Why does it take so long to back up/restore iPhone?

[mnementh]

No, this is not the same old question everyone is asking; I've read and grok all the posts about the difference between full and incremental backups, disabling crash reporting on sync, etc.

My question is more fundamental; WHAT THE FRAKK IS IT THAT TAKES SO LONG WITH AN iPhone!?!?!?

I routinely do backups of my entire OS drive using a generic USB 2.0 external HDD plugged into the SAME USB port on my computer as I use to plug in my iPhone. My daily backup is incremental - it takes about 90 seconds, give or take - mostly involved in launching the software. But every Friday I do a FULL BACKUP - approx 40 GB worth - and it takes between 15 and 25 minutes.

WHY THE HORK DOES IT TAKE 2 HOURS TO BACKUP 2 GB on my iPhone?!?!?:

I can restore 40 GB from backup on my PC in 10 minutes - Why does it take almost an hour to restore 2GB on my iPhone?!?!?

It can't be my hard drives or the USB port; they are the same. it HAS to be the iPhone itself.

I LOVE my iPhone. I think its the neato-keeno-est thing since LightSabers, but... this is fewking RETARDED; both economically and socially.

If your product is busy pissing off it's customers, then it's NOT busy making them happy - and THAT is what APPLE has based their business model on for nearly a decade - the notion of "Yeah, it costs more than the other guys - but it WORKS, and its easy."

Well, 3 hours to do a backup/restore is NOT easy.

Your product is busy pissing me off.

And don't even get me STARTED on the stupidity of choosing AT&T as an EXCLUSIVE CARRIER... I've had more dropped calls and "No Service" in my first two weeks with AT&T than my entire last two YEARS with Verizon.

OK - all my venting aside... What I'd really like to see is a serious technical description of the backup/restore/sync process with an iPhone that can actually explain why it is that it takes approximately 10 times as long to get ANYTHING in or out of an iPhone as it does ANY of my other USB devices.

Thank you for your patience;

mnementh - San Antonio, TX

 

[Haephestos]

None of my backups have ever taken that long. But a restore Last night took me 4 hrs.

 

[mnementh]

None of my backups have ever taken that long. But a restore Last night took me 4 hrs.

Yeah, I understand that doing an incremental backup doesn't take very long; especially if you haven't changed much on the phone. But spend a couple hours downloading trial apps or eBooks, and BAM! You're doing a full backup again - and like I mentioned before, even on my iPhone (which has had crash reporting disabled since day 1) with only 2GB of data TOTAL, it takes 2 hours.

BLEAH.

mnem
An iPhone without AT&T is like a fish without a bicycle.

 

[Lyniaer]

Wow, this is an old-as-dirt thread...
Prolly back to 2G/3G iPhones and iTunes 8/9

Well, with the iPhone 4 and the iTunes 10...nothing has changed:

 

[192.168.0.3]

How is this possible with all the newest updates/hardware?

 

[QuarterSwede]

I've found that the speed of the phone itself affects how fast it backsup and restores. I went from my restores taking 2 hours on a 3G to 30 minutes on a 4. Honestly, it's fast enough for me now.

 

[192.168.0.3]

I've found that the speed of the phone itself affects how fast it backsup and restores. I went from my restores taking 2 hours on a 3G to 30 minutes on a 4. Honestly, it's fast enough for me now.

That picture is of an iPhone 4 restore from back-up time....

 

[scarboy6693]

thats a bit strange.. The longest a restore has taken for me has been about 25-30 minutes. As for a backup, 5 minutes at the most

 

[phelly]

When I originally tried to move to IOS 4 I had this issue. The backup would time out after 12 hours.

To get round the problem I had to do a reinstall. Can't rmember exactly how, but it was something like switch off phone and then hold down the button while plugging it into the PC. Instructions are out there.

After this all was well and backups down to a copule of minutes

 

[rekhyt]

Slight off topic guys, but I really hope some could help me answer this question.

I'm not so sure what the backup and the restore function does on the iPhone / iPod Touch.

I have the iPod Touch 3G and had previously backed it up before, but to my dismay, I had found out after a restore that it did not restore all your settings (App icons, app settings, app placements, folders, ...) and instead just pulled the applications and music from iTunes.

Is this meant to happen?

 

[bruinsrme]

What I don't get is putting songs back onto the iphone.
It seems to take hours.
Is there a setting i am missing?

 

[ozzyman500]

I'm glad I don't restore from back up's.

Only takes me a half hour to sync 1200 songs too.

 

[darkgoob]

What I don't get is putting songs back onto the iphone.
It seems to take hours.
Is there a setting i am missing?

You're missing the time accelerator beam that ships in the box with your iPhone. You mean, you didn't get one??

Actually I think it might have to do with the setting to automatically recompress music to 128kbps AAC. ?

-=DG=-

 

[QuarterSwede]

That picture is of an iPhone 4 restore from back-up time....

The links wouldn't load for me when I posted that. Sorry.

I'm sorry some are having issues with slow backups but mine typically take one minute and I only back it up, at the most, once a week. Most of the time it's once a month. I do plenty of trying out apps, downloading podcasts, etc.

 

[FallenAnjel]

Found this thread after I googled, "Why does it take two hours to restore from a backup?"

I have a 32gb 4s and I started out at 2 hrs, now 15 min in it's at 3 hours. I have 2100 songs and prob 100 apps to restore.

I have to go to bed!

 

[chuckstjohn]

iPhone restore

Did one last night when the phone would no longer stay on. Took a couple hours which isn't the real issue. You lose all your data, and apps and need to restore from either the computer where you backed the data up or the cloud, I am currently in hour 25 of that process

just sayin.....