Disable Time Machine hourly backups Can the hourly backups by Time Machine be stopped? I'm on Lion and if it matters, each hour it tries to backup about 30GB  (I don't know where this 30GB comes from, as today I've only modified a few text files and browsed the web). This results in the computer slowing down noticeable and beachballing more often.

Or even better than stopping them completely change the hourlys to every 2-4 hours?

It is backing up to a TimeCapsule, so I think the network might be the reason it is slowing down noticeable, that and it's a late 2008 MacBook Pro.
To adjust the schedule in order to backup at a time more to your choosing than simply every hour, you can use the Time Machine Editor tool, which is available as a free download from:

http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/


  TimeMachineEditor is a software for Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard and
  Lion that lets you change the default one-hour backup interval of Time
  Machine. You can change the interval or create a more sophisticated
  scheduling (see screenshot below).   This is useful if you don’t need
  to backup every hour and don’t want the performance penalty. This is
  also especially useful if you manipulate lots of data within one hour
  as you would spend the whole day backing up.


Changing your interval should not affect the daily or monthly backups, which are not actually any different to the hourly ones in any material way.



To get a better idea of what is causing large or lengthy backups, you can use the Backup Loupe software, available for free download at:

http://soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/


  "With BackupLoupe you are able to answer questions like Why is Time
  Machine so slow? Why is my Time Machine drive already full? Which
  files are actually being backed up? Has a particular file/folder been
  backed up at all? How many revisions of a file/folder exist in Time
  Machine? A file/folder was deleted accidentally. When did this happen
  and where is the latest backup? Is my backup drive big enough? Should
  I consider buying a larger one? And if yes, when?"