Time Machine suppose to back up ALL OF THE TIME!?

[BBQ BOY]

My 1T Time Machine that I purchased roughly 8 months ago is a royal pain in the butt. It backs up seemingly all of the time resulting in a very very very slow iMac.
I can not figure out how to get into the Time Machine to back up once a day when I am asleep. instead it literally backs up probably 18-20 hours of the day. I can not even scroll without it effecting the scrolling ability or freezing my computer.
What is the deal?

 

[Kafka]

I know, it's annoying, so I just plug my backup drive when needed, like once a week.
There's an app for that however, which allows you to schedule TM backups. Can't recall it's name as I don't like to install apps that I don't REALLY need.

 

[BBQ BOY]

Well, I need to keep it plugged in being that I uses it as my wireless router too.

 

[vincenz]

I got annoyed like you did and turned off automatic back-up. I only back-up around once every month now. Not too big of a deal for me.

 

[GoKyu]

I don't remember ever having my Mac slow down noticeably when I used Time Machine, but I also wasn't using an external hard drive either. When I put my iTunes library on external though, I noticed a major lag anytime the computer wanted/tried to access it.

So I don't think it's as much the backup process as it is accessing a slow external drive...

As others have said, maybe set TM to only backup overnight or once a week/month to help alleviate the slowdown.

Here's a free scheduling program I just found online, hope it helps!

 

[Primejimbo]

I got annoyed like you did and turned off automatic back-up. I only back-up around once every month now. Not too big of a deal for me.

I did the same but I back up when I make changes like add music or something. I don't think hourly back ups are really needed.

 

[John T]

I don't think hourly back ups are really needed.

Maybe not for you! Video/photo editing, writing long/many documents - essential.

 

[petsk]

Something is definitely wrong. Try deleting your sparesbundle file from the TM and do a complete new backup.

 

[hfg]

Why do you have so much new data that needs to be backed up each session?

You don't by chance have a Windows Virtual Machine running (Parallels or Fusion)? If so, you need to exclude that from the backup or you will constantly be backing up a 30GB or so file each hour.


-howard

 

[Kafka]

I think I should specify my case as it could be irrelevant here... That was with my first mac, a mid-2009 20" iMac (bought 2 months before the redesign, gah), using a 1 TB Buffalo DriveStation Combo4 plugged on FW800. The backups actually totally froze my machine on many occasions. Somehow I suspected it was because of the hard drive itself, not TM, but since I've got used to doing episodic backups and actually like it better that way I can't tell for sure if it really was the drive.

 

[Brian33]

I think the OP is using Time Machine (the software) to back up to a 1 TB Time Capsule (the hardware). Similar setup to mine.

... resulting in a very very very slow iMac.
... I can not even scroll without it effecting the scrolling ability or freezing my computer.
What is the deal?

As petsk said, something is definitely wrong. I think the slowdown is your real problem, not the backup frequency. I never notice a slowdown when TM backs up my iMac to a TC. I would open Console.app (in Applications/Utilities) and look for messages from com.apple.backupd. There should be a bunch there, but see if any sound like errors or problems. (In Console, be sure to select "All Messages" in the left pane.)