Troubleshooting slow performance when copying files to or from a network volume

Network performance is usually the bottleneck of a backup task that copies files to or from a network volume, but there are several other factors that can affect performance as well. Here are some suggestions for improving the performance of your NAS-based backups.

Use ethernet instead of WiFi

Backing up data over a wireless connection will be considerably slower than backing up over an ethernet connection. 802.11n networks support approximately 300 Mb/s of rated (theoretical) bandwidth under the best conditions, but they usually operate at much lower speeds (130 Mbps and below, which is comparable to 16 MB/s). Bandwidth drops considerably as you get further from the base station (a wooden door between your Mac and the router will cut the signal in half), and the file sharing protocol overhead will reduce your achievable bandwidth yet more. So practically speaking, you're lucky to get 8 MB/s over a wireless connection while sitting right next to the base station. That performance can be cut in half due to Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL), which causes the Airport card's interface bandwidth to be shared between your ordinary WiFi network and an ad hoc network hosted by your Mac.

We performed a simple bandwidth test to a fourth generation Airport Extreme Base Station (802.11n) to demonstrate the performance decline. We copied a 100MB file to an external hard drive attached to the base station via USB in three scenarios: 1. An ethernet connection to the base station, 2. Sitting a few feet from the base station, and 3. Sitting across the house from the base station (~35 feet, no line of sight to the base station). The results were 6.5s (15.5 MB/s), 18.7s (5.3 MB/s), and 256s (0.39 MB/s) for the three scenarios, respectively. So, before you try to back up over a wireless network, consider running a simple test in the Finder to see just how fast your connection is. If it takes more than a minute to copy a 100MB file, your connection is too slow to be practical for backup purposes.

Use Quick Update after establishing a backup of a local source

Once you have established the initial, complete backup to a destination network volume, you can use CCC's Quick Update feature to greatly reduce the length of subsequent backup tasks. When Quick Update is enabled, CCC queries the FSEvents service for a list of folders that were modified on the source since the last backup event. In many cases, this folder list is just a small fraction of the total number of folders. By limiting the scope of the task to just the modified folders, CCC will have far fewer folders to enumerate on the destination.

Related Documentation

• Use Quick Update when it's possible to collect a list of modified folders from macOS

Exclude unnecessary content from the backup task

The more content you have in your backup task, the longer it will take to copy that content to a NAS and update that data set later. Especially if you're using the NAS as a secondary backup, we recommend excluding content that is more easily restored from other sources, e.g. applications archives can often be re-downloaded from the App Store faster than the decompressed files can be restored from a NAS backup. Click the Task Filter button at the bottom of the CCC window to exclude content from the backup task.

In particular, we recommend excluding the Applications folder if you're making a backup of your startup disk. The Applications folder has a tedious number of really small files. It's typically faster to restore applications by redownloading them rather than restoring them from a NAS backup. 

Disable support for extended attributes

Most NAS volumes are very slow at working with extended attributes, so we recommend disabling this setting if you do not specifically require them to be backed up. Apple considers extended attributes to be "disposable" because some filesystems cannot support them.

CCC automatically disables this setting when backing up to or from a network volume

1. Open CCC and select your backup task.
2. Click the Advanced Settings button.
3. Check the box next to Don't preserve extended attributes in the File Copying Settings tab.
4. Save and run the task.

Try using AFP instead of SMB to connect to the NAS

Apple deprecated AFP many years ago, but it may still be faster than SMB on Intel Macs (not the case on Apple Silicon Macs). To try AFP instead of SMB:

1. Eject the NAS volume if it's currently mounted
2. Open CCC and select the applicable backup task
3. Click on the Source or Destination selector (whichever references the NAS volume)
4. Hold down the Option key and choose Switch to AFP (provide the credentials for the NAS volume again if prompted)
5. Save and run the task

Avoid running tasks simultaneously if they read from or write to the same NAS device

Especially with locally-attached source volumes, CCC won't have any trouble saturating your network connection with a single backup task. If you run more than one task at the same time, especially to the same NAS device, the network connection or the NAS device may not be able to handle the load. Leverage CCC's task chaining functionality, or place your tasks into a task group so that they will be run sequentially instead.