Can I perform a Time Machine backup to a USB drive connected to the Time Capsule 3TB

I would like to perform Time Machine backups to a portable USB drive, to use as an off-site backup copy. However, when I plug the drive into the Time Capsule (3TB) it isn't seen by Time Machine from any of the computers on my network. What do I need to do to make this work?

I'm not sure about whether Time Machine can include a drive that is a month out of date in a normal rotation.
This won't be a "normal" rotation. Assuming that you have already configured Time Machine on each Mac to back up to the USB drive, when you connect the drive to the Time Capsule, you will need to manually click Backup Now on a Mac to get the backup started. Then, do the same with other Macs that you want to back up.
You could wait and see if Time Machine will start to back up on its own, but the wait would be unpredictable as far as time was concerned.
Time Machine will also spend a good deal more time in the "Preparing" stage since it will have to look a month of history on the Mac since the last backup.
It is set up and recognized in the Airport utility, and mounts normally. I can see the files using finder, but I can't get Time Machine to recognize that it is there and available for backups.
So, if you open System Preferences on a Mac,
Then, open Time Machine
Click Add or Remove Disk
The USB drive doe not appear as a potential destination?
Have you restarted both the Mac and the Time Capsule?
Any recent changes to the Mac.....like installing a new operating system?

Similar Messages

Can I turn off Macbook while Time Capsule is archiving Time Machine backup to a USB drive?

My Time Capsule is archiving my Time Machine backup to a USB drive attached to it. I have initiated this process on my macbook (on the same lan with the Time Capsule), on which I am monitoring the archiving progress on the Airport Utility. Still almost a couple of days to go... Can I turn off my Macbook, or will that interrupt the process of archiving?

If LaPastenague is willing to do a "test", then we will all know more.
Opened my big mouth.
The archive is happening.. I turned off the computer it was setup from.. running Mavericks and latest utility once I got it started. I have been checking from v6 utility on Mountain Lion.. and it is excruciatingly slow. But is running.
I can check the progress but v6 utility is utterly and completely useless.. it continually shows the same numbers.
v5 utility does show it is crawling along.
v6
20min later..
Look, look, there is a tiny blue fleck in the progress bar!!
v5 utility shows the actual progress. Actually tells you total and amount backed up so far.
Amazing how advanced v5 utility is over v6.
The estimate of 10hours is probably correct at the present rate of progress. I suppose for 500GB, around 50GB/hr is about what we expect from TM backups etc.
I will post another picture in an hour and probably kill it then before I die of watching paint dry.

Airport Extreme and Time Machine backups using a USB drive

Hi there,
I checked through the threads/FAQ's for an answer to this but couldn't find anything...
I have an AE set up with a USB drive attached as my Time Machine backup drive. When I start my MBP up and initiate a forced backup, Time Machine will go and find my drive (via the AE), mount it and carry out the backup without a problem. However, if I start my MBP up and wait for the scheduled hourly backup, TM doesn't see the drive (or perform the backup) unless I go and manually mount the drive first.
I realise I can put the drive in my login items to auto mount on boot but I wondered if there was a way to get the scheduled backups to work without doing this (as with the forced backups).
Thanks

mattschenker wrote:
Pondini,
Actually, I wasn't thinking about theft. I was just thinking that for security in a possible data-loss "event," it was better to have the backup drive physically separated from the main computer. But maybe that's not necessary.
That's unlikely. A power surge could take out both your Mac and connected external HD. You do have your Macs on good surge protectors or, better yet, U.P.S. systems, right? If not, see [Using a U.P.S. System with a Mac|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/UPS.html].
But wherever the external HD is, unless it's on a surge protector or U.P.S., it's still exposed.
Other things causing data loss are even less likely to affect your Time Machine drive (especially if there's no other data on it).
Yes, I could hook something up to my Mac Mini. Good point! And that would really keep it separated, since it would be in an entirely different floor. But then again, Time Machine backups done wirelessly would probably take forever.
The first one, yes. But if you have a good WIFI connection, subsequent ones shouldn't take too long or be too obtrusive, except when you've updated a lot of data (like installing an OSX update).
See #22 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for setup instructions.
But this just shows that there are a lot of options.
Yes.
I do wish Apple would solve the problem of Time Machine working via the Airport Extreme. That would be my favorite option.
Not likely. Time Machine's been out since Leopard, about 3 years, and backups via an Extreme have never been reliable or supported. Just why they work well on a Time Capsule, or even a USB drive connected to a TC, but not an Airport, is a mystery, but that's the way it is.
But it's always a good idea to keep secondary backups. See #27 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some suggestions.

