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Time Machine slowing down end users' workstations

Hey all,

Have a case where all users are backing up to a central Time Machine server. Now when the backup takes place, the users computers all slow down in performance - so much they have to pause the backup to operate their computers again.

Now, I have verified the disk is fine that they are backing up to. The network is running at 1gbps, so I can confirm that is ok as well by moving data and reaching these speeds.

I looked at suggestions of disabling Spotlight index on the backup volume, but I haven't seen any improvement here.

Does anyone have any suggestions/fixes to help alleviate the Time Machine slow downs?

Thanks!

AliQahtani

what do you mean by all users are backing up to a central Time Machine server?

the user backing up their data or setting the time of the machine to time machine server?

itGenius

ASKER

Sorry, backing up their data. Should have been more specific.

Xaelian

This is common for Time machine under Tiger (also under the rest of the MAC OS X OS'es).

I've found a great article about the things you can do to resolve this.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20116246-263/tackling-time-machine-slowdowns-in-os-x/

AliQahtani

you can check this link
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Macintosh-OS-1063/2012/1/time-machine-slow.htm

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

et01267

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strung

I agree with ET. The network speed makes a huge difference. For instance, in my home, our time capsule is in the basement. I see no backup slowdowns backing up over wifi from the basement or first floor, but backups cause a huge slowdown if I am on the second floor.

One other possibility for a slowdowns might be antivirus software.

valmatic

The problem is also that time machine is backing up way to much. Good for very sensitive data, bad if you just want a normal backup every so often. I have a usb drive direct to the pc and on a older mac like 4 years old yes it slows it down. On one that is from earlier this year it is ok. This free tool lets you customize when you want time machine to run. If you do not want to customize the times, maybe you should exclude items in the time machine preferences that you do not want backed up.
http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/

itGenius

ASKER

Well, I am confident it's not the network. Every user is running on ethernet with the desired throughput...

Yes, we are running a XServe with Raid, running Snow Leopard. I'll try those articles, see how it goes. And also, they are all using the default Mail.app, so I can rule those other email client backups out of the equation.

Thanks for your help all, will post back with any updates.

strung

Try temporarily turning of your antivirus to see if it makes a difference.

mtsdemo

Time Machine is terrible.

Looks cool..but its terrible.

I highly recommend you look at CrashPlan.

http://www.crashplan.com

itGenius

ASKER

Good old spotlight!