iPod touch How long does it take for iTunes to backup your iPod or iPhone?

[JML42691]

Lately I have been doing pretty well, with syncs taking about 5-10 minutes max for a few days, well this morning it took about 70 minutes total to sync, 50 for the backup and 20 to update contacts and apps and stuff (which was BS as the only difference was an update to one app and I downloaded another, both to the computer). This is unacceptable!

 

[atticus18244fsa]

I have a pretty awesome comp so this is not the issue. I have about 7 screens of apps and it's filled with vids and music (32GB) and it takes over an hour. It's ridiculous but I like the fact that it backs it up.

 

[Master Debater]

Jeez, how full is that 8GB iPod?

I'd say maybe halfway full.
450 songs would only take up about 2GBs.
And the 5 movies don't take much if you convert them for a smaller quality which takes up less space.
It he bought them off of iTunes then they're going to take up plenty of room.
And most apps are only a few mbs.

5 movies bought from iTunes would be around 8GB, so I'm wondering how you convert them to such a small space and how the quality is.

 

[iParis]

5 movies bought from iTunes would be around 8GB, so I'm wondering how you convert them to such a small space and how the quality is.

Well you can't convert videos bought off of iTunes.
What you do is download a video from a torrent and then convert it for the right format.
You can also download it from LimeWire but I don't support it.
There are many types of video converters.
The one I use is called Jodix Video Converter, google it.

 

[NelloWare]

Here's the answer but not the fix.

WTF? I have 28 GB of the 30 GB available on my Touch and it only takes me about 30 seconds to back-up my Touch when I plug it in.

What's wrong with all your chit?

EDIT: I take that back. Now that I installed 3 "pages" worth of apps on my iPod Touch this most recent back-up is taking me 10-15 minutes. The one previous to this only took a minute. What gives?

I have the 16gb Touch. This is my 5th iPod. With each iPod, I've used, there have been some problems that Apple finally fixed with updates.

We know that it wouldn't make sense to back up your music, videos, podcasts, pictures, games, and programs as they are always on your PC in iTunes.

So what is being backed up?
Unique data!
The unique data the programs store, they create, they cache, you create, along with emails you downloaded to your device are being backed up and that's the problem along with the size of the data.

I bought my iPod Touch to replace my Palm T3 and use it as a PDA. Allot of the programs I downloaded are to help me get out of the office. Unfortunately, they generate allot of data baggage. My backups takes about 2.5 hours. I am willing to bet if I remove my emails, my downloaded pictures and the baggage programs, I could get quicker backups. What to look for to reduce data baggage is any program that downloads unique data from the internet and stores it on your device to use offline, i.e. RSS data, emails, databases, web saved pictures, ftp file storage to your device, etc.

Some of the "clairvoyant" programmers have added options to turn off backing up this unique data during the backup process. They should be written into my will! Apple must be encrypting this data to your PC and that may need to be tweaked. A better transfer protocol might help as well. Right now an option to turn off this unique data backup would be Apple's best "quick fix" solution.

Things to help:
- Clear your old emails.
- Clear your Safari cache.
- Only carry those ftp transferred files you really need.
- Set NYTimes to only save 1 days worth of news.
- Limit the amount of items stored in Pocketpedia.
- After downloading your web pictures or pictures from your camera to your PC/Mac, delete them from your device and let iTunes manage them.

These are only a few suggestions to try instead of canceling your backup for the unique data you really need backed up. Remember, if it's in iTunes it doesn't need to be backed up during the backup process. If you have a few tips, please share.


My last backup stats:
Time - Fell asleep waiting.
Number of files - 6,193
Smallest file size - 117b
Largest file size - 174.4mb
Total size - 1,197,439,579 bytes = 1.2gb

I found this information on my Windows PC in "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\". On a Mac, someone will need to look this up. As you can also see, these backup can take allot of hard drive space.

If this helps you, reply back to this post and let me know.

Daniel

 

[wbeasley]

Where does it "back up" to?

Hi,

New-ish to Mac and have tried searching to find the location where my iPod Touch is backing up to as I get an error message "3.2G required, 800 meg available".

My system hard drive has 62 gig available. My external drive, where I store/consolidated my iTunes library, has 40 gig available. So I'm struggling no only with the amount of time it is taking to "backup" but why it doesn't think there is enough room.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

(I have 4 pages of apps, quite a few movies and a few albums of music on the iPod, in case this helps). My 4G and 5G iPods never seem to have this problem.

Cheers!
Wayne

 

[NelloWare]

Space problems

Hi,

New-ish to Mac and have tried searching to find the location where my iPod Touch is backing up to as I get an error message "3.2G required, 800 meg available".

My system hard drive has 62 gig available. My external drive, where I store/consolidated my iTunes library, has 40 gig available. So I'm struggling no only with the amount of time it is taking to "backup" but why it doesn't think there is enough room.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

(I have 4 pages of apps, quite a few movies and a few albums of music on the iPod, in case this helps). My 4G and 5G iPods never seem to have this problem.

Cheers!
Wayne

Wayne,

The problem you are having is the new items you want to add to your Touch is greater than the space available. I had the same problem before. I had to remove items to make room for the new content.

One trick is to create a folder in iTunes for your iPod Touch, create and/or drag your playlists to this folder. When you click on the main folder, look at the bottom of your screen for the items, hours, and size. Make sure that it won't be larger than you available space on your iPod. The next time you want to sync, select the folder and all of it's content from the "Music" tab of the iPod Touch and check "Include music videos".

Hope this helps,

Daniel

 

[isethx]

i have over 12 gigs free and it takes 20-30 min! ridiculous!

 

[iamabigbanana]

it takes forever for me

I plugged in my iPod 30 minutes ago and it's only 10% completion, but I think the reason that is is that I have over 5000 songs on my iPod and only have less than a GB left of space.

 

[wngster]

WOW LUCKIES my ipod 32gb take over two hours in fact its still doing it now and i started 30 minutes ago and the memory is less then half full!!!!

 

[bearsalley34]

My 2G iPod Touch (not jailbroken) literally takes no more than 20 seconds to backup.

 

[tablo13]

Few minutes, less than 5 minutes. (Realized it didn't say "restore from backup")

 

[mlmwalt]

Less than 5 min for my Gen3 64gb Touch. It only has 45gb of stuff but that's still pretty good in my book. My crackberry takes 20min to backup. Bring on the iPhone5, stat!!!! Chop! Chop!!!

 

[glenthompson]

2nd gen 32 gb Touch that's about 1/2 full with mixture of music, apps, podcasts, and video. Takes about 30 seconds to a minute to backup. If I'm updating a lot of podcasts, those updates take longer than the backup.

Glen

 

[happy.hats]

I put my iPod on 5 hours ago, and it's still going. LITTERALLY! i'm very angry >:U