Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Time Machine

Irock619

Irock619

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 16, 2011
1,794
293
San Francisco, CA
So I wanted to do a backup to an external HD and the estimated time for completion was 12 hours. Is this normal or is something wrong with Time Machine? My computer is only a week old and doesn't have that much stuff on it.

Oh and yes, I did some research on this but couldn't find anything.
 
12 hours is way off. Maybe try a different hard drive just to ya know, eliminate.

My iMac is set to back up on TM automatically everyday and doesn't take very long at all.
 
The initial backup will take a long time. It has to do the entire operating system and all installed programs. Once it does the initial backup, it will only take a minute or two for subsequent backups.
 
blevins321 said:
The initial backup will take a long time. It has to do the entire operating system and all installed programs. Once it does the initial backup, it will only take a minute or two for subsequent backups.
Click to expand...


Ah yes, this could be it.

But then again, 12 hours...Still a little long. I'm sure mine only took like an hour... or so...
 
Depends on how many GB you used on your mac.
and what kind of drive the MBP and timemachine has.

SSD would be faster.
HDD with 5400rpm for slower will take longer time.

HDD with 7200rpm will be faster than 5400rpm drives.

It all depends.
 
yusukeaoki said:
Depends on how many GB you used on your mac.
and what kind of drive the MBP and timemachine has.

SSD would be faster.
HDD with 5400rpm for slower will take longer time.

HDD with 7200rpm will be faster than 5400rpm drives.

It all depends.
Click to expand...

True, I think this is a 5400rpm HDD. Hopefully it's only slow the first time.
 
Resist said:
What type of connection are you using for the external backup drive?
Click to expand...

I have a 500gb hitachi with dual USB. I actually unplugged it, restarted the computer and then tried again and it only took about an hour to backup. For some reason the initial connection wasn't working. All is good now, thanks guys
 
Irock619 said:
I have a 500gb hitachi with dual USB. I actually unplugged it, restarted the computer and then tried again and it only took about an hour to backup. For some reason the initial connection wasn't working. All is good now, thanks guys
Click to expand...

huh. I mean, the first time machine backup does take time (it took ~2 hours for me, and I only had ~100gigs on my machine at the time). But, since then, it has never taken more than 5 minutes to do a backup.
 
You might want to exclude your System folder in TM prefs - most people would reinstall this fresh rather than restoring, so no point losing time & space to back this up (exclude all system files when it prompts you, as well)
 
Under Options, if Encrypt BackUp Drive is checked, it will take a long time the very first time you run it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back