Time Machine Tip

TidBITS Talk
1

I have 2 TMs, one on a Time Capsule (WiFi) and another on a wired external HD; I back up both only once a day, and occasionally look into them to see if they’re working OK (I don’t actually need it very often). Recently it seemed that it (they) had become extraordinarily slow, both backing up and browsing the contents.

So I tried something I’d never tried before: I ran TechTool Pro’s Volume Rebuild routine on the HD (can’t do it on the Time Capsule). It took about 8 hours to complete (the snapshots each take forever!). But now that it’s done, the backups are much, much faster, and, more importantly, browsing is now much faster.

3 Likes
2

Does this work on an APFS formatted Time Machine disk? TTPro’s documentation says that a volume rebuild can’t optimize the directory of an APFS volume, just HFS+.

3

Yes. My TM HD is APFS. I’m using TTP v.18.