Can I use a NAS for an online time machine backup?

I want to make a backup of my Mac Book Pro (using Mountain Lion) through Time Machine on a location different from the wifi network I'm working on at home. I'm already using a Time Capsule for back up puposes, but I can only make backups when the Mac and capsule are in the same wifi network. I would like to be able to use a location which can be available at any time through internet.
As I understand it a NAS should be able to do this. Is that true? Are there any other options? And if true, are there any NAS systems which work well with Apple Time Machine?

There are specific technical requirements that a network device must satisfy in order to work with Time Machine. Some NAS vendors claim to satisfy those requirements. If they're right, you can use their products with Time Machine. If they're wrong, you will lose data, and nobody will be able to help you. The NAS vendor will blame Apple.
I have no experience with NAS devices, so I can't tell you any more.
It would be very unwise to trust a third-party NAS as your only backup device. You should have more than one backup anyway. One is not enough to be safe.
Another thing to consider is that a network device can be used with TM only if it advertises itself over Bonjour. Ordinarily, Bonjour only works over a local network. Getting it to work over the Internet is possible, but it takes very advanced knowledge of networking.

Similar Messages

Can I use a 2tb external drive with Time Machine to backup my Mac Mini (256gbSSD + 2tbHDD)?

Can I use a 2tb external drive with Time Machine to backup what I have on my Mac Mini?
My Mac Mini has one 256 SSD and one 2tb HDD. I want to use Time Machine to do a backup of everything.
Would an external 2tb My Passport Drive by Western Digital work for the backup?
It seems like it would not work because the total storage on the Mac Mini is 2304 gigabytes (SSD + HDD).
And the external Western Digital drive is only 2048 in gigabytes versus 2304 gigabytes the Mac Mini has.

No. A Time Machine backup drive should have at least twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. You would need at least a 4 TB backup drive for Time Machine.
Might I suggest as an alternative that you not use Time Machine but a third-party backup utility that simply overwrites older files with new ones such that the backup drive can be the same capacity as the drive backed up.
Suggested Backup Software
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Others may be found at MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Can not use my external driver to setup Time Machine

I just bought a new mobile external driver and I planned to use this for Time Machine back of my Macbook Pro. However I got the following error message when I set up the Time Machine:
There was an error erasing the Time Machine backup disk
Is there anybody can help me about this problem?
Thanks

Thanks very much for everybody's help in this matter. I have done all the process again exactly the same as the steps above. However after the wait for some time, I got the following errors:
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Preparing to partition disk: “Initio MK4006GAL Media”
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Partition Scheme: GUID Partition Table
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: 1 partition will be created
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800:
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Partition 1
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Name : “Untitled 1”
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Size : 40.01 GB
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800: Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2010-07-04 21:32:42 +0800:
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Unmounting disk
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Creating partition map
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Waiting for disks to reappear
2010-07-04 21:32:43 +0800: Formatting disk1s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Untitled 1
2010-07-04 21:36:30 +0800: Partition failed for disk (null) File system formatter failed
2010-07-04 21:36:30 +0800: Partition complete.

Can I still use my "old" Mac after restoring Time Machine backup to a new Mac?

Hi guys.
Will I still be able to use my old Macbook Pro 2008 (Leopard) after restoring his latest Time Machine backup on a new Macbook Pro 2012 (Lion)?
Using Setup Assistant and transfering data using Time Machine creats the same Account on the new machine that was on the old one. I just don't know how the old machine will react towards his clone. I don't want to make a mess...
Please let me know.
Thanks

It should work if the drive is connected directly to your Mac. That is not the same as saying that it will work.
Since Mountain Lion was just released, it might make sense to hold on a few weeks and watch the forums for new and unforeseen issues before you dive in.

Trying to use Migration Assistant to restore from Time Machine backup but it keeps "Looking for other computers..."

