my house... and do a smash and grab... they would likely take my iMac and the TC attached to it. Instead... my TC's (all 3 of them... and soon to be 4) are located in a different part of the house in a secure location.

Our TC's all have their WiFi turned off. There is no need to have them on because they are hard wired into the home network. Hence the iMacs (wired) and the MBAs (wireless) can all back up to their respective TC destinations. Everything is secure... and the setup is stable.

/Jim
Click to expand...

Point taken, but aren't there less expensive NAS solutions out there that dont have all the Wifi circuitry... like a WB Mybook Live or the Seagate Goflex Home... a Time Capsule seems like overkill when you could get those for less than half the pirce of a 2TB a time capsule... is there something I am missing...?
 
seanm9 said:
Point taken, but aren't there less expensive NAS solutions out there that dont have all the Wifi circuitry... like a WB Mybook Live or the Seagate Goflex Home... a Time Capsule seems like overkill when you could get those for less than half the pirce of a 2TB a time capsule... is there something I am missing...?
Click to expand...

Yes... The TC is the only NAS that is officially supported for TM backup. There have been times when Apple updated OSX (I think Snow Leopard is one)... when most NAS solutions except TC stopped working. Some companies updated the NAS firmware but the people had to wait for the updates to become available before they could resume backup. I also believe that some NAS companies never updated firmware, but I'm not positive.

Also... some of our TC's were used by our kids while they were away at college. The TC was both their router and backup device while they lived away.

In any case... my backup is not a hobby. I want to set it and let it rip. The difference in price between a TC is not worth any hassle.

/Jim
 
I've got a similar issue - trying to use Time Machine to backup to a ReadyNAS Duo. For some reason, old backups seem to have gone (which is somewhat worrying!) and when I try to create a new backup over wifi, it takes about 30 minutes to do 3kb! It often gets stuck at 64 bytes.

I'm now backing up to a USB 2 drive which is going much quicker and has previous backups back to July 2012, so at least I have some firm of backup.

I changed broadband provider recently and I have had to reset the router several times since but wifi is currently working on my home network and my MBA can see the NAS fine.

I had thought about getting a Mac Mini to form the backbone of a new backup system and to allow me to free up some space on my MBA but think I might just get a TC for now and also replace my router with it. A new computer can then wait for a while - I'm now in 2 minds whether or not to get an iMac anyway.
 
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