Thank you all for your responses.
@Andreas Baumgarten wrote have you tried the option Synchronize across time zones
@Limitless Technology wrote: When Synchronize Across Time Zones is disabled, a trigger’s start date/time is relative to the computer’s time zone. For example, if a trigger’s start date/time is set to 10am on the 1st February 2020, the task will run once that date/time has been reached according to the computer’s time zone.
Two points:
- Since I first wrote I see the start times are not consistently 6 hours late. Sometimes they start 3 hours late, sometimes 9 hours late.
- There is no computer-to-computer communication involved. So I would think, based on what Limitless wrote, I can set the time of the job and it runs at that (local) time. In other words, common sense. That is my experience on the old computer. For years the jobs started on time, every time and "Synchronize Across..." was disabled.
I have noticed "WakeToRun" is disabled for the new computer. Will try that first, then move on to "Synchronize Across...". Best to change one thing at a time....
@MotoX80 wrote Without knowing what you have in C:\BackupTools\MirrorBackup.cmd I will have to refer to my Magic Crystal Ball, but sadly it has dead batteries at the moment.
Sorry, didn't mean for anyone to get out their crystal ball :-)
A reminder this is a personal home computer, not a server or corporate setting. There are 2 jobs to backup the files under \computer\user to an external (USB) disk. Each has only 1 command: Backup changes using XCOPY and full (mirror) backup using ROBOCOPY.
I now realize I had excluded AppData for the old computer but included it with the new one. That could explain the longer time, as AppData has a ton of files, but I'm not convinced that explains it completely. Both XCOPY and ROBOCOPY are provide logs and I can use the suggestion to capture stdout/stderr and dig further.
BOTTOM LINE:
For the reason(s) the jobs take so long, I feel comfortable using the logs to dig further.
For the start time, will change one setting at a time and report back on results.
Thanks again.