Hi!
I just bought a new MacBook Pro 15" and I wanted to transfer my old files from a previous Time Machine backup done with my old MacBook Pro 15".
Both computers have Mac OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion) installed.
I always used Migration Assistant without any problem to accomplish this task, but now I don't know why it's stuck on a screen displaying "Looking for other computers...". What? What computer? I'm trying to restore from a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive, so I don't understand what computer it is looking for.
Do you have any idea to solve the problem?
Thanks!

At the screen in Migration Assistant titled "Select a Migration Method," select From a Time Machine backup or other disk.
How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

How can I restore my EQ settings from a Time Machine backup?

I recently reinstalled Mavericks, and restored my user account from a Time Machine backup. In doing so I appeared to have 'lost' my personal EQ settings in iTunes, of which I had perfected quite a few to suit various headphones and speakers I've found myself using over the years.
I have a pre-reinstallation copy of the com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file (found in /Users/username/Library/Preferences) that I believe contains my EQ settings; opening it in Textedit I can see references to the EQ settings I created.
Having tried restoring this particular file from Time Machine and restarting and finding iTunes doesn't recognise the [old] custom com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file, does anyone know a way I can re-import my old EQ settings, or do I have to try and manually create them again? (gah)
Thanks for any light you can shed on this!

Enter your Time Machine backup (via the TM icon in the menu bar) and find this file
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist
and hit Restore.
It didn't reflect in iTunes immediately, but after a restart it appears to read the new (old) plist file. You should have your old EQ settings back.
Let me know if it worked for you...

Why can't I see a slideshow in a Time machine backup ?

I have created a slideshow which works fine, and shortly afterwards did a weekly backup using Time Machine.
I then made a small change to the slide show that changed the order (or rather the arrangement) of the pictures in the Sliding Panels themed slideshow. (annoyingly the change happened by simply un-ticking the 'show title slide' setting in slideshow settings). I want to return to the picture/panel arrangement that was in the original version, which happens to be better (I assume the selection is purely random) but when I look at the Backup in Time Machine I cannot see my slideshow, or any slideshow for that matter. So I have two questions:
1) Does Time Machine backup slideshows ?
2) If 'yes' how do I see them / restore them ?
(I have iphoto version 8.1.1 now, but this is because an automatic update has just kicked in. The slideshow was created using the previous version to this)
Thanks

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You can use TM to restore individual photos/album or events or the entire library. When you restore the entire library you will get all books, slideshows, calendars, etc. that were there when the backup was made. You can also select to keep your existing library (depending on space available) in case the recovered library doesn't have everything you need.

AEBS Ethernet NAS Hard Drive + USB Time Machine Backup

Hello,
I currently have an Airport Extreme Base Station, which I utilize the USB port for Wireless Time Machine Backups. However, I would like to know if it is possible to connect a NAS drive to the AEBS via Ethernet and still use the USB port for wireless backups for multiple Mac laptops simultaneously. The backups must also include whatever is on the NAS drive. Is this functionality possible?
Thanks!!

infamousirshad, Welcome to the discussion area!
...I would like to know if it is possible to connect a NAS drive to the AEBS via Ethernet and still use the USB port for wireless backups for multiple Mac laptops simultaneously.
Yes
The backups must also include whatever is on the NAS drive. Is this functionality possible?
No. Time Machine does not backup data FROM any network drive.

Best Setup for Lion Server Time Machine Backup with Drobo?

I've been thinking about this a lot, yet I don't feel I have a good solution for this, so I'm going to throw it out to the community.
I have a home server setup using a Mac Mini running Lion Server 10.7.2 with a Firewire 800 Drobo attached. The Drobo is used for both Time Machine backups and files. I also have a Powerbook G4 running Leopard and a MacBook 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with Lion 10.7.2 which connect to the Server and the Drobo wirelessly thorugh an Airport Extreme.
I want to use Time Machine to have all of my computers back up to the server & Drobo, but realize there are several ways to go, each with their pluses and minuses:
Server Time Machine Backup:
+ Centralizes backup process, rules, and other elements
+ Currently Mac Mini is backing up to the Drobo correctly using this process
+ Have setup size limit on Server backup so that it does not eat up file space
- Would combine laptop backups with server backup into one sparse image: this