• Time Machine unbelievably slow


    rctneil
    • Minor
    Message added by limetech

    Please be aware that these comments were copied here from another source and that the date and time shown for each comment may not be accurate.

    Hello,

    I have a Time Machine share set up on my server to backup my MacBook Pro too but it's unbelievably slow.  Any suggestions how to speed it up or figure out why it's slow?

     

    I'm using a 2017 13" MacBook Pro running Catalina 10.15.2. Connected via Ethernet as well.

     

    All suggestions very much welcome!

     

    Thanks,

    Neil

     

    Edit: As per @limetech instructions I have attached diagnostics:

     

     

    tardis-diagnostics-20200204-2055.zip

    • Like 1



    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    I too am having problems with Time Machine backups on my Unraid server. AFP is off. SMB has Enhanced macOS interoperability enabled. My backup share is Exported as Time Machine. Time Machine Backups are fine with these settings on 6.7.2. Unraid 6.8 and above all have the same slow backup problem. Backups take days and more or less never complete.

    Link to comment
    On 2/1/2020 at 4:15 AM, rctneil said:

    Any suggestions how to speed it up or figure out why it's slow?

     

    14 hours ago, lawr1000 said:

    I too am having problems with Time Machine backups on my Unraid server.

     

    Please try turning off hard link support: Settings/Global Share Settings/Tunable (support hard links)

    Link to comment
    27 minutes ago, limetech said:

     

     

    Please try turning off hard link support: Settings/Global Share Settings/Tunable (support hard links)

     

    Just disabled that option and doing some tests. Will report back.   May I ask how this will help?

    Link to comment
    On 2/2/2020 at 5:52 PM, limetech said:

     

     

    Please try turning off hard link support: Settings/Global Share Settings/Tunable (support hard links)

    @limetech Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think it's working as i've left my machine doing a TM backup all day since 7:30am and it's done less than 5Gb and this is over a wired connection.  Something else must be wrong here.  Any ideas?

    Link to comment

    I’m having the same issue, backup speeds are in the 0.1-2 MB/s range, they finish eventually but it’d be nice to have them be a bit quicker.  
     

    My setup is a disk in the array that hosts two shares(previously one, added a second when I noticed slow backups) for TM backups, neither set to use cache.  It’s not the array being used for anything else since it happens when the TM Share is the only disk spun up, I can read write other data to the disk at reasonable speeds(~50 MB/s), just Time Machine being slow.  Those same computers are also backing up to a Time Capsule, which works as well as it ever has.  One computer is on Ethernet, one Wi-Fi.  1.8 TB free on a 4 TB disk.  
     

    I didn’t make the connection of them getting slow on v4.8, but that sounds like about the right timeframe.  I’m interested to see how this works out.

     

    Link to comment

    I turned off hard link support. Tried backing up and still seemed to have problems. Next I deleted the share to start the backups fresh. My laptop completely backed up 650 GB overnight. Great! Next I attempted to backup my desktop and it only backed up 240 GB in about twelve hours. Not so great but still better than before.

     

    I've included a diagnostic file after backup was running all day.

    bigfish-diagnostics-20200204-2026.zip

    Link to comment

    Here it is with two devices trying to backup and hardlinks disabled. It appears that it's extremely bursty. It will go from 0b/s to 90 KB/s to 2MB/s and then back to zero constantly. Both backups are taking multiple hours to complete.

     

    image.thumb.png.81f49cf67f986b6b18f4f1dbc80d3100.pngimageproxy.php?img=&key=e5eec7c5c933ca16imageproxy.php?img=&key=e5eec7c5c933ca16

    tower-diagnostics-20200208-2244.zip

    Edited by atlasalex
    Additional comment
    • Like 1
    Link to comment

    Here's another diagnostic, TM has been running about 3 hours from my MacBook Pro on Wi-Fi.  1.7 GB/8.2 GB complete.  Running Black Magic Speed test to the same drive gets around 30 MB/s, speeds reported in the Main Tab in UnRaid fluctuate between 500 KB/s and 5 MB/s, more often on the lower end.  My iStat menus graph looks pretty much like atlasalex's.

    unraid-diagnostics-20200229-1927.zip

    Link to comment

    hello,

     

    i have the same experience as described above. backups are very slow after creating a new time machine share with "support hard links = no". Any updates for Time Machine backups on Unraid? 

