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Time Machine - Never seems to work - RANT

M

Marty62

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 11, 2010
394
0
Berlin formerly London
Well, I am trying it again, this is the third mac that I was willing to try
time machine with and it just seems like a big pile of poo !!

I have one initial MBPro backup from 8th Feb 2014.

Have launched TM to update this and run, it is saying it needs to back up 135gb of data???
( why would it need that much space when I have only added maximum 20gb since Feb 8th )

SO it has taken 45 minutes to back up just 650 megs of data to a USB3.0 7200rpm drive and
now appears to be stuck !!

Sorry for the rant but honestly, TM seems like a junk program and I've had nothing but
errors from it every time I try to use it.

M :-(
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What method of connectivity are you using to connect the Mac to the TM drive?

  • USB
  • FireWire
  • Thunderbolt
  • Ethernet
  • WiFi
 
USB 3.0, brand new external Lacie 7200rpm drive.

It should be wizzing along, now after another 45 mins it's backed up 3Gb
of 135 .... so it will take another 9 hrs then !!

Unbelievable, really.

:rolleyes:
 
Marty62 said:
Sorry for the rant but honestly, TM seems like a junk program and I've had nothing but errors from it every time I try to use it.
Click to expand...
I've never experienced any problems with Time Machine on any of my computers (including a hackintosh) or other people's machines.

(Edit with your updated info.)

A lot of small files takes a lot longer to copy than a lot of large files. Just be patient. The initial backup is always slow. Just relax. Breathe. It will all be over soon. :)

Seriously, though, consider setting up a Time Machine drive on your wireless network so you don't have to go through such long, intermediate backups. That's how I have my laptops set up. Every hour, Time Machine backs up the changes. They're rarely more than a few megs and it's done quickly.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thanks for the support ... appreciated :)

I will just ignore it an see how it gets on, is it doing "incremental" or just
copying everything every time I launch it ??
( the backup drive will only take three copies in that case )

Have had failed TM backups with my last Laptop and my last Mac Pro.

I think after this I might just go with CCC or super duper.

,,,, having a nice cup of tea now :)

M.
 
Not that it'll helps your gripe with Time Machine but I just made a fresh new back up to Time Capsule, 100 GB. completed in 2 hours on wireless-n network.
 
Marty62 said:
Have launched TM to update this and run, it is saying it needs to back up 135gb of data???
( why would it need that much space when I have only added maximum 20gb since Feb 8th )
Click to expand...
You'd have to answer that. What do you have it set to back up? Have you excluded anything that doesn't need to be backed up?
 
takeshi74 said:
You'd have to answer that. What do you have it set to back up? Have you excluded anything that doesn't need to be backed up?
Click to expand...

No, I have not excluded anything, so my understanding that it just updates
to the original backup are wrong i guess, which makes it just about useless.
I have no use for 5 x 200 gig copies on a backup drive!!

M.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
After the initial backup, Time Machine is supposed to only backup changed files and new files. We use Time Machine on about 50 Macs where I work, and have never had any problems with it backing up the entire system every time it runs.

After it's finished, you can run an app like BackupLoupe to see what files were included on each run.

Do you have any Virtual Machines (from VMWare, Parallel's Desktop, Virtualbox) on your Mac?
 
Do you have Parallels, VMWare, or similar installed? If so, you likely have a huge file (>100GB) which holds the virtual machine, and any time the machine is run, this file gets changed. Therefore Time Machine has to write a new copy of this entire file onto the backup disk. You can tell TM not to include this file in its backups to avoid this problem; however you will then need to manually back it up occasionally.
 
mgipe said:
Do you have Parallels, VMWare, or similar installed? If so, you likely have a huge file (>100GB) which holds the virtual machine, and any time the machine is run, this file gets changed. Therefore Time Machine has to write a new copy of this entire file onto the backup disk. You can tell TM not to include this file in its backups to avoid this problem; however you will then need to manually back it up occasionally.
Click to expand...

This was my thought exactly. I exclude my parallels VM from backup. I use a "stateless" version of parallels... and all of the data (documents, etc) is shared with OSX, and hence backed up already.

/Jim
 
No parallels or VM going on.

It did speed up at around the 40gb mark.

Took about 3&1/2 hrs total.

Have taken some large items out of the backup list, so next time will be under
100gb

We see how it goes, will make a CCC copy also.

M.
 
There are a lot of potential issues here...

- Which MacBook Pro do you have? (USB2 v USB3)
- What kind of drive is in the MacBook Pro?
- Have you repaired permissions on your MacBook Pro?
- Have you tested a raw file copy onto the Lacie drive to make sure that it is operating slowly? A good test would be to copy a large file from a DIFFERENT machine and then from the MBPro. If the identical files copy at the same rate, then it's unlikely a machine is a culprit.

The initial backup of Time Machine can take some time, but most people have a pretty good experience. It's worth checking all of the variables before just trashing the program.
 
spaceballl said:
There are a lot of potential issues here...

- Which MacBook Pro do you have? (USB2 v USB3)
Late 2011 8,2 quad 2.4Ghz USB2.0
- What kind of drive is in the MacBook Pro?
Samsung EVO 750gb SSD
- Have you repaired permissions on your MacBook Pro?
Yes, Yesterday, no issues
- Have you tested a raw file copy onto the Lacie drive to make sure that it is operating slowly? A good test would be to copy a large file from a DIFFERENT machine and then from the MBPro. If the identical files copy at the same rate, then it's unlikely a machine is a culprit.
Lacie works very well, typical 7200rpm speeds

The initial backup of Time Machine can take some time, but most people have a pretty good experience. It's worth checking all of the variables before just trashing the program.
Click to expand...

Will do, it did complete so fingers crossed!! I don't ever trust one backup anyway .. Thanks.
 
[[ Time Machine - Never seems to work - RANT ]]

Just wondering...

Have you ever thought of giving CarbonCopyCloner (or SuperDuper) a try ??
 
the fact that no one else is experiencing the described issues with time machine would suggest it's something wrong with your setup. Is the external drive formatted as "Mac OS Extended, Journaled"? Maybe your mechanical drive is faulty, have you got another one you can try?
 
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