Can Time Machine back up a USB Drive connected to Airport Extreme?

If I connect 2 USB drives to an Airport Extreme via a USB hub, can I use Time Machine to back one up to the other? I've found multiple discussions about how to use an Airport Extreme disk as a Time Machine backup disk, but nothing on this. I want to use one disk as network storage (i.e. use the Airport extreme as a NAS), but I need a backup solution for that disk.

That's disappointing. I actually have a separate NAS already, configured for RAID1: a ZyXEL NSA220. Worked fine when I only had windows machines, but isn't reliable with my MACs, and doesn't support extended journaled format, so I need a different solution. I was hoping to just use a USB drive attached to my airport extreme to replace it, but I can't do that if I can't back up that USB drive.
Can anyone recommend a good backup solution? Surely this can't be that uncommon a scenario?

Time Machine backups fail after initial drive connection, cannot eject drive

I have a Macbook Pro 13" Retina Display, 8GB running OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 and have set Time Machine backups to a 1TB WD My Passport. When I first connect the drive the backup will run fine, but subsequent backups always fail. In addition I typically cannot eject the drive. I've scoured online forums and have completely reformatted the drive, and have even deleted some backup settings files from the hard drive, none of these has resolved my issue.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes.) You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard."
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Note the timestamp of the last "Starting" message that corresponds to the beginning of an an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Time Machine keeps asking for password to connect to the Time Capsule server

I just got my MPB back from having the logic board replaced.
Nothing was changed on my Mac OS 10.6.8, except that when my MPB went kaput I used a Windows OS PC and loaded the Air port Utility and did do a firmware upgrade to 7.6.1 for the Time Capsule(TC)
Now that I am trying to do a backup of my MPB I keep getting a message asking me to enter the password for the (TC) server so that Time Machine(TM) can connect to it. I typed in the disk password and the weird thing is that the disk icon flashed quickly showing the TM clock icon and the immediately went to the 3 people holding hands icon. When I waited or forced the backup it would come up with an error stating that my user name and password are incorrect. The other weird thing is when I put in a wrong password it starts "connecting..." but then hangs causing Sys Prefs to stop responding. I either have to cancel the connection or force quit Sys Prefs.
Steps already taken:
- Deleted all the Keychain passwords for the TC
- Reset the TC both by using the menu option and push button power cycle
- I have tried using the "Time Capsule password" option for file sharing
It does the same thing with other external drives connected via the USB on the TC. However, that same external drive connected directly to the computer USB port works just fine and the icon stayed as the TM clock icon.
It just does not want to the connect to the TC drives!
I have read about the firmware being the problem, but how do I revert to the previous FW version for the TC?
This is going to be stupid not being able to use the TC drive to do the backups, but for the meantime I am using the external drive connected via USB 2.slow!
Thanks in advance!

Ok. I got it to work, sort of....
As I mentioned before I tried the "disk password" and the "Time capsule Password" options to see if I can start the back up again or start a new backup. Neither worked. So I tried the firmware down grade, but like you said that did not work. I then decided to try the "Account password" option and I have never used this option before becasue it states that if there is data on the drive it would not be acessable after creating an account. Since I wiped out the disk that was nno problem. When I created the new account and choose the drive it asked for the user name and password. I entered the info for the new account I just created(FYI this has nothing to do with your login username and password), bingo! It worked!
Now I have two partitions on the TC disk. The old one and now the new account. I am guessing this is to be used if I have multiple computers, which I don't.
I any case, I am going to wipe out everything again and try again to do a backup the way I had it before.

Can Time Machine backup to two USB drives

Hi,
I have an iMac 250 gig drive with about 240 gig in use and own 2 250 gig USB external drives. One of which I am currently using for Time Machine to backup to, but that is now full. I was wondering if there is any way that I can have time machine make use of both external USB drives as target backup drives?
I'm guessing I need to buy a much larger USB drive, but wanted to explore this option first.
Thanks,
Kyle

No. TM can only backup to a single drive at one time. You can designate the second drive as a new TM backup drive, but then TM will do a completely new backup to that drive, not "add on" from the old backup.
There really isn't any backup utility for the Mac that will span backups over multiple hard drives except possibly Retrospect.

