Backup multiple computers using Time machine to a single external drive

Is it possible to backup multiple computers to a single external drive connected to an Xserve using Time machine? We have a Six TB external drive that we are connecting to an Xserve that has three drives. We want to backup the entire

Set the drive as a network share in the File Sharing section of System Preferences on the Xserve it is connected to and see if Time Capsule on the other machines can see it. If so, it should work. If you don't want the whole drive as a network share create a folder for backups on it and set that folder as a network share.

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I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

Time machine+WD mybookworld-multiple computers using time machine-possible?

Hello
i have 2 macbookpro's and a wd mybookworld 1 terabyte.
i would like to use it for backing up using time machine but for both laptops, is this possible?
thanks so much in advance

Hello and thanks very much for your help
situation:
both macbookpros are running 10.5.8 at the moment.
the drive is WD mybookworld 1 terabyte, i couldn't find whether it supports HFS or not
just found that the folders in the drive have NFS, CIFS, FTP, AFP capabilities.
1:
what i've successfully done is associate one of the laptops with the drive wirelessly and via ethernet with time machine.
How ever, when i tried to connect the second laptop (wirelessly or ethernet) it couldn't "find" the drive in time machine (under choose disk)
* [i suspect that once one computer "associates" itself with the drive another one cannot?
what can i do?]
2:
(it should be noted that i tried to remove any association the 1st computer has with the drive and followed instructions saying to delete the .backupdb- "put in trash bin and empty"
having done that still one computer can see the drive in time machine and the 2nd computer cannot.
* [question- maybe i have to delete the sparsebundle file from the WD drive as well?]
help!

Beginner's question: Using Time Machine with a WD External Drive

Hello folks,
Could someone help me with some basic questions?
I have a MacBook with Mac OSX 10.5.5. It has Time Machine but I've never used it before. I've just obtained a Western Digital External Hard Drive which is Mac compatible but, I'm told, may not be formatted for Mac.
1. If that's the case, how do I format it for Mac so that I can use it with my MacBook? Or can I just plug-and-play?
2. Once ready to use, I'd like to use the external drive for two purposes: (a) to create back-up images of my entire computer using Time Machine, and (b) as a second drive where I can just drag-and-drop selected files when needed (e.g. so that I can put photos in a photo folder on my external instead of on my MacBook hard drive). Will my MacBook let me do this, or will using Time Machine effectively reserve the entire external hard drive for Time Machine and not allow my to drag-and-drop files?
Thanks! And Happy New Year!

Question 1:
1. Launch Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utility folder.
2. Click the "erase" tab
3. Select your entire WD disk on the sidebar (the uppermost icon).
4. Format: "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
5. Name the Disk
6. Click on "erase"
Question 2:
What is the size of your drive? If it is large enough you can partition it but Time Machine backup will "grow". So if it's important to you to save all backups you'll want to give it the whole disk. If not, you can partition the disk at the same time you format it.
Follow the steps here. It will accomplish both Q1 & Q2.
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

Using Time Machine to Restore Failed External Drive to New Drive

I have Time Machine backing up my Mini's HDD as well as an external drive I use for DATA (I've removed this disk from the "exclude" list in the Time Machine "Options" menu).
Both of these drives are being backed up to a third external drive dedicated for BACKUP.
(I'll refer to them by the capital names now...)
If the DATA drive fails, and I replace it with a new external drive (NEW_DATA), how do I restore the data from DATA onto NEW_DATA from BACKUP? I can't invoke time machine on the new drive.
I've read older articles with differing conclusions that I need to make sure NEW_DATA has the same mounted name as DATA, but this doesn't appear to work.
I've also read Carbon Copy is the only way to do this, is this true?
My drives have not failed, so I being proactive, but I just wanted to plan for this (Carbon Copy or Time Machine)

You can have TM place a menu item on the menubar - if you do this you'll see the icon animate as TM works and looking under that item will show you the last time TM backed up successfully. Unless you change the settings with a third party utility or by manually editing the plist, TM backs up every hour and it will back up every folder/drive you selected.

HT201250 How can I restore files using Time Machine to a new external drive?

I need to restore all the files on a failed hard drive—upwards of a terabyte of data. How can I instruct Time Machine to copy the files to a new external hard drive? Thanks!

Hold down the option key and select
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. The menu icon looks like a clock running backwards. If you don't have that menu, open the Time Machine preference pane and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

So what is your question?
If you forgot your encryption password:
Warning: Make sure it's a password you will remember or write it down for safekeeping. If you encrypt an iPhone backup in iTunes and forget your password, you can't restore from backup and your data will be unrecoverable.
If you can't remember the password and want to start again, you must perform a full software restore and chooseset up as a new device when iTunes prompts you to select the backup from which to restore.
The above comes from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

HT201250 What is Airport Utility and why do I need to access this in order to backup my iMac using Time Machine...PLEASE??

What is Airport Utility and why do I need to access Airport witeless devices in order to backup my iMac using Time Machine...HELP!!! PLEASE??

AirPort Utility is required to configure an Apple AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule.
Time Machine can use a Time Capsule or a locally connected volume. You only need to use AirPort Utility if you are using a Time Capsule.

Quick question about using Time Machine on iMac FireWire external

I have been backing up my MacBook using Time Machine via a USB external hard drive that is connected to my iMac. Now when I look at the Time Machine setting in my MacBook is says that the MacBook NEEDS to be plugged in in order for the next backup to occur. This is no issue for me, but I am wondering if this has always been the case. It may have been something that I overlooked, but I do not remember seeing that message when using Time Machine over my network on my MacBook before.

