Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • Time Machine Restore – what am i not understanding about transfer rates?
  • geetee1972
    Free Member

    I’m using the Time Machine facility on the Mac OS to transfer all my data from an old MBP to a new one.

    There’s 350gb to transfer and I’ve connected the new MBP to the Time Machine capsule using a 10 gigabit Ethernet connection.

    Apparently it’s going to take eight hours to complete but in theory it should only take 350GB/8 seconds per gigabyte.

    What have I missed and is there any way I can speed things up?

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Is it 10Gb at both ends?

    jimdubleyou
    Full Member

    Edit: Didn’t read it all…

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    amedias
    Free Member

    Doesn’t matter how fast the connection between them is if the disks or devices you’re reading from (and the one you’re writing to) are the bottleneck…

    For example, the theoretical max throughput of a SATA 3* controller is 6.0Gb/s, so even if you have such a controller at both ends, under ideal circucmstances with a drive at each end capable of maxing out said controllers you’re still some way off. throw in some overheads, real-world conditions, ‘normal’ drives and an OS not optimised for throwing files around and you’re going to go SIGNIFICANTLY slower.

    Not to mention the difference between transferring one big file and writing a single stream Vs thousands of smaller ones and associated overheads.

    *I don’t knwo what controller is in your devices but SATA 3 is a decent enough example.

    EDIT – unless I’ve looked at the wrong device:

    Apple Time Capsule specs

    specs say the Time Capsule only has:

    Gigabit Ethernet WAN/LAN ports…

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Edit – bollox

    geetee1972
    Free Member

    I suppose so – I’m using a Cat6 cable and it’s connected by Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter so the least it should be is 20gbps. Maybe the Air Port itself is the bottleneck?

    The thing is the difference between the rate I’m getting and theoretical rate is off by a factor of 10 (it’s currently working at 82s per gigabyte of data, which is (I think) 0.1 gbps.

    This is what makes me think there’s something fundamental I’ve not understood.

    ghostlymachine
    Free Member

    What have I missed

    How computers work?

    and is there any way I can speed things up?

    Transfer fewer files? Faster drives at both ends? Zip them first?

    Go out for a bit and come back later?

    rossburton
    Free Member

    The Airport itself is probably the bottleneck as it’s not a file server. I restored my several hundred gig of MBP in under two hours but that was over gigabit from a NAS under my desk with lots of RAM, RAID disks, and 2GHz of x86.

    Whereas the NAS it replaced, with I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-IDE SATA controllers, 128M of RAM, and a low-power ARM processor, was a start in the evening and finished the next lunchtime job.

    kcal
    Full Member

    My last transfer from one rMBP to an iMac — seemed to go over local connection using – not sure really – elves? – WiFi – it was pretty quick, don’t think as long as 8 hours. Both had effectively SSDs though.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    Time Capsule is 1Gbps – thats bits per second – interface.

    350Gb of data that’s giga bytes.

    The network and the ability of the NAS to supply it are the limiting factor – typically you’ll see 400Mbps over a 1Gbps connection, and thats before you allow for the fact that the 350Gb is spread across (probably) lots of tiny files.

    Plus the estimates are just that – a guess based on whats been transferred already.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    What’s a Time Capsule?

    I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-IDE

    😆

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    What the mac you are trying to restore to kinda drive is in that?

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    Your speeds sound about right for the items and processes in question. Restoring from most kinds of backup takes a bit of time.

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    Seems well covered, but your Cat6 lead has a theoretical max of 10 gig, your laptop (sorry, MacBook) has a theoretical max of 1 gig, but a number of other bits and bobs in the chain and it will only move as fast as the slowest one.

    You could spend a couple of days to work it all out and buy some more kit etc, but just waiting seems easier.

    Actually, you could probably do it quicker by removing the HDD from the source and putting it into a USB 3.0 caddy connected to your new device.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    As above plus I imagine the recipient machine has some “thinking” to do before writing the data to its disk. Time Machine restore isn’t just a simole clone afaik

    geetee1972
    Free Member

    your laptop (sorry, MacBook) has a theoretical max of 1 gig,

    Well it’s only got two hours left so doesn’t seem worth worrying a out but the connections used by the laptop are supposed to be capable of 40mbps rather than one.

    Not that i care, it is just a tool afterall.

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    Well it’s only got two hours left so doesn’t seem worth worrying a out but the connections used by the laptop are supposed to be capable of 40mbps rather than one.

    Not that i care, it is just a tool afterall.

    MBps or Mbps?

    MBps = 8 Mbps

    Honestly, it’s a Minefield created by an industry keen to justify itself and confuse consumers into spending money to pointlessly.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Your MacBook Harddrives write speed is the only number that really matters(well and the read speed on the time machine, but I’d guess that’s faster), the connections are always more capable than that.

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