Can I backup to a USB drive connected to my Time Capsule?

I can't seem to find much documentation on what the USB port on the Time Capsule is for. I see it's useful for attaching printers and external hard drives. But if I connect a USB hard drive, can I run Time Machine and then pick either the Time Capsule drive or the USB drive to back up to?
Will I be able to backup wirelessly from my MacBook Pro?
Can I then also backup wired to my ethernet-connected iMac (at a faster speed) ?
In other words, the TIme Capsule is capable of automatically backing up both wired and wirelessly, right?

dougkramer wrote:
... if I connect a USB hard drive, can I run Time Machine and then pick either the Time Capsule drive or the USB drive to back up to?
see this user tip: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/2.html
Will I be able to backup wirelessly from my MacBook Pro?
yes. however, it is recommended that the initial backup is done using a hardwired connection.
Can I then also backup wired to my ethernet-connected iMac (at a faster speed) ?
see above
In other words, the TIme Capsule is capable of automatically backing up both wired and wirelessly, right?
yes.
JGG

Time Machine Backup of external hard drive connected to IMAC

I have an external hard drive connected to my IMAC. I also have a 2TB Time Capsule connected to my network. I store all of my video (both events and projects from imovie) to the external hard drive to save space on the IMAC. Does the Time Capsule backup this external hard drive? When I open Time Machine I don't see where the external hard drive is backed up? The drive is formatted MAC OS extended (journaled).

nujac,
Time Machine backs up all locally attached drives unless you specifically exclude them in System Prefenences > Time Machine > Options.. icon.
You should be able to see this in Finder, enter TM and highlight the external drive. Click back to a prior date. Sometimes it takes a little while to fully populate the display since it's reading across the network, give it a few minutes.
Regards,
Captfred

Time Machine doesnt see my USB drive, connected to Airport extreme =(

Hello,
I've been trying to figure this one out for almost 3 weeks now, but with no luck. I have a usb hard drive, connected to airport extreme. I've clicked on "setup time machine", select "choose disk", there is no disk to select. So I click on the "set up time capsule, it takes me to airport utility. I then click on the "disk" button and file sharing is enabled.
I can mount the disk through the finder, just fine and able to transfer files back and forth, however time machine cant seem to pick up the drive. Would love to be able to use time machine to do backups, So can someone please help?
osx 10.5.5 with airport utility 5.3.2
Thanks in advance!

Well this has worked for me. I have a Freecom 500Gb usb hard Drive connected through an unpowered 4-way USBhub to an Airport Extreme Base station. After mounting the Air Disk hard drive on my powerbook, I then dragged the disk to my user folder, thereby creating an alias. I have put that alias in my login items and now TimeMachine works beautifully. I've repeated it on a Mac Mini (also using OSX 10.5.5) and that seems to be fine too. Admittedly the back-ups take a long time over airport, but fine via Ethernet.
Good luck everyone who struggles with this.
David

Can Time Machine Backup to Two Different Drives?

I have many Apple Computers, and I was wondering if it were possible to have time machine backup to two different drives.
I want it to back up My documents, Mail, and other files/folders that I access often to a partition of my internal drive every minute.
And
I want it to back up Everything on my Mac to my external each night upon connecting it to my mac.
I take my MacBook everywhere with me and I need to make sure that the files I work on the most stay Perfectly Accessible no matter what, and I don't want to sacrifice too much space for that procedure. I would rather just be able to do constant backups of my most used files and folders, and then do a system backup each night to make sure I always have what is needed.

Let me add some more observations. I use two disks, one at home (its a mounted volume on another Mac at home) and the other is a portable disk that I attach to my MBP at work. This works fine.
About your details - TM backs up every hour. If you look around you'll find some posts that give instructions on changing the frequency (I haven't paid attention to these, so I can't help you). However, backing up to another partition on the same drive is not what I'd recommend. If the drive dies, you may lose both partitions.
As for doing constant backups of the most used files and at night doing a system backup - it seems to me you aren't "getting" TM. This sounds like the type of backup strategy one uses with "regular" backup software. I don't think I'd recommend backups every minute, but for short intervals, why not just do a default backup of everything. It doesn't really back up everything, just things that have changed. The only time it does a complete backup is the first time you use it with a specific drive. After that it no longer does complete backups, unless you reformat the drive and start from scratch.

