Slow Backup via Itunes - How to Speed up>?

[King Hal]

@Wenzej the backup is to the computer running iTunes. I've have intermittent problems with slow backup which seems to caused by adding a new mag to the Zinio reader. I've turned off the backup for just Zinio, via the app itself.

 

[Nova69]

Zinio was cause of my slow backups

I was experiencing backups of as long as 8 hours until I made two changes. First, I turned off the backup of my magazines using the command in the Zinio app. I also switched my usb sync cable from a generic to the original that came with the iPad. Now my backups take about 10 minutes. Most likely, it was the change in Zinio that did the trick. I have heard that other magazine and comic book apps can create the same problem.

 

[Tinman]

I had fairly slow backups.... to the point of usually canceling them. But since updating to iTunes 10 on my PC and iOS 4.2 beta 2 on iPad they are considerably faster... down to two minutes or so. Same thing happened on my iPhone 3GS when it was updated to 4.0... backups got faster.

So I suspect once 4.2 is out officially for iPad it should rectify the issue for all.

 

[BiggerDee]

It looks like Zinio was the cause of my many hour backup problem as well. I only had six single issues in Zinio, but my backups went from 4 minutes to 6 hours. MANY thanks to those who figured this out and shared their insight here!

I turned off my Zinio backup, and I'm back to a 5 minute backup on a 32GB WiFi with 5 GB free. Zinio REALLY needs to fix this problem.

 

[Sonny Burnett]

Take some stuff off of your iPad.

 

[wrecklass]

Take some stuff off of your iPad.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of large storage? Clearly this is an iOS 3.x issue, if upgrading to 4.2 fixifies it.

 

[Tinman]

Take some stuff off of your iPad.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of large storage? Clearly this is an iOS 3.x issue, if upgrading to 4.2 fixifies it.

And if it is working properly, it doesn't back up everything all the time. It should be doing incremental backups.

In fact, since the iPad doesn't really create much backups should never be slow. I mean why back up stuff we only sync from iTunes anyway?

On my iPhone, which can record HD video, yes I like that it backs all my camera video and photos up... but I don't see much to back up on the iPad, unless you are manually managing music and want to get it all back without having to remember what you put on there.

In any case I am on 4.2 beta 3 now, iTunes 10.1 beta 2, and backups fly (< 2 min).




Michael

 

[jitavits]

If you have anti-virus, turn it off. It's work for me.

 

[The Alternative]

Or sit tight until the app gets fixed, and make sure that you install updates as soon as they are released.

Hope this helps.

How are people supposed to know when an app is updated, other than to check its iTunes page every day (asking legitimately, not angrily. I've never owned a touch iPod/phone long enough to figure that out... And the iTunes help doesn't mention it at all)? I did the "check for updates" thing in the apps section of iTunes, but it said there were none... But then I went to look up all the horrible reviews for the broken Abc app, and it said they had released a new update... I had to manually reinstall.

App updates appear as small red numbers over the top of the App Store icon on the device. In iTunes a number in an oval appears to the right of the Apps icon. In both cases this number tells you how many updates are available for the apps that you've already downloaded.

 

[BiggerDee]

Another culprit...

The NM Editions (Neimar Marcus Catalogs) app was what was killing mine. I re-enabled Zinio backups and deleted the NM Editions app. Once I did that, my 80% full 32GB wi-fi iPad backup went to about 45 seconds, and I'm running the original OS, and iTunes 10. If you go out to the App Store and read the reviews for NM Editions, every post has a complaint about the app taking backups from seconds or a minute or to, to hours, even overnight. Without NM Editions installed on my iPad, it's back to working perfectly with iTunes again.

It may all still be OS or iTunes related, but there is definitely a problem with how that app interacts with the backup process.

 

[Tinman]

The NM Editions (Neimar Marcus Catalogs) app was what was killing mine. I re-enabled Zinio backups and deleted the NM Editions app. Once I did that, my 80% full 32GB wi-fi iPad backup went to about 45 seconds, and I'm running the original OS, and iTunes 10. If you go out to the App Store and read the reviews for NM Editions, every post has a complaint about the app taking backups from seconds or a minute or to, to hours, even overnight. Without NM Editions installed on my iPad, it's back to working perfectly with iTunes again.

It may all still be OS or iTunes related, but there is definitely a problem with how that app interacts with the backup process.

It's not the app, it's the backup process. So essentially you're fixing the symptom not the problem. The problem is that some apps, not just that one, can trigger ridiculously long backups. Sure deleting those apps "fixes" it but it is not fixing the actual problem. That is fixed in 4.x and above.



Michael

 

[BiggerDee]

I agree completely. That was the only app causing a problem for me (I have 209 apps installed) so if I can delete it and eliminate the problem completely on my device, then it's an immediate, albeit not perfect, solution for me.

 

[janm]

why is itunes backup so slow???

I am an owner of a 32gb ipad and also experienced slow backup times.

let me first explain how itunes (to my opinion) works:

Itunes takes every new file, added since the last backup, and moves it to a new directory in the backup directory \user\appdata\roaming\apple computer\mobilesync\backup
The transfer speed of the data is very slow and might be improved in ios 4.2, but the principle of the backup (every new file) still holds.

let me give you a few examples:
1. all new articles read in the new york times apps, all new pictures, etc.
2. all files related to an app first installed on the ipad (not via itunes on your pc). It is therefore advisable to install a apps from itunes onto your ipad or iphone

unfortunately many of the news apps (new york times, NU (NL) etc dont have a history/cache cleaning feature in the ipad apps settings.
I love apps like NYtimes, but its HD content is building up quickly and massively.

The backup process also creates a massive amount of mddata and mdinfo files in the backup directory. with my 60 apps i am easily exceeding 1gb per backup if i dont make changes before i make a backup.

You can identify easily which apps are killing the backup process.
I have found a simple tool, called "advanced find and replace" from abacre (free to use for a 21 day period).

it allows you to search in the backup directory the MDINFO files for your app names and displays the files containing that name.
just have that result sorted by timestamp and you know the start and endtime of the app.
I can already give you some apps with excessive times:
Kayak, Stanza (depending on the number of new ebooks), NU, New york times, Zinio, etc.

Nowadays i first remove the apps with excessive history content, do the backup and reinstall the app via itunes on my pc.

By the way: as far as i can judge the itunes backup process is cumulative and will not backup a file, already handled in a previous backup.
regards
Jan

 

[SweetPoison]

I tried just about everything. There is a thread here. I uninstalled iTunes and reinstalled it after I deleted all my 24 apps. This fixed it for me. So I'm not sure if it was an app or iTunes. I think it was iTunes.

I had 8 hour syncing/back ups. Ridiculous.

 

[newfmp3]

My last backup took 27hrs. My 32 gig iPad has 23gig Free!

I have tried everything on every forum I have seen. Reformatted PC, which worked for one backup, then slow again. Zinio app was causing it once, I removed it, and worked for 1 backup, them sure enough the next backup slow again. I let my last backup go overnight, then while I was at work the next, just curious to see how long it would take - 27hrs