Anyone successfull w/ continuing TM backups to another network?

Question

Ok my situation:
I have a Mac 10.6.8 server and a external HD connected to server and shared as a Time Machine destination.
My 10.8.5 iMac connects to this HD w/  and is backing up is backing up to this TM drive
I would now like to disconnect that external HD and connect it to another remote Mac (non server) in another location, out of my network, and CONTINUE my iMac backups. Why? so I don't have to start a new TM backup of over 1.25TB over the internet to my externally mounted TM HD.
I did this already; connected the external HD that had my iMac TM backups, to a remote Mac, connected to it over AFP*, mounted the external HD and on my iMac, selected it as another disk to backup to and... it never gets backed up to. TM fail..
I get:
"The Backup volume cannot be mounted"
I then noticed I cannot make a file on the external mounted HD, and I get a Finder error -50 when I try to do so.
Obviously there a permissions is I have..
but my question is has anyone been able accomplish what I'm trying to do? From one network TM backup to another network? If so how?
Thanks!
*I don't plan to use this connection method for the long term, just for this testing I did so.

Answer 1

gzieses wrote:
I backup to an external drive on my Airport Extreme network using an OWC NewerTech miniStack NAS 500G drive. It works fine with Time Machine.
Just to clarify the terminology, a NAS is not the same as an external HD. It's a small, special-purpose computer with a hard drive, not just a simple hard drive.
The difference may seem minor, but it can have major implications for Time Machine. See the pink box in #2 of [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).
However, I just noticed that when click on TM to look at my listing of backups, they are showing as being there but are gray'd out. If I close TM and reopen it, the lines for the backup dates are bright again and I can scroll through them.
That may be a difference in the way you get there. If you start with a Finder window pointed to a new folder, for example, the lines for backups before that folder was created will be grayed-out, since there were no backups of that folder on those dates.
If in doubt, use the +*Browse ...+* option, per #17 in the FAQ.
As long as the backups are there, they're probably ok. Since they're on a NAS, you may or may not be able to repair them, following the directions for backups on a Time Capsule in #A5 of [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Do be very careful, however, using the Finder on your backups -- if you accidentally move, change, or delete things that way, the backups can be corrupted, perhaps beyond repair.