Seeing as many people have issues with getting Apple's Time Capsule to work correctly, this thread shall aim to document all problems people experience, and their solutions. First of all, some general tips:
- SWITCH OFF ANTI-VIRUS BACKGROUND SCANS! - This seems to be the biggest cause of massive slowdowns. Some users have reported 10-fold increases in speed after switching this off.
- Do the initial backup over Ethernet, not wireless. It's not stonkingly fast, but it is much quicker, and it doesn't eat up the battery as much on portable Macs (although you should plug the power adaptor in anyway)
- A greater number of small files will take longer to back up than a smaller number of large files that total the same size. There's nothing you can do about this, you'll just have to live with it.
- The first backup after downloading the 10.5.3 update will take time. Having Time Machine stuck on "Preparing..." for 45 minutes or more is not unusual.