My touch initial sync took ridiculously long

[Skrimir]

So, I got an 8GB iPod touch a few days ago, and I was wondering if an initial sync of about 6GB's of content takes 1-2 hours. My touch is running 2.0.2, non JB and my PC is a few years old, an eMachines running a Celeron D 2.8 Ghz, 1GB of RAM and XP Home. I'm running iTunes 7.7.1.11. I also own a 3G 8GB nano and the initial sync of 7GB's of content only took 15-20 minutes. Is there an issue here, or is that normal for the age of my PC?

[kornchild2002]

No, that is completely normal. iPod touch models sync differently than normal iPods. You see, iTunes must communicate with the iPod touch before any data is copied over. Then the data is copies over to the iPod touch and read again by the touch's OS. The iPod touch also uses a slower speed of solid state storage than other iPods. It takes my computer about 2.5-3 hours to sync 12-14 GB of content to my 16GB iPod touch.

[VixenofVenus]

Does that include the "Backup" time? Were there any App's installed?

Both of those take just about the same amount of time as syncing alone. Plus your initial sync involved installing 2.0.2 and registering. The age of your PC also plays a part in the length, of time required, but I will admit syncing my iPod Touch 32GB takes quite a bit longer when installing Apps/App Updates and letting it perform the Backup vs when I don't.

Although all the Apps are cool and I like having them on there, I've recently decided that having 20+ Apps and installing 5+ App updates every week is not worth the extra time to sync. So I've only got about 10 Apps right now, the ones I actually use.

As for WHY it takes so long for iTunes and the Touch to install a new App is unknown to me ... but it takes 2x as long to load an app as it does to copy 1GB of data over. I don't know why ... but I wish Apple could work on this issue.

[Skrimir]

No, that is completely normal. iPod touch models sync differently than normal iPods. You see, iTunes must communicate with the iPod touch before any data is copied over. Then the data is copies over to the iPod touch and read again by the touch's OS. The iPod touch also uses a slower speed of solid state storage than other iPods. It takes my computer about 2.5-3 hours to sync 12-14 GB of content to my 16GB iPod touch.

Wow, ok alright. Thanks for the heads up then. I didn't know that touch's used slower SSD's. 'Cause I kept asking myself why my nano synced so fast and my touch was so dang slow. =P Now I know.

[Skrimir]

Does that include the "Backup" time? Were there any App's installed?

Both of those take just about the same amount of time as syncing alone. Plus your initial sync involved installing 2.0.2 and registering. The age of your PC also plays a part in the length, of time required, but I will admit syncing my iPod Touch 32GB takes quite a bit longer when installing Apps/App Updates and letting it perform the Backup vs when I don't.

Although all the Apps are cool and I like having them on there, I've recently decided that having 20+ Apps and installing 5+ App updates every week is not worth the extra time to sync. So I've only got about 10 Apps right now, the ones I actually use.

As for WHY it takes so long for iTunes and the Touch to install a new App is unknown to me ... but it takes 2x as long to load an app as it does to copy 1GB of data over. I don't know why ... but I wish Apple could work on this issue.

No, when I said "initial sync" I meant the touch was ready to go and I hit the "Sync" button to begin copying my content over. My backups are blazing fast after using the app fix, no more than 2-5 minutes, tops. And I have 24 apps on my touch at the moment.