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Habitus

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 26, 2009
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Where ever my life takes me...
Good Morning!

I purchased a 500GB from a friend (only $50!) and set it up last night. I started backing up wirelessly for time machine. I have a 500GB internal drive with about 340GB used. I thought I would have enough time when I left my 13" MBP on over night. Wrong, I woke up this morning and only 60GB had copied. Could this be due to my Mac sleeping? Also, can anyone provide insight as to the difference in speeds when a external USB HD is attached and used for time machine compared to the internal TC drive? I have the latest firmware. Thanks!

Habitus
 
The first backup takes a LONG time, you should've done this plugged in directly to the TC instead of wireless.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, you're referring to ethernet, right? Also, could I plug directly into the TC via ethernet and back up using time machine to a connected USB external drive? Thanks!
 
Yep that is normal. The way TC/TM works it isn't a mirror of your HD so it takes longer the first time to convert it into the TM format.

I don't see a reason you couldn't use the USB - just have to make sure your external is in HFS+ format (Mac Journaled) - once you've mounted the external HD - it should show up in your TM preferences.
 
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