Yes, that's correct. TM will not backup a laptop while it's operating only on battery unless you upgrade to 10.5.3. This latest version provides a TM option to run backups when the computer is on battery power.
It's inadvisable to run a backup while on battery power because if the battery goes dead your backup could become corrupted. At the very least files may not get backed up as expected.

I got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does someone has a fix???

i got a macbook pro 2008 and can not back up using time machine. it eject my external hard drive everytime. does anybody has a fix???

Does your external hard drive have it's own power supply? It should.
Is your external hard drive formatted with the NTFS file system? It won't work.
It needs to be formatted either with Mac OS Extended or FAT32.
(There are drivers available to add NTFS support to OS X but their quality is unknown, especially the "free" ones.)

Can you use time machine on a networked hard drive

Can you use time machine on a networked hard drive?

See if this helps: Using Time Machine with a networked hard drive

Time Machine has locked my external drive. HELP

Time Machine hosed me again. After several unsuccessful attempts to backup on my PowerMac G5 dual 2.33 Ghz, I was able to complete my first full backup to an external 2 gig DROBO (USB 2.0 interface). It took 20 hours to do 180 gigs.
Now I have just discovered that Time Machine has made that external drive READ-ONLY! I cannot write to the drive and neither can Time Machine.
Does anybody know what is up and how to fix this short of using root UNIX shell which terrifies me. I just want to take it off and cut my losses, but the drive also has a ton of music on it that iTunes uses.

Okay Jeffery, I think I've found the solution, especially if you are seeing the "Unknown" user in your Get Info window's Sharing & Permissions setting for your drobo.
I had written earlier about my work-around for getting my drobo to work right after getting the "read-only" error from Time Machine. But unfortunately it was a temporary and temperamental fix. There were times then I had to eject the disk and launch Disk Utility to run a repair on the disk which would take more than half an hour on my drobo. But all the while my permissions had this "Unknown" user. Well I decided to "Go UNIX" and see if I could fix this problem once and for all.
I opened up Terminal and typed "*ls -la /Volumes*". This gives me a directory listing of my mounted drive volumes. I noticed that all of my drives, internal, external, USB and FireWire, all had "root" as the user and "admin" as the group, _EXCEPT for my drobo!_ So I forced it to conform by changing it manually by typing "*sudo chown root:admin /Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/*".
sudo = temporarily enables root mode by asking for your password before executing.
chown = changes ownership to...
root:admin = "root" is the user and "admin" is the group.
*/Volumes/Drobo\ Backup\ HD/* = My drobo drive is named "*Drobo Backup HD*", but UNIX sees spaces as command separators, so you have to use the "\ " to signify spaces within a name.
After doing this over a week ago, _I have not had any other problems_ with using my drobo as a backup drive. It has never come up with the "read-only" error in Time Machine, the Sharing & Permissions setting do not have any "Unknown" users or groups, I don't even need to wait for my drobo before logging in like I did in the past. I just boot my Mac and everything with my drobo and Time Machine just works... No problems!
It seems to be permanently fixed for me, so if you are willing to try this solution, I'm sure it would work for you. If UNIX terrifies you too much, and you do not trust yourself editing the commands above, let me know the name of your drobo drive on your desktop and I will post a message with the EXACT UNIX commands customized for just for you, so all you have to do is copy and paste them into your Terminal window to do it. But like I said, I've done this over a week ago and I not had one single problem.

Time Machine issues since adding external drive

System spec:
2012 Mac Mini, quad core 2.3ghz i7, 16gb RAM, OS X Yosemite 10.10.2
Problem:
Today I added an external USB 3.0 1TB hard drive to my Mac Mini - a self powered Seagate one. I want Time Machine (running on another external drive - a mains powered 2TB USB 2.0 Western Digital drive) to back this drive up - so I went into the Time Machine preferences pane and removed the drive from the exclusions list to which it had automatically been added (since TM doesn't usually back up external drives)
I moved some data to the drive and Time Machine began to back this up as expected on it's next run. I went to check the TM drive in Finder to make sure it was backing up correctly when I noticed that the folder for this latest backup wasn't appearing - and that the Latest link went to the backup BEFORE the drive was installed. Both Finder and the Time Machine pref pane correctly showed the TM drive space dropping though - and if I went to Terminal and listed the contents of the Time Machine drive, the folder for the current backup appeared and Latest pointed to it as expected.
I let this backup and a second backup finish - so at this point I have two backups that have run since adding the external drive. The backups appear in the navigator on the right hand side - but they are greyed out compared to the others. If you try to click on one of these greyed out backups, TM scrolls back to an empty Finder window titled "Waiting: ...." and the time the backup ran.
I tried rebooting to fix this - when I checked again after rebooting, Time Machine showed the two backups and both were accessible and navigable within the TM restore interface. This was four hours ago. Three more backups have run since my reboot and they are exhibiting the same symptoms as the ones prior - not showing in Finder, not linked from Latest, and greyed out in the TM restore interface.
While I'm fairly confident the data IS being backed up, this is still going to be a problem if I need to restore. Has anyone seen this before and how did you fix it if so?

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 and start typing the name.
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.
Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take the action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
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. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
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 or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion

Time Machine can't find external drive after installing Lion. I have a Laice 1 terabyte external drive that worked fine with Snow Leopard and now no show ... tried connecting it to front port and Mac Pro can't see it. Also lost Office,Quicken, and Final Cut Pro says: " You can't open application because Power PC apps are no longer supported" this is Not a good surprise!

Does the drive work when just directly connected? If so, have you prepped the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

I need to create a second back-up of iPhoto from Time Machine to a separate external drive. The old iPhoto in TM will not open. Please help!

I need to create a second back-up of iPhoto from Time Machine to a separate external drive. The old iPhoto in TM will not open. Please help! And thank you!

Most Simple Back Up:
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store

Backup multiple computers using Time machine to a single external drive

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