Mac – Time machine migration has been preparing for 14 hours, is this normal

This is not normal if every backup takes that long and/or it never finishes.

You should let the backup end if at all possible. Each time you interrupt a backup - you add even more time to check the slow work that was made and then pick up where it left off. If you interrupt a back up too many times, it could take a week to get over a problem spot.

You could:

• Let it run and see if the next time is quick.
• Interrupt it and delete the partial backup
• Clear the backups and start with a clean slate if you don't need the backups or don't care to troubleshoot a temporary issue.

If you want to troubleshoot, you have several options. Apple has a tmdiagnose tool that they use to collect logs and statistics relating to items that can cause problems.

If you can get help from Apple, I would do that and let them provide the training and expertise needed to make sense of the volumes of data that the diagnosis provides.

There are some other things you might try in this article:

• Time Machine: Troubleshooting backup issues

Feel free to post back a more specific question if you find the issue doesn't resolve itself or you need more information about how to interpret your results from the article or the diagnosis tool. Also as you commented, it could simply be a bad hardware situation.

22 hours is very long indeed. I have encrypted a 1TB drive in less time before.

The encryption is handled by a "live background process". "This process continues seamlessly across reboots. The logical volume remains usable at all times."

^{from man page > diskutil > encryptVolume}

Maybe this daemon hangs or simply halted because the drive is not mounted (which is fine). So you should just re-mount it again.

Alternatively, I would try I restart the daemon by simply restarting the computer. Once the Time Machine backup is mounted again, the daemon will continue encrypting the drive.

Checking the encryption progress using diskutil

You can check the status of the encryption by using the command:

diskutil cs list

In the nested tree you will see a Logical Volume Family which is currently being encrypted. If you drive is being encrypted, you should see the entry Conversion Status: Converting .

Encryption Status:           Unlocked
    Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
    Conversion Status:       Converting      //what does it say here?
    Conversion Direction:    forward
    Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
    Fully Secure:            No
    Passphrase Required:     Yes