First time machine backup from MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011) on time capsule is extremely slow - unusable!

I recently bought a Time Capsule 2TB.
First I set it up to create a new wifi network parallel to my existing wifi network. The first Time Machine backup on my MBP 13 connected via ethernet cable finished overnight (under 10 hrs for about 150 GB), as expected.
Then I found that my MBP was logging into my old network more often than to the time capsule network so that backups were not being made regularly. So I re-configured the Time Capsule to extend the exisitng network - all fine. Except that now Time Machine said it couldn't find the existing backup. After trying logging out and in, etc. I eventually deleted that sparsebundle to force Time Machine to start again new.
Now I get an estimated time of 2 - 3 days for the first backup - even via ethernet cable. Sometimes it hangs up and says something like 4000 days... I can't afford to hook my MBP up to the time capsule or even stay at home for this time to let it finish, and I know it should be faster than that!
I've tried a few of the tips I found so far in the forums, such as excluding my home folder from Spotlight, or even turning Spotlight off, but nothing has helped so far. Perhaps I missed some important step on the way.
Can anyone give me a reliable step by tep method to solve this problem. I don't want a geeky workaround, I want to plug in (o better, be in my wifi network) and make the backup work like Time Machine is supposed to do it. And I would like to keep on using Spotlight, too.
Thanks in advance!
Robin

Unless you have a desktop Mac you can back up to over your network, your choices are:
Spend a bunch on a Time Capsule, kind of a waste if you already have a wireless router.
Spend $100 or so on an external HD and have some inconvenience until Iomega updates.
Risk losing all your data.
It's your call, but a no-brainer to me.
Better: get a portable external. Once you get the Iomega working, start making regular "clones" to the portable and take it off-site so you're also protected against fire, flood, theft, etc.

Transfer Time Machine backup from one external drive to another

Surely this has been covered, but I can't find it.
If you have your time machine backup on an external drive and get a new (larger) external drive, what is the best way to transfer the backup from one drive to the other (and define the new drive as the backup drive)? Straight copy ? Then to define the new drive, rename old drive to something else and name new drive the backup name?

I haven't tried this yet but a few other methods are described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071128055047339

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule?

Can I increase the capacity of Time Machine with an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule via the USB port? My current Time Machine has a total capacity of 1TB. I'd like to double or triple its memory. I don't want to use the external hard drive in lieu of the Time Capsule hard drive. I'd like to use it in addition to. Just don't know if/how it's possible.
This is another one of those questions that I've searched the web for answers, and have gotten tricky answers back. So now I'm trying to introduce a clean slate to the mix.
Thank you for your time!

Well, what you mentioning is possible. However, I don't know whether it's supported (as in, "easy to set up."). Time Machine officially supports backing up to a locally attached drive, to a machine running a Time Machine server (i.e. running OS X Server software), and to a Time Capsule. I don't know that it officially supports a drive attached to an AirPort or to a Time Capsule. Though I know some people have gotten it to work.
Best I can say is to try it. Plug the drive into the Time Capsule, ensure it's shared on the network, and then try and set it as a backup target from a machine in the Time Machine backup panel (you'll need to ensure it's mounted first). If it works, you're all set.

Is possible to have a time machine backup on an external hd connected to either a primary or secondary router and not have "back to my mac" using 10.7.3?

Is possible to have a time machine backup on an external hd connected to either a primary or secondary router and not have "back to my mac" using 10.7.3?

The bottom line is that Apple does not support Time Machine backups at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme. If they don't support their own router, they certainly don't support other routers from other manufacturers.
Connect the drive directly to the Mac using either USB or FireWire.....or....use a Time Capsule. Either of these setups will be supported.
If you want to try the unsupported method(s), you can certainly do so. But, I would suggest that you have a secondary backup plan in place if this is important data that you will be backing up.

Can I perform a Time Machine backup to a USB drive connected to the Time Capsule 3TB

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for