In a lot of cases hourly backups are completely unnecessary.
Especially if you use a network drive for your backups, whether it be a Time Capsule or Server, changing the backup interval will relieve the network. Here is how to get it done:

Open the System > Library > LaunchDeamons folder on your hard drive and search for a file named com.apple.backupd-auto.plist. Open this file in TextEdit (or your favorite text editor) and look for this text:

<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>

The 3600 number can be changed to whatever you want. By default it is set to 3600 (1 hour in seconds).

I have mine set to every 2 hours (7200) since there is not a lot going on besides a few emails in that time, if i need a backup to happen before the two hours are up i can manually select "back up now" from the Time Machine menu.

If you can not edit/save the file after you made your changes you can temporarily adjust the LaunchDeamons folder permissions by adding yourself to the Sharing & Permissions list. To do this select Get Info on the LaunchDeamons folder and look in the bottom of the Info panel. Do not forget to turn the permissions back to the way they were as soon as you are done.