Extremely long back up times

Hi all.
I'm using Acronis 2014 Back up and recovery.
Can anyone tell me why the back ups take so long? I'm running windows 7 Home 64 bit.
I have Acronis set to back up at shutdown but it takes ages. There is no progress bar, just a message saying "Operations are in progress....." which isn't very helpful.
My graphics card driver update is the only change since my last back up but the "Operations in progress" screen has been there for 2 hours now.

Anybody got any ideas.....or am I just toooooo impatient

Thanks in advance for any replies / help.

All the best,

Martin.