Backup with Time Machine for 6 iMacs

I want to to use an external drive to backup with Time Machine my 6 iMac's. I know that Time Capsule is good for this kind of stuff but I would prefer to be able to plug my Storage Device with an Ethernet cable. And Time Capsule is offering 2 or 3 TB, I would need minimum 5 TB. Any idea what should I buy and what is good for that purpose?
Thanks a lot

Time Capsule has 3 Eth ports so only 3 iMacs via cable.
You can do it with two 3TB Time Capsules if you wish.
With 6 iMacs you may need to think about small business solution.
On Mac networks we use Gigabit switches and NAS drives such as Buffalo TeraStation III 8TB on RAID5.
Those support Apple Time Machine, have dual Gigabit Eth port which can be trunked with manageable switches and all works very well and fast.
There are many scenarios you may want to consider.
Let me know if you have any questions regarding the above setup.

Similar Messages

How to backup with Time Machine for complete clean reinstall of OS

My iMac has been getting slower and slower as the months go by and with each new software update. It used to be a lot faster than this when it was new.
I'm thinking the best solution might be to do a complete clean reinstall of the OS. My question is, if I have Time Machine backing up of all the users Documents, Email, Address, Book, iTunes Library, and iPhoto Library files, can I just go ahead and blow away everything on the machine? That is, after reinstallation, can I just plug in the hard drive, turn on Time Machine and get all those data files back in the right place without difficulty?
Or am I better off meticulously and manually moving the appropriate files/directories to an external harddrive and then fitting them all back into place manually afterwards?
(NOTE: I used to have to do a clean re-installation of XP every year or so to keep the system nice and snappy -- it would invariably get slower and slower over time. Since I got my iMac (Tiger) I had never had this creeping slowness problem, why is it happening now with Leopard?)

slegge,
This might give you some ideas.
Using Time Machine to Restore You Entire System
Q: Can I restore my Mac from a Time Machine backup?
A: Yes, you have several options: (In all cases Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is required as previous OS X versions will not work with Time Machine backups.)
*Full Restore Via Migration Assistant & Time Machine*
You can use the installation DVDs that came with your Mac and reinstall Leopard (Mac OS 10.5). During the installation process you will be asked if you would like to Migrate data over from your Time Machine backups. The advantage here is that you start with fresh system software. The disadvantage is that you may lose many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. But this may be only a minor inconvenience to reestablish these. Depending on whether you choose to migrate your applications over as well, you may be required to reinstall any 3rd-party software or standalone Apple programs. Don’t forget to run Software Update once the initial installation is complete to bring your system up to date. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Restore Via Time Machine Only*
Alternatively, you can use the installation DVDs to do a full system restore. Insert the installation DVD. When the welcome window appears, go to the Utilities menu and select “Restore System From Backup…” and choose the drive that your Time Machine backups are on. Then select the date of the backup you would like to restore from. This will completely erase your internal drive and restore your system to a relatively same condition it was in on the date of the backup you choose. (See this article for a list of files that TM does not restore, http://shiftedbits.org/2007/10/31/time-machine-exclusions/) The advantage here is that you retain many of the personal preferences/settings that had been established with the previous system. Additionally, no further installation of 3rd-party software is required. The disadvantage is that BECAUSE you retain many of the personal preferences, settings, and system files that had been present with the previous system, you run the risk of reintroducing problems you experienced with the previous installation, including any issues that necessitated the OS reinstall in the first place. Using Disk Utility at this point to repair any permissions issues is advised as well.
*Full Backup After Restore*
Bear in mind that in all cases Time Machine will perform a full backup after a full restore. This is normal. Time Machine will resume incremental backups after the full backup has completed. To view previous backups, Control-click or right-click the Time Machine icon in your Dock or Option-click the Time Machine menu extra and Choose "Browse Other Time Machine Disks," then select your previous backup volume. You will enter Time Machine and be able to browse your previous back ups and restore files. (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1338)
Hope this helps.
Cheers!

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture. How can I access the Aperture Library on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup? I can only access the application but not the library..

Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

I needed a 2tb hard drive for my new iMac whats the best to work with time machine for around £100

Any suggestions about the best 2 tb hard drive to work with my imac,compatible with time machine for around £100

There is no such thing as "best" and "inexpensive", you either want one or the other but you cannot get both. IMHO I'd recommend OWC's Mercury Elite Pro (www.macsales.com) however because you are on the other side of the pond you may want to consider a Lacie product. High quality, not cheap but good stuff for the most part.

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard. Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

Hi there,
I found that Time Machine in Mavericks will sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to buy another backup drive, unless you have insufficient space left and can't afford to delete whats on there. It should just work fine.

My external hard drive (1TB WD My Book Essential) suddenly has no room to backup with Time Machine! I am using Maverick OS and wondered if it is because of a bug in the system software.

My external hard drive (1TB WD My Book Essential) suddenly has no room to backup with Time Machine! I am using Maverick OS and wondered if it is because of a bug in the system software. I purchased a new external drive with 3 TB and wonder if I will run into a problem installing it. I don't know how to transfer my files from the previous HD to the New one. I was told to use a cable, but how do I do it? Do I connect them both to the computer and drag the old into the new? How is it done? Why did this happen, the overloading of the Time Machine?

Why has the TimeMachine drive run out of space?
With the limited amount of information you've provided it is hard to answer this question. TimeMachine should continue making backups until the drive is full and then it should erase the oldest backup(s) to retrieve enough space for the next backup. Unless your computer's hard drive has close to 1TB of space on it, you shouldn't see a message saying TM cannot backup because it is full. However if you do have more than 500GB (1/2 a TB) then I can see how that message might occur. Also, if you are using the TM drive for double duty (backing up more than one computer or storing data other than TM) you could get that message.
Will you have this problem with a 3TB drive?
I always recommend that people look at how much they'll be backing up in total, add a bit extra for the future, and then multiply that by at least 1.5 and even better to double it. That indicates how large the TM backup drive should be. The TM drive should only be used for TM backups. It is ok to use one drive to back up more than one computer but if doing so, add up the contents of all the computer drives, adjust for the future and then double it.
Moving Forward
Disconnect the old TM drive for now. Connect the new drive and let TM do its job. I don't recommend that you try to transfer the TM backup from the old drive to the new one. Keep the old drive around for a couple months just in case you find you need it and then after a few months, if you like, you can erase it and use it for something else.

HT3275 can't backup with time machine

I can't backup with time machine and I do not receive any errors, time machine just stays in the 'looking for backup disk' mode and will not go any further. I went as far as buying a new usb backup disk to replace the old one and still the same issue occurs. I've tried using different usb ports on my mb pro and that doesn't work. No amount of restarting, ejecting discs or checking preferences helps. Disk utility states the drive is fine (even the new one), the permissions or sharing haven't changed.
My system is up to date with the latest updates, and this all just happened out of the blue one day. I suppose I could do a system restore but I'm afraid of losing my data; and I'm not 100% sure how to do that.
I'm running OSX 10.8.2, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB memory

There is good advice available about Time Machine. Go to Pondini's paper(s) before you do anything so drastic as a system restore.
Time Machine - Troubleshooting
Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions

Wireless Backup with Time Machine using Fritzbox

I have
Modem: Fritzbox 7170
Macbook white
Lacie External HD 500GB
On the back of the Fritzbox is an USB access..I would like to connect my Lacie External HD to the Fritzbox and want to split the HD into
1 part to store my music/photo's on
2nd part to use for Time Machine backups
Currently I have connected the Lacie to my Macbook using the USB cable, but I wonder if I can do it wireless by using the Fritzbox.
Message was edited by: Jaap74

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure if I understand what a NAS is….My Modem is a Fritzbox 7170 Fon WLAN. It has a USB host for USB printers or USB mass storage media in the network. The manual says it supports FAT and GAT32. So I think I can use it for storage….but not for backups with Time Machine. That would be so convenient…not having to plug in my external HD every time I want to make a backup.

HT3275 Since updating OS to Mountain Lion from leopard, I get the following error message when trying to backup with time machine on external drive. Could not complete backup to media share. The network backup disk does not support the required AFP feat

Since updating OS to Mountain Lion from leopard, I get the following error message when trying to backup with time machine on external drive. "Could not complete backup to media share. The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features." What are AFP features and how do I get Time Machine to backup to my current external backup?

