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Speed Limitation of Time Machine: Interface, External Drive or TM Itself?
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Apr 2008
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I was just wondering if the speed limitation for Time Machine is the interface, or Time Machine itself?
I am thinking of getting a 750 GB Iomega external hard drive:
Apple Store (U.S.) - Iomega 750GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Desktop Hard Drive
But, I read some reviews saying it was slow.
Is that because the drive is slow, USB 2.0 is slow or Time Machine is slow? Is Firewire 400 faster?
Is the Iomega an OK drive to get?
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MacBook Pro, 15", 4 GB RAM, 2.2 Ghz, ACD 20"
OS X Leopard 10.5.x
VMWare Fusion running Windows Vista
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
Online
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People say that Time Machine is slow, but my backup went fast enough around - 300 MB/sec from a Mccally USB enclosure to a 500GB green drive.
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Apple and Intel: As kosher as a cheeseburger.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
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Originally Posted by Big Mac 
People say that Time Machine is slow, but my backup went fast enough around - 300 MB/sec 300 Mb/sec from a Mccally USB enclosure to a 500GB green drive.
Fixinated.
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My Macs: 128, 512, Plus, SE, SE/30, IIsi, IIci, PowerBook 100, Quadra 700, LC 475, Performa 630, Power Mac 7100, PowerBook G3 Lombard, iMac DV+, Power Mac G4 MDD, Ti PowerBook G4, 17" iMac G4, 12" PowerBook G4 1GHz, 12" PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, Mac mini G4 1.5GHz, 15" PowerBook G4 1.67GHz, 13" MacBook (black), 15" MacBook Pro 2.0GHz, 15" MacBook Pro 2.33GHz with 20" ACD, 15" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz with 23" ACD
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Originally Posted by Simon
Fixinated.
picky aren't we
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
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Sorry, misplaced the decimal.
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Apple and Intel: As kosher as a cheeseburger.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: New York, NY, USA
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All three.
Hardwarewise, an internal drive will be faster than an external, and an external FW800 drive will be faster than an external USB drive. However, TM's speed is related to how much processing it has to do on the data, which depends on how much it's backing up and what the data is.
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The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Yeah, the processor seems to be a bigger factor than the transfer interface right now. I noticed much, much larger of a speed difference in TM just going from my old iMac G5 to my MBP than I did going from FW400 to FW800. There are apparently some inefficiencies in Time Machine's code right now. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised at all if TM gets better optimized in the future, so this situation may change later.
Purely going by transfer speeds, of course, FireWire is going to be faster than USB 2.0, especially on OS X, since Apple's drivers for USB 2.0 aren't known for being extremely fast. Whether the difference is enough to be worth the difference in price is up to you.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: in front of my Mac
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Originally Posted by MacosNerd
picky aren't we
Some call it picky. Others call it an order of magnitude difference. 
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My Macs: 128, 512, Plus, SE, SE/30, IIsi, IIci, PowerBook 100, Quadra 700, LC 475, Performa 630, Power Mac 7100, PowerBook G3 Lombard, iMac DV+, Power Mac G4 MDD, Ti PowerBook G4, 17" iMac G4, 12" PowerBook G4 1GHz, 12" PowerBook G4 1.5GHz, Mac mini G4 1.5GHz, 15" PowerBook G4 1.67GHz, 13" MacBook (black), 15" MacBook Pro 2.0GHz, 15" MacBook Pro 2.33GHz with 20" ACD, 15" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz with 23" ACD
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2002
Status:
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TM is also designed not to slow down your machine or network all that much so because of that its going to be slower than it could be.
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Alex Kac - President and Founder WebIS, Inc.
Pocket Informant (Calendar, Tasks, Contacts and more designed for mobile computing) for iPhone coming in 2008!
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: New York, NY, USA
Status:
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Originally Posted by alex_kac
TM is also designed not to slow down your machine. . .
I don't know about this. TM regulary takes 100% CPU on my machine.
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The era of anthropomorphizing hardware is over.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Dec 2000
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I think it depends on whether you've got a dual-core machine or not. On my dual-core MBP, it's not so noticeable when it's running in the background. On my single-core iMac G5, it brought the machine to a crawl (and tended to take up to 30 minutes to complete, further enhancing the aggravation).
I haven't looked at its CPU usage in top yet, but what I'll bet it's doing is eating the heck out of one core, leaving the other core free... if you've got one.
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