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TimeMachine is a [] joke!

S

snowboarder

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 9, 2007
539
2,004
OK, two updates and nothing has improved. It takes HOURS to backup
a couple of GBs on my new 2012 MBA.
I didn't update any of my other computers to ML and I won't do it.
This seems to be another sad Apple joke :(
 
Last edited by a moderator:
McGiord said:
Wireless connection to the destination HDD? Or using a cable?
Click to expand...

usb3 connected drive

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GGJstudios said:
I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner for backups.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I'm gonna switch today, so sick of this stupid time machine
issue. I'm honestly really sick of many latest Apple f@...
You have all that cash and you can't make anything simply work?
Don't get me started on quicktime gamma shift, FCP, etc, etc
 
update: doing my original clone on ccc - speed ~2GB/minute (!)
Time Machine did 2GBs in 4 hours... what a sad joke...
 
+1 for CCC.

I just plug in a cable and let it do its thing each day in silent mode. Growl tells me when it's done. ONE time I had to rely on my clone to do a complete restore. But that was hours well saved.
 
GGJstudios said:
I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner for backups.
Click to expand...

+2

Each one of my MP internal drives has an external CCC backup via FW800, works absolutely great though not as fast as USB3/eSATA/TB.

Also the boot drive backs up to a Time Capsule with Time Machine. That also works perfectly. All Macs including the MBP are connected by Ethernet. File transfers, backups and downloads are soooooooo much faster over gigabit Ethernet than with Wifi.
 
I use both. TimeMachine is great. It's slow because of how it sets up all the hard links. Especially the initial setup takes a while. But what do you care if it takes so long? Just delay the backup if you need to, it backs up every hour. It's not like it can't back up overnight.

TM is slow, there's no getting around it. But it is quite effective.
 
Time Machine has saved me several times and I've used it since the day it came out. I don't understand why it took you so long. I just did an initial Time Machine backup of 750 GB on a 2009 MBP and it took 4.5 hours over FW800.
 
fivenotrump said:
Hours to backup a couple of GB? There is something amiss, and it's not Time Machine itself I'd hazard...
Click to expand...
Admittedly, I don't use it now but there was a time I did use it religiously. TM has been taking longer with every iteration of OSX since I can remember. It seems to churn, spit and stutter a lot before doing the actual backup. Granted, there's a lot for it to grind out before determining which files to back up but I don't know what would have changed to make ML worse.
 
Krazy Bill said:
Admittedly, I don't use it now but there was a time I did use it religiously. TM has been taking longer with every iteration of OSX since I can remember. It seems to churn, spit and stutter a lot before doing the actual backup. Granted, there's a lot for it to grind out before determining which files to back up but I don't know what would have changed to make ML worse.
Click to expand...

I subscribe to this. Under Lion TM would backup nearly instantaneously, now it searches a lot for the backup drive and does a lot more cleaning up.
 
My Time Capsule backd up ~4GB recently over WiFi in about 10 minutes. Me thinks something might be wrong on your end.
 
I use SuperDuper at the end of each day. I also use Time Machine as it's a decent way to quickly retrieve an old version of a file. Being the paranoid type I also back up to CrashPlan constantly.
 
AdeFowler said:
I use SuperDuper at the end of each day. I also use Time Machine as it's a decent way to quickly retrieve an old version of a file. Being the paranoid type I also back up to CrashPlan constantly.
Click to expand...

I am with you on the backups. But I don't call it being paranoid, just keeping the data safe.
 
snowboarder said:
OK, two updates and nothing has improved. It takes HOURS to backup
a couple of GBs on my new 2012 MBA.
I didn't update any of my other computers to ML and I won't do it.
This seems to be another sad Apple joke :(
Click to expand...

When I first updated to ML on my iMac, TM was indeed pathetically slow when using my previously configured backup location (Time Capsule over gig-e.) So much so that I didn't think I'd ever be able to get a good backup. I ended up wiping the TC and re-establishingg a new TM backup. Everything went blazing fast after that. I think there's possibly a bug in how TM in ML connects to a sparse bundle file that was created with L or SL.
 
Here's one more vote for CarbonCopyCloner.

It is SUPERIOR to Time Machine -- no ifs, ands, or buts.

CCC will create a BOOTABLE backup that will prove itself the first time you have "a moment of extreme need" -- say, you turn on the computer and it won't start, try again to no avail, etc.

With a bootable backup, you'll be alive again in a couple of minutes, and able to work on your problem drive. With a TM "backup" your options will be severely limited.

TM creates the illusion of "easy backup", and it actually is just that -- very easy to backup, just flick the switch in System Prefs and you're all set, right? The problem is when things go wrong, and the user tries to access the TM backup, and..... can't.

CCC is the better way to go. It requires just a bit more thought and effort at the beginning of the backup process -- but delivers its rewards "at the other end", when you really NEED them.
 
I use a combination of the two myself. I usually only use CCC just before I make big changes like an OS upgrade. The one thing I use time machine for is when I need to revert a single file back to a previous date. I may be wrong, but I don't think CCC has the ability to keep multiple revisions of each file.
 
I've switched to using TM on a 3 TB FireWire drive and it works great. I have it backing up the main drive and a second external drive with no issues. Except for the initial backup, it only backs up the changed data which doesn't take all that long.
 
Fishrrman said:
Here's one more vote for CarbonCopyCloner.

It is SUPERIOR to Time Machine -- no ifs, ands, or buts.
Click to expand...

but Time Machine is better if I need to retrieve a version of an Indesign file from 2 months ago. Something I had to do this morning ;)
 
snowboarder said:
usb3 connected drive

----------



Thank you. I'm gonna switch today, so sick of this stupid time machine
issue. I'm honestly really sick of many latest Apple f@...
You have all that cash and you can't make anything simply work?
Don't get me started on quicktime gamma shift, FCP, etc, etc
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you should blame Apple for that one! Initial TM backup can be slow but NOT that slow. I am using TM with a Mac mini 2011/USB2 Disk/Mnt Lion and have had no problem. I have not seen any huge amount of problems in forums wither.

I have seen several people having performance problems with Nas storage like WDC MyBook Live for which I couldn't get to work, performance was as horrible as you describe if it worked at all.

My guess there is something on your end but if CCC does it job, USE IT. It is a great software!
 
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