This means that your NAS does not support the required encryption. Update your NAS to the latest firmware or ditch it and buy a Time Capsule (they are the most reliable when using TM).

How to do a backup with time machine?

Hi Communitieee,
I dont know how to make a backup with time machine. Can anybody help me?
And i have another question.. whats wrong with library? when i start my mac the message is popping up but i dont know what it means..
Thanks
KR

Ok thanks mende1.
Whats with time machine? I already take a look to the link but i could not find the answer of my problem. Can you please take a look of this screenshot?!
I dont have an extern hard drive. i just want to save my pics and the other data of my mac.

I have a Sony PC with M/E. Can I useit as backup with Time Machine?

I have a Sony PC with Windows m/e. Can I use it as backup with Time Machine?

Time Machine will only work on Macs running the Leopard or Snow Leopard operating sysem.

Can't backup with Time Machine: "sparsebundle is already in use"

Can't backup with Time Machine suddenly. Message says "back up disk image ...'/Volume/... /myMacname.sparsebundle' is already in use".
I have no idea what this means. Can someone please help? Please note that I recently upgraded to Mountain Lion.
Thanks.

Been having the same problem on mountain lion
Most forums say you must disconnect the users in AirPort Utility, but v6.1 no longer has this feature
So simply open “Finder” on the left under “Devices” you should see your “Time Capsule”. If not then it should be under “Shared”. Click on it and then select “Disconnect”. Then simply reconnect and that should be it
You can also restart the Time Capsule just by using Airport Utility.
Open Airport Utility and select the Time Capsule. Then up on the top bar select Base Station and click on Restart
Mine is now all working again

Freezing/crash of iMac under Snow Leopard when backup with Time Machine

Hi!
The backup on my external hard drive with Time Machine cannot be completed.
After few ten Go out of 360Go the backup stops suddenly and the computer freezes/crashes.
I have got an iMac Intel Core 2 Duo with Snow Leopard 10.6.8 − 64 bit. The external hard drive is a LaCie 500Go.
Also, backups for another Apple computer can be done with this LaCie external drive. So, it is not the cause of the freezing/crash of the iMac.
I tried to solve this problem applying the following steps:
1- I started with the installation disk.
2- I repaired the internal iMac drive and the permissions with the Disk Utilities soft on the installation disk. All was OK.
3- The LaCie drive was erased, formatted again with one GUID partition (500Go) and the disk verified. All was OK.
4- I re-install the OS with the installation disk -> 10.6 Snow Leopard
5- Updates to 10.6.8, etc… security update 2012-004 and the 13th Java update to v1.6.
6- I deleted in the folder /Library/Preferences the file com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
7- I deleted the file com.apple.finder.plist in the administrator account Preferences folder.
8- The iMac was shutdowned as well as the external LaCie drive.
9- I restarted and changed the name of the external LaCie drive.
10- I choose the LaCie backup drive with Preferences System > Time Machine with right exclusions.
Unfortunately, the problem remained and the backup was again unsuccessful followed by another freezing/crash of the iMac.
So how to solve this problem?
Here is what I obtained from the system.log with the Console utility (crash/freezing at: 10:48):
=============================================================================== ==============================
Tue 4 09:58:24 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: Starting standard backup
Tue 4 09:58:24 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: Backing up to: /Volumes/LaCie/Backups.backupdb
Tue 4 09:58:24 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Tue 4 09:58:25 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: Backup content size: 343.5 GB excluded items size: 2.3 GB for volume iMac
Tue 4 09:58:25 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: No pre-backup thinning needed: 409.52 GB requested (including padding), 465.02 GB available
Tue 4 09:58:25 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Tue 4 09:58:25 imac mds[40]: (Normal) DiskStore: Creating index for /Volumes/LaCie/Backups.backupdb
Tue 4 10:00:32 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x10083f704, p = 0x10083f70c, pEnd = 0x10083f70d)
Tue 4 10:00:32 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x10101b304, p = 0x10101b30c, pEnd = 0x10101b30d)
Tue 4 10:00:33 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x1007c6f94, p = 0x1007c6f9c, pEnd = 0x1007c6f9d)
Tue 4 10:07:49 imac /System/Library/CoreServices/CCacheServer.app/Contents/MacOS/CCacheServer[202]: No valid tickets, timing out
Tue 4 10:14:53 imac mdworker[242]: multibyte IDs are unsupported.
Tue 4 10:17:05 imac backupd[233]: CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
Tue 4 10:17:05 imac mdworker[243]: CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
Tue 4 10:22:00 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x10377e518, p = 0x10377e556, pEnd = 0x10377e557)
Tue 4 10:22:01 imac com.apple.backupd[233]: SystemFlippers: didn't consume all data for vers ID 1 (pBase = 0x10393e518, p = 0x10393e556, pEnd = 0x10393e557)
Tue 4 10:30:38 imac mdworker[242]: Corrupt JPEG data: 1 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd9
Tue 4 10:30:38 imac mdworker[242]: JPEG datastream contains no image
Tue 4 10:30:39 imac mdworker[242]: Corrupt JPEG data: 1 extraneous bytes before marker 0xd9
Tue 4 10:30:39 imac mdworker[242]: JPEG datastream contains no image
Tue 4 10:32:10 imac mdworker32[452]: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
Tue 4 10:38:16 imac mdworker[243]: CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
Tue 4 10:38:16 imac mdworker[243]: CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
=============================================================================== ==============================
Waiting for a solution....
Bye
JacRb

