Help! Unbearably Slow Backup

I am trying to make my first full backup using TI 10 Home which I purchased yesterday. I wish to backup my C: containing 30gb of data to a 100 gb WD USB drive. Normally it is a very fast laptop and a known good USB drive. I ran the backup wizard and left all the settings at default.

For the first couple minutes, the HD light on the computer and the light on the USB drive are very active. Seems to be working fine. But after a couple minutes I see very little activity from either drive. I let it run all night last night. This morning it was still running, but with "4% complete" and "6 days remaining".

I checked for updates on the website and appear to have the latest version. I have a 3.06 ghz pentium 4 with 1.25 gb of ram. The USB drive is connected directly to the computer, not through a hub. I should also mention that the computer bogs down while the backup is running even though no real progress seems to be made. As soon as I cancel the backup operation, it speeds right back up.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jason

 

Are you creating the image from within Windows or are you booting the TI Recovery CD and then making the image?

Post the make and model of the laptop in case somebody else has a similar one they can provide info on their experience.

You could try making an image of your C drive to your C drive since it appears you have enough space. Ignore any warning message. This is not a solution since you could not restore this image but it would give an indication if you have a USB drive problem or MB chipset problem. If you have a second partition on the drive that will hold the backup then that is even better.

 

I seem to have fixed my problem. At low priority the backup took 6 days. I changed the priority to 'high' and it backed up 30GB in 30 minutes. Incrementals now take 3 minutes.

6 days was so unacceptable, that I didn't even bother to change the priority. I just assumed something was terribly wrong.

For everyone else out there, what priority setting are you using? How long does a backup take on 'low' priority?

Jason

 

Jaygray,

I was going to suggest you check and verify that your 100 gb WD USB drive has an NTFS format. Mine did not, I reformatted it and now it does. Made a huge time difference. The other point is to verify you have USB 2.0 or higher vs USB 1.0. I have one of each on 2 different PCs. USB 1.0 is about 40 times slower.

How do I access this PRIORITY Settings? Have not encountered it before. Appreciate a reply - if not from you - anyone.

 

Two places:
To set as default, on the main menu Tools Options Backup Options and to set for restore, same place except Restore Options.

You can also set it for the current backup/restore by setting it within the Options Window in the wizard.

I am surprised that the Low priority mentioned by the other poster made such a difference.