Time machine extremely slow during beginnings and ends of backups

[-Faust-]

Hi everyone, first time poster here. I asked this question on the apple support forums, but haven't been able to get an answer so far.

Time machine is extremely slow during the beginning of a backup and the end of a backup. It will stop at the first/last couple megabytes and just sit there for up to half an hour, maybe more. As we speak it's sitting on 213.7MB out of a 214.4MB backup and will not move forward. I'm using Mountain Lion 10.8.5 on a 2011 27'' iMac with a 3TB WD external hard drive. Has anybody encountered this problem before, or does anyone know what I could do to fix it?

To clarify, I have completed the initial backup without any delays (as far as I know, but I did it overnight so I can't tell). It's the subsequent backups that seem to be having this problem. I know it's not a problem with the drive, because I copied a large video file and it went fast enough, so I'm assuming it's a problem with time machine. I originally tried to partition the drive so I could use one half for archives and one half for backups, but I decided I should just get a new drive for archives. I've backed up, partitioned, formatted, and backed up again, and I'm at a loss and starting to get frustrated with the whole situation. How can I fix this issue?

 

[Macman45]

Are you using it over wifi? this can cause slowdowns, and mines cabled in. No slowdowns or issues such as yours.

Maybe backup, erase the TC and start over could help...they really aren't designed to be partitioned and should be used for backups alone.

my rMBP connects over wifi but has no issues either...I do have very good wifi signals though.

 

[-Faust-]

No, I'm using a USB connection. I've already formatted the drive and backed up again, because I came to the same realization about partitions. It also takes a very long time to clean up after a backup is eventually complete. Maybe I should get a different drive? Thinking about it now, 3TB may have been a bit overkill, but that was when I expected to be able to partition it. It worked with my macbook and my other 1TB WD drive.

 

[jbarley]

Maybe backup, erase the TC and start over could help...they really aren't designed to be partitioned and should be used for backups alone.

The OP makes no mention of having a 'TC' (Time Capsule), instead indicated they were using a 3TB WD external hard drive via USB.
And partitioning an external HDD that is being used for Time Machine backups, while not normally recommended, will not effect the Time Machine operation.

 

[-Faust-]

The OP makes no mention of having a 'TC' (Time Capsule), instead indicated they were using a 3TB WD external hard drive via USB.
And partitioning an external HDD that is being used for Time Machine backups, while not normally recommended, will not effect the Time Machine operation.

That's what I thought. I guess it defeats the purpose of having an archive and a backup, because if the drive crashes, you lose everything. However, since time machine deletes old backups eventually, It'd be nice to have a place to keep things permanently. But I can always partition it later. The speed issue is what's more troubling.

 

[-Faust-]

One possibility I've heard is that time machine is slow because spotlight is indexing the drive while it's backing up. Does anyone know if that's true, or a known problem? Is there a way I can disable it? Dragging the disk into the privacy panel doesn't seem to work, as spotlight apparently wants to be able to search time machine backups.

 

[jbarley]

SpotLight by default it will index all mounted drives, but you can stop the indexing of any, in fact all drives, even your boot disk by including them in the Privacy panel.
And yes this includes the Time Machine disk.
One thing to check, make sure that you have the Time Machine disk excluded in Time Machine preferences, plus any other mounted disk that you do do want included in your backup.

 

[-Faust-]

Hm, well adding the disk to the privacy list doesn't help the speed issue. When I add it to the list, it tells me:

"Spotlight will continue to search Time Machine backups but will not search other items on the disk."

I decided to partition the disk again, but I've made sure that both partitions are excluded from the backup. It still seems to be going very slowly.
It may just be something I have to live with. I've heard a lot of people have problems with time machine on Mountain Lion.