Time Capsule: Hourly Backups = slow performance

[ipedro]

The hourly backups on Time Machine are becoming a hindrance. They slow my MacBook Pro down to a crawl sometimes. Right now, my Mac is freezing up, cursor and all while Time Machine tries to keep up with my changing data (I deal with large photo files).

Is it possible, through the terminal or otherwise to change the hourly backups to a nightly backup?

 

[ipedro]

After much searching, found a solution:

TimeMachineEditor

Works like a charm! it allows you to schedule when you'd like Time Machine to kick in, in my case, once a day is fine.

 

[rdowns]

The less software I install the better.

Many work on their stuff in a folder that they exclude from the hourly backups.

 

[ipedro]

This little app is nothing more than a script that changes the configuration file for Time Machine. It isn't "installed" anywhere and doesn't have to run again after you make the changes. It's 500kb.

I set it to backup at 6am every morning when I'm likely asleep. I changed the settings in Energy Saver/Schedule to wake my Mac from sleep at 5:59am and put it back to sleep at 7am.

Time Machine has an hour without my interference to back up my data. Once a day is perfectly fine. Every hour was damn overkill!

 

[golfhero]

I also noticed Time Machine and Entourage don't work well together (was a good excuse to switch to Apple Mail). Every time you get a new e-mail message Time Machine backs up your entire mail file (not Apple's problem as the data is stored as a monolithic file). So once an hour I was doing at least a 4gb backup which when done over WiFi every hour definitely get annoying.