Time machine how long

As expected in my experiment, the flash drive performed very poorly. Since my flash drive was limited to 32GB, I backed up a brand new MacBook without any applications installed.

The backup size was around 20GB. If you need recommendations for the best external devices for Time Machine, you can find them below. But even if you decide to go with drives other than I recommend, please go with well-known brands. Note: these are not real names, I just made them up, but you get the point.

I am just amazed at how unknown brands get thousands of 5-star reviews on Amazon, and I try to stay away from those. Remember, losing a backup may be much more costly than investing in a more expensive but reliable brand.

Hi, I am Al. I've been working with computers for more than 20 years and I am passionate about Apple products. You can reach me at [email protected]. Although you may not think so, you do have files photos, documents you don't want to lose on your Mac and apps you don't want to reinstall. Backup programs, such as Time Machine, save the While I was doing different experiments on my MacBook, I always knew that I can restore the contents of my MacBook to the working state because I have made backups with the Time Machine.

How does How long it takes to do a Time Machine backup depends on the following factors: The number of files and their size on the primary storage The priority of the backup process The speed of the primary storage drive The speed of the backup drive The Number of Files and Their Size on the Primary Storage How long does time machine take to backup gb?

Unfortunately, the background nature of the Time Machine does not work in situations like this. I found two ways to change the Time Machine process priority. Remove throttling for low priority processes Change the priority of the backup task Remove throttling for low priority processes As we already know, the Time Machine process, by default, is a low priority process.

The steps are the following: 1. Start Terminal app 2. Copy following text and paste into the Terminal window sudo sysctl debug. The command will take effect immediately. Now open Time Machine and click the Backup Now button to start the process. Change the priority of the backup task Another way to change the priority of the backup process also requires some Terminal magic.

Sort processes in the list by Process Name and find the backupd process. Note its PID. In my case, it was By default, this value is always 0. To set the priority higher the value should be lower. For computers with a lot of apps, files, or other info, preparing first-time backup and even follow-up backups may take a while.

If Time Machine progress bar stops displaying any progress for over 30 minutes, that means your backup is likely stuck. Additionally, if you are backing up via a network, check your connection as spotty Wi-Fi might prevent your Time Machine from running properly. If your Time Machine is stuck in the Preparing backup stage, you will have to stop it and start over. Press the X next to Preparing backup progress bar and wait until the progress bar and Preparing backup disappear.

You can also scan your Mac, as well as the external drive you are trying to use, for malware. Just to be extra sure, you can even try erasing the external drive with Disk Utility although Time Machine erases everything on your drive when preparing the backup, so this step may very well be an overkill. Since an antivirus can use your external hard drive for routine checkups, it might interfere with the Time Machine backup.

This means another solution you can try is excluding the external drive volume from your antivirus scans after you scan the drive for malware though. Another reason for Time Machine issues can be that your macOS is not up to date. Should there be any updates available, go ahead and install them before attempting to create another Time Machine backup. If you have previously successfully created a Time Machine backup on the external disk you are using, but have issues now, recent software installs might be interfering with the backup.

Other apps trying to use your external drive as Time Machine is creating a backup could result in a conflict, so make sure no apps are using the drive. All in all, you Time Machine should not be preparing the backup for hours, so hopefully one of the above solutions can help you.

One option is Get Backup Pro. The app allows you to select individual items you want to backup, sync folders, and schedule backups. You can backup your info both on your Macintosh HD and external drives. And if you need a sync across your devices, ChronoSync is the solution for you. Set up the folders you need syncing and hit the large arrow icon right in the middle of your sync setup:. Sync between Macs, use InterConneX to sync with iOS devices, back up to external storage units or file servers, do remote backups, and more with this handy app.

If you're using your Time Machine backup disk over a network, backup speed is affected by the performance of your network. You might get better performance by connecting the backup disk directly to your Mac.

If a Time Machine backup takes longer than you expect Your first backup might take a long time, depending on the number of files to back up. If you're backing up to the same backup disk that you were using before upgrading to macOS Big Sur or later, follow these steps: Select your backup disk in the Finder. This permanently deletes any backups and other data on that disk. Set up Time Machine to use the backup disk again.

After the first backup, future backups should be faster than before. Check for large, frequently updated files Some apps store data in unusually large, frequently updated files.

Or contact the app developer to learn how to best use their app with Time Machine.