Itunes backup taking hours

Hi TopgunB,

Thanks for contacting Apple Support Communities!

We understand that you're attempting to create a backup of your iPhone and it's taking longer than you'd expect.

There are many variables that can impact the speed of your iPhone backup. Check out the troubleshooting steps outlined here to help you to isolate this behavior further: If you can't back up your iOS or iPadOS device to a computer or restore it from a backup

"Try again after each step 

1. Make sure your Mac or PC is up-to-date. If you're using iTunes, make sure that you have the latest version of iTunes.
2. Connect your device to your computer with a USB cable, and locate your device on your computer. If your device doesn't appear in Finder or iTunes, learn what to do. If you forgot your passcode or your device is disabled, learn what to do. 
3. Restart all your devices.
4. If you use a Mac, skip this step. If you use a Windows PC and iTunes won't respond or your backup never finishes, you might need to update, change, disable, or uninstall your security software.
5. If you own more than one computer, try to make a backup on your other Mac or PC. Or, use iCloud to back up your device and restore from your iCloud backup.
6. If you see an alert that says an error occurred, your backup is corrupt or incompatible, or there's not enough disk space, find your error message below to learn what to do next.
7. Contact Apple Support."

We hope this helps.

Cheers!

Some of this issue with regards to taking so long to backup data is “how busy is the internet” at the time your backing up?

Unfortunately sometimes we are trying to do backups while the world is busy streaming the MLS soccer games. Think of it, as the freeway at 5pm, all heading home at the same time.