     

    if needed, i also can provide a diagnostics file....

     

    best regards

    Edited by spencer123
    .
    • Like 1
    Link to comment

    Updated to 6.8.3 yesterday.  Seems like a big improvement on my last backup from my MacBook Pro.  Got through about 1.5 GB in about 20 minutes, which is still a bit slower than my Time Capsule backups.  Disk activity is still very spiky, but has higher peaks, higher valleys, and seems to spend more time at the higher speeds.

     

     

    unraid-diagnostics-20200315-0605.zip

    Link to comment

    I've converted one of my Macs to backup(same backup set, just changed share and TM settings) using a disk share instead of a user share.  Performance seems about the same as my last post, somewhere in the range of 10-15 min/GB.

    Edited by Kelsenellenelvial
    • Like 1
    Link to comment

    For everyone following this thread, I created a new a share to do some testing. I found online that supposedly authenticated SMB is more reliable for TimeMachine than using Guest access. I don't know if others are using Guest access for TimeMachine, but I was. Once I created a new share with an authenticated user, my TimeMachine is suddenly much faster. Hopefully this can help someone else while we wait for additional answers.

     

    Here is a video on how to set it up from scratch from Space Invader One:

     

     

    Link to comment

    I've been using authenticated SMB since the start, and also created a completely new share (again). Time Machine will write a few hundred GB of its initial backup, but seems to get slower as it goes. By the time it reaches 1 TB, after 4-5 days, it's crawling. It had been working perfectly with 3 TB until Unraid 6.8, which I only recently upgraded to after waiting for any issues to show up. Heh.

     

    The only difference I can think of is that I'm using my main user to authenticate, same as for other shares. Did you create a new user just for Time Machine?

    Link to comment

    I have this exact issue. It's frustrating and was not an issue on 6.7.2 for me.

     

    I can get a backup to begin but after about 14 hours it will just fail. 

     

    I turned a very low powered Ubuntu box into a TimeMachine server yesterday and all of my machines have been backing up to it without issue. It's also much faster than with UNRAID 6.8.3.

     

    I kept reading that backing up over the network is glitchy but it was never an issue for me.

     

    I'm not sure what changed but it really sucks to not be able to backup straight to my UNRAID box anymore.

    • Like 1
    Link to comment
    10 hours ago, Mathervius said:

    I turned a very low powered Ubuntu box into a TimeMachine server yesterday and all of my machines have been backing up to it without issue. It's also much faster than with UNRAID 6.8.3.

    If your unraid box can handle VM's, try replicating that same TimeMachine server in a VM and see how it performs.

    Link to comment

    Unfortunately, this did not work. I already had an Ubuntu 19.10 desktop VM running so I added the packages needed for TimeMachine and it does not work.

     

    None of the Macs on my network can see the TimeMachine share on the network. It looks like the VM isn't able to advertise on the local network even with avahi running.

     

    If someone knows a workaround I'm willing to test this again.

    Link to comment



    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Status Definitions

     

    Open = Under consideration.

     

    Solved = The issue has been resolved.

     

    Solved version = The issue has been resolved in the indicated release version.

     

    Closed = Feedback or opinion better posted on our forum for discussion. Also for reports we cannot reproduce or need more information. In this case just add a comment and we will review it again.

     

    Retest = Please retest in latest release.


    Priority Definitions

     

    Minor = Something not working correctly.

     

    Urgent = Server crash, data loss, or other showstopper.

     

    Annoyance = Doesn't affect functionality but should be fixed.

     

    Other = Announcement or other non-issue.