And it’s not just the size. The disk that has 10,000 files will take longer to back up than the drive with 1,000 files assuming that they take up the same space in both cases. The Priority of the Backup Process and How To Adjust It. The Time Machine app was designed to work on the background. Mail stores messages as files, but presents them in the form of mailboxes. To find an old email message that was deleted from a Time Machine archive, you open Mail, enter Time Machine,. Since Time Machine backups are stored on a dedicated backup drive, you can simply connect the drive to another Mac to restore files, apps, user accounts, and settings from your Time Machine backup. The entire process is fairly straightforward, and there’s not much that can go wrong if you follow our step-by-step instructions. Time Machine is a free built-in backup software which copies Mac disk contents to external storage. When it runs first, the Time Machine makes a full backup and performs incremental backups after that. After the backup was done it is possible to restore individual files, applications or entire storage to a previous version.
Time Machine was and remains one of the best tools to backup Mac’s data. While the tool itself is straightforward and does not have manyoptions, at times, it is so frustrating to figure out why it misbehaves.
If time machine backup is slow on your Mac and you arelooking for ways to improve the speed of the backup then this article is foryou.
How long it takes to do a Time Machine backup depends on thefollowing factors:
The Number of Files and Their Size on the Primary Storage
How long does time machine take to backup 500gb? With allfactors being the same, it is obvious that 500GB will take longer to back upthan 256GB. And it doesn’t matter how big the drive is. What matters is howmuch data the disk contains.
And it’s not just the size. The disk that has 10,000 fileswill take longer to back up than the drive with 1,000 files assuming that theytake up the same space in both cases.
The Priority of the Backup Process and How To Adjust It
The Time Machine app was designed to work on the background.The idea is that if the Time Machine is set to run automatically, the lastthing you want it to use a lot of CPU while you are working on somethingimportant. So, by default, the backup process is a low priority one, and itshould remain so.
However, if you are planning to do something disruptive,such as installing a new macOS or do experiments as I do – sometimes I installapps with viruses to see their impact and then report the results on my site.In this case, I’d love to take a full backup immediately, and I don’t want towait for too long.
Unfortunately, the background nature of the Time Machinedoes not work in situations like this.
Naturally, I want to change the default behavior and pushthe backup app to the foreground at the expense of other processes on Mac.
I found two ways to change the Time Machine processpriority.
- 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. And macOS treat such process differently than regular processes. It artificially throttles them in order to give other (high priority) process more CPU time.
With this approach, you can play your game or watch a Youtube video in the browser without interruptions from system background processes.
But since our goal was temporarily to speed up Time Machinebackup, we can use a little trick that overrides the default macOS behavior.
The steps are the following:
1. Start Terminal app
2. Copy following text and paste into the Terminal window
The command requires entering an admin password. If youdon’t have a password enabled when logging in, you have to set it up in SystemReferences -> Users and Groups.
The command will take effect immediately.
3. Now open Time Machine and click the Backup Now button tostart the process.
4. After backup finishes don’t forget to change the setting backby running the same command with different parameter:
According to some people, the backup time reduces significantly, and in some cases, users reported the reduction from 11 hours to 55 minutes.
I tested the command myself, but I didn’t see that muchdifference. The improvement was around 20%. I believe that it really depends onthe size of the backup. The bigger the size, the bigger is the improvement.
Caveats:This command is system-wide. It means the change will apply to all system processes. So, if you have other background processes that run with a low priority, they will suddenly start taking more CPU.
That’s why either turn it off after backup is done bysetting the parameter to 1 or simply reboot the Mac.
User-friendly approach
If you don’t like to use Terminal, there is an app that calls command above for you. It’s called App Tamer by St. Clair Software. The app has a checkbox called “Accelerate Time Machine Backups”. The app is not free, however.
Change the priority of the backup task
Another way to change the priority of the backup processalso requires some Terminal magic.
In macOS, it is possible to set the task priority higher orlower. The tweak is called niceness, and macOS (just like other UNIX systems)has two commands: nice and renice. With nice command, you set the initialpriority, with renice you change it for the currently running process.
Here’s how to change the priority of the backup process:
- Open Activity Monitor
- Make sure that the PID column is visible. Go to View->Columns menu in the menu bar (menu at the top of the screen) and enable Process ID.
- Sort processes in the list by Process Name and find the backupd process. Note its PID. In my case, it was 5200.
- Run following command in the Terminal:
where <PID> is the value from the Activity Monitor, so for me the command was
Note the value under NI column. By default, this value isalways 0.
So, now we can change niceness and adjust priority higher orlower. The acceptable range of values is from -20 to 20.
To set the priority higher the value should be lower.
To set the priority lower the value should be higher.
Since we want to increase the priority, we will set thevalue to -20 (the lower the value, the higher is priority).
