A full Time Machine backup over SMB analysed in detail. This reveals that some of the measures reported in the log are likely to be inaccurate and misleading, and gives suggestions for improving performance.
SMB
Tackles decisions and problems, including whether to use APFS in the backup sparsebundle, AFP or SMB, and configuration.
Turning the data blocks into files and directories, these have common functions and additional features which can give rise to tricky problems.
With a new version of Xcode, I knew that my network backup would take several hours. Then, as it neared its conclusion, disaster struck: the router reset itself and the network share vanished.
Slow performance when backing up to a network share is mainly down to SMB. Without its improvement, Time Machine over a network is still dead in the water.
How can it take over 5 hours to back up 79 GB of files to a network share? That’s an average transfer rate of 4 MB/s, probably slower than your Internet connection.
Provided it doesn’t have to back up large folders containing many small files, Time Machine backing up to APFS on a network share works well.
How to connect your M1 Mac in Target Disk mode, avoiding an endless restart loop, and how fast to expect it to perform. Plus more on benchmarks.
Can you still share files using the AFP protocol, or must you contend with SMB and its bugs? And what about shared storage for Time Machine backups?
Additional info about how you can install and upgrade to High Sierra, its new Content Caching feature, how it changes firmware updates, changes to NVRAM, and more.
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