Hi Rob, You are right that it is a UNIX thing that is not currently officially supported by Apple. Here is a blog post that tells the unix commands to both lower the priority of Time Machine and run backups less frequently that every hour.
http://superuser.com/questions/209344/run-time-machine-on-a-low-priority However, I am with the poster. As this is not a public interface one should be careful that it has no other side-effects and be aware that future version of OS X may not support it. I personally for a time, did what the poster offers as another alternative, and that was I ran Time Machine backups manually only after I had done significant new work. This is a tad risky, though, as it requires one to remember to do the backups at the correct time. If you want to do backups manually open Time Machine preferences, and flick the big switch under the heading "Time Machine" to Off. Also check the option "Show Time Machine status in the menu bar". Then to run a backup manually, right-click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and select "Back Up Now". Another alternative if you want to run backups less frequently is to use third-party backup software, but in my opinion, that would lack the spectacularly intuitive interface and convenience of Time Machine. Cheers, Carlo On 2011-03-09, at 21:15, Rob Phillips wrote: > > This is a bit nerdy, but I'm getting sick of my machine acting like treacle > whenever TimeMachine decides to work. Is there any way that I can > permanently force TimeMachine to have a lower priority when accessing CPU > cycles? > > I guess this will have to be some unix thing, because I don't know of any app > to do this. > > Any help gratefully received. > > Rob > -- > Associate Professor Rob Phillips > Educational Development Unit > Room 4.42 Level 4 Library North Wing, Murdoch University > [email protected] Phone: +61 8 9360 6054 Mobile: 0416 065 054 > Life member, Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary > Education > Fellow, Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia > > Upcoming book: Evaluating e-learning: Guiding research and practice > http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415881944/ > > See you at ASCILITE in Hobart, Australia: 4-7 December > http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/hobart11/ > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]> > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
