Device: WD My Cloud
Firmware version: WDMyCloud v04.05.00-320.
I’ve been backing up my older macbook (running El Capitan) for several years to this device and haven’t noticed any problems. Yesterday I decided to also back up my Macbook Pro (high Sierra). So first I changed the Maximum size for Time Machine Backups on the WDMyCloud from 2 TB to 3.3 TB. The help on this setting says:
Increasing the maximum backup value after the initial backup has no effect on existing backups.
So I didn’t expect increasing it would create any problems. Then I started a backup from the newer computer. After a while I noticed it was extremely slow. Checking the old computer I saw it was trying to back up 10GB at the same time. I thought the slowness was interference, so I stopped both backups and started the old computer backup again, to let it finish before trying the new one.
It crawled along overnight and I calculated it was backing up at a rate of around 0.03 MB/s. I’ve checked all the things in the WD support documents on time machine slowness. Network topology is good: everything is connect by gigabit ethernet. Remote access is disabled. DLNA server is off. iTunes server is off. I tried downloading a large file from the mycloud to the computer with ftp. It hummed along nicely at 17MB/s. So the problem is just with Time Machine.
I’ve rebooted both devices a couple of times.
To rule out the macbook as the culprit, I started a new backup onto a Time Machine server running on an Asuswrt router. It is currently transfering at about 3 MB/s. 100 times faster than the mycloud.
Did changing the maximum size screw up the time machine server? Adding another client? Or has it always been this bad and I never noticed (Time Machine usually keeps a pretty low profile).
Thanks for any insight on this. (And please, I’ve already seen lots of comments on many forums about how networked Time Machine won’t work on non-Apple products. So let’s try to focus on how to make it work — especially now that the Time Capsule has been EOL’d.)