Here is the command:
Again, replace <PID> with the value from the Activity Monitor, like this:
User-friendly approach
There was an app called ProcessRenicer from eosgarden, which could do it in a visual way without having using the Terminal app. Unfortunately, the app is not being maintained anymore. So, I am not sure if you can make it work on the latest macOS versions. However, if you still on older OS X versions, it might work for you just fine.
Both approaches described above have some limitations. Whilewe were able to eliminate the wait time and make sure that Time Machine isworking as hard as possible, this may not be enough.
In the simplest form, the backup process is reading datafrom one disk and writing it on another. So, the speed of the backup depends onthe read speed of the primary storage and write speed of the backup drive.Also, in the case of AirPort Time Capsule or NAS, it depends on the networkspeed.
The Speed of The Primary Storage Drive
The speed of the primary disk on Mac varies widely from onemodel to another. Generally, MacBook Pro disk is faster than MacBook Air,models with SSDs are faster than models with HDDs, and newer Mac models arefaster than their predecessors.
When I was testing the impact of a FileVault on the diskperformance, I tested the disk performance on various Macs I had at home. Therange was from 81.7 MB/s on Mac Mini 2012 to 1885 on MacBook Pro 15-inch 2016.
You may say that that the disk in the Mac cannot bereplaced. That’s not necessarily true. It is true for MacBooks Pro built after2015 and MacBooks Air built after 2017, but older models are upgradeable.
Htpp www android com filetransfer. What’s cool is that besides getting a larger disk, you getinsanely fast speeds as well.
Let’s what I mean on the example of upgrading my MacBook Air2014. Currently, it has a 128GB disk, and the read performance is 314 MB/s.
There are multiple storage upgrade options on the market.Two brands are among the best in particular: OWC and Feather.
For instance, this 512GB Feather SSD compatible with my MBA increases read performance up to 3100 MB/s. That’s a 10x increase in speed!
And a little bit more expensive 480 GB SSD from OWC boasts read speeds up to 3200 MB/s.
Replacing SSD is very easy, even I can do it!
Note: Make sure to read compatibility notes for SSDs.Feather has a nice chart in the description which tells which of their productsis compatible with which Mac.
Another way to check the upgradeability of the Mac iscrucial.com. I’ve been using their scanner for decades when I needed to knowwhich HDD or RAM is compatible with my computer.
The Speed of the Backup Drive
The good thing about upgrading primary storage and improvingits read performance is that Time Machine is not the only thing that benefitsfrom the upgrade. Literally, every app runs faster (possibly 10x faster) now.
However, when it comes to the backup process, the biggestbang for the buck is choosing the right external hard drive.
For instance, I tested the difference in performance between backing up on an external hard drive and on a thumb drive.
Didn’t you know that it is possible to backup on a flash drive? Yes, you can. Flash drives work exactly the same way as external hard drives. The difference is usually the speed: flash drives are usually way slower (sometimes 10x-30x slower).
As expected in my experiment, the flash drive performed very poorly. I compared the performance of a generic cheap thumb drive (no brand name) with a Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB Portable External Hard Drive.
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.
Here is the difference performance:
- It took 59 min (almost an hour) to back up 20GB with Time Machine on a cheap flash drive.
- On the other hand, it took 38 minutes to do the same backup on Toshiba external HDD (35% less time).
Conclusion
We reviewed several ways to speed up Time Machine backups.
Some of them didn’t require any financial investments:manipulating backup process priority.
Others require purchasing extra hardware, and they generallyprovide long term benefits.
If you need recommendations for the best external devicesfor Time Machine, you can find them below. But even if you decide to go withdrives other than I recommend, please go with well-known brands.
Never buy hardware with a name you can’t pronounce, such as Junlipu or Shenmazan. Note: these are not real names, I just made them up, but you get the point.
![What Files Does Time Machine Backup What Files Does Time Machine Backup](https://www.technobezz.com/files/uploads/2018/12/macos-high-sierra-system-preferences-time-machine-select-backup-disk.jpg)
I am just amazed at how unknown brands get thousands of 5-starreviews on Amazon, and I try to stay away from those.
Remember, losing a backup may be much more costly thaninvesting in a more expensive but reliable brand. Notepad for ios.
Here is my list:
- Best Thunderbolt Drive For Time Machine
Time Machine is an important backup utility offered by Apple. Using it, Mac users can take a timely backup of their important files on a PC or a preferred location like an external drive. But sometimes it fails to function and shows error messages like Time Machine not backing up data or getting stuck at preparing backup.
This complicates things. So, if you too are facing this problem in this article, we will talk about ways to resolve it.
Before we move ahead with a detailed explanation, here are some quick troubleshooting fixes.
Quick Ways to Fix Time Machine Backup Failed
- Mac software should be updated.
- Whenever you face Time Machine restore or backup failed error try restarting Mac.
- If you use Airport Time Capsule update firmware.
- Mac should be connected to the same network as the backup drive.
- The connected drive should be switched on.
- When taking backup in third party external drive, make sure the firmware is up to date.
- The external drive should have enough space to store the backup.
- Before backing up data using Time Machine, you should clean all junk and redundant data. For this, you can try using TuneUpMyMac. It is the best Mac optimization and cleaning utility that cleans all unwanted data in no time.
Now, let’s learn how to fix Time Machine Backup Fails Repeatedly.
How to Fix a Time Machine Backup Failed?
![Time Time](https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/1820D/production/_115392889_billgatesmeme_false.jpg)
Unfortunately, several Mac users, after updating their Mac, face Time Machine backup failed error. If you are one of those unlucky users, here are some troubleshooting tips to fix the problem.
1. Check External hard drive’s file system.
If your external drive doesn’t have enough storage space or is formatted wrongly, you might face Time Backup error. Therefore, you need to make sure the external drive you are using has a native macOS format. The FAT or NTFS file system doesn’t work with Time Machine.
Besides, if the external hard drive is in APFS macOS format then also it won’t work with Time Machine backup.
To check the format of the drive you are using, follow the steps explained below:
1. Attach the external drive to your Mac.
2. Now, launch Finder.
3. Here, look for drive> select it > right-click Get Info.
Portable solid state drive for mac. 4. This will show drives format under General information.
If the external drive you are using is having one of the incompatible formats, you’ll need to reformat it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with a GUID Partition Table (GPT).
To do so, you can use Disk Utility. Follow the steps to format the external drive:
1. Attach the external drive to Mac.
2. Open Finder > Go > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
3. Open Disk Utility and choose the attached drive (external) from the left pane.
4. Click Erase present at the top of the Disk Utility window. As shown in the screenshot below:
5. In the new pop-up window that opens rename the drive if you want and alters and drive format to the supported one (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) > Erase.
This will change the format of your external drive and will make it compatible with Time Machine. Now you can take backup using Time Machine.
2. Check free disk space on external drive
If you still face any problem check for the available space on external drive. There should be enough room to back up the Time Machine. If that’s not the case get rid of unwanted files stored on it and free up space for Time Machine backup. Alternatively, you can use a new external hard drive or one with enough available space.
Additional Tip
If you want to backup optimized and clean data using Time Machine, we suggest cleaning junk files, duplicates, unwanted cache, cookies, and other unrequired data from Mac. For this, you can check out the dedicated app known as TuneUpMyMac. This amazing Mac optimizer and cleaning tool helps perform various tasks. Using it, you can optimize your Mac in a single click, delete privacy exposing traces from the browser, junk files, duplicates, large files, old downloads, and more.
It also helps boost speed, and shred deleted data entirely so that it cannot be recovered.
How to fix Time Machine backup fails frequently?
When you backup temporary files, Time Machine backup fails repeatedly. Therefore, to fix this issue, you need to clean up these files.
What Files Does Time Machine Backup Software
To do this, follow the steps below:
1. Turn off the Time Machine. To do so click Apple logo > System Preferences > and look for the Time Machine tab.
2. Here, uncheck the Back Up Automatically option.
Next, clean Time Machine’s working files. To do so, follow the steps below:
1. Open Finder > select external hard disk.
2. Now look for folder names Backups.backupdb
3. Please open it and delete the file with .inProgress suffix. For this right-click and select Move to Trash/Bin.
4. Empty the Trash and reboot Mac.
Now, enable Time Machine and try taking backing up data. You should not face any problem.
Check for junk files, and other unwanted data as it might be causing problems.
Sometimes junk files, system cache, temp files, prevent an application from running correctly. In such cases knowing the exact reason for the problem is impossible. Therefore, to deal with such issues, I would recommend using TuneUpMyMac.
This excellent Mac optimizer and cleaner know where to look for junk files, app leftovers, temp files, and other unwanted data that creates problems. It quickly scans Mac for all the unwanted data and helps clean them smoothly. To use TuneUpMyMac and clean junk files, system cache, and duplicates, follow the steps below:
1. Download TuneUpMyMac.
2. Install and click Start System Scan to run the app.
3. Let the scan finish. TuneUpMyMac will not list down all junk and unwanted data.
4. Click Clean Now to delete detected junk files and other unwanted data that is creating the problem.
Now try to use Time Machine and take a backup so you should not face any problem.
So, this is all as you learned about the different reasons that can lead to Time Machine backup failure error messages. The most important thing that you need to do whenever you face the problem is to check the format of the external drive. If it is incompatible, nothing will work. Therefore, make sure you use supported formats. In addition to this, if you keep your Mac optimized, you can not only solve the Time Machine problem but other problems too. For this, you can try using TuneUpMyMac, a must-have utility that performs various tasks in a single click.
What Files Does Time Machine Backup File
Hope you find the information useful. Do share your thoughts in the comments section.