See the problem and its solution:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/21491140#21491140

Amount of time for backup with Time Machine

How long should it take to backup my hard drive with Time Machine?
I have an iMac (late 2007). My hard drive has 222.88 GB of data according to Time Machine which is now running. However, it has only backed up 11.47 GB of data since it started almost 7 hours ago. It is backing up to an iOmega 1TB USB 2 partitioned external hard drive. The partion for the backup is 444 GB or so of space.
Can the backup be speeded up? It seems like an it is taking an extradordinary amount of time for the backup.
Thanks for your help.
Vernon

Hi Andy,
We have found that JMX Mbean registration is one factor in startup time, if you have JMX turned on. On joining the cluster, nodes register their MBeans with the MBean servers. If every node has management=all, every node is an MBean server node, whether its needed or not. This can result in an MBean registration storm as every node registers their Mbeans with every other node at startup. Its especially noticable if you have a lot of caches in your cluster. We suggest that only MBean server nodes have the management=all setting to minimize this registration process on startup.
Marie
[email protected]

Hard Drive for Time Machine for iMac with AirPort Extreme??

I just switched back to Mac after too many years with a PC. I bought an iMac 24" 2.8GHz with 4GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM and 750GB Serial ATA Drive.
I'm planning on adding an external hard drive for Time Machine to attach to my AirPort Extreme. From reading information posted on the Apple site and my AEBS I understand that it needs to be connected to the USB port on the AirPort Extreme.
While I may be opening up a technological "can of worms," I'd like to know what will be the most dependable drive 1TB, USB 2.0 that I can buy. Noise and bright lights are not a consideration here. I just want a drive that I can depend on to work with Time Machine. The "original" data will be stored elsewhere. I've heard of, read about and experienced so many hard drive failures that I'm getting "gun shy" about this subject. Please feel free to let me know what's good and bad. Thanks.

Here is a quote right from Apple's site today:
Quote:
AirPort Extreme lets you turn your external USB hard drive into a drive you can share with all the >users on your network. It’s called AirPort Disk, and it’s a simple and convenient way to share files >among everyone in your family, office, or class.
I tried to return my AEBS to Apple but I was a few days beyond their 14 day limit on returns (limit is bases on shipping date of the item in question, not when all parts of the shipment are received). Part of my reasoning with the Apple Store CS was the posts like yours saying that this couldn't be done. The Apple Store rep. and the tech. rep. that he claims that he spoke to said it could be done. The only way I could return the AEBS, according to the Apple Store CS rep., and get a new Time Capsule would be if I bought a hard drive and discovered that my AEBS would not work with the hard drive. No, I'm not a happy new customer. So, I want to buy a good, reliable hard drive and want to know which one to get.

Backup with Time Machine for 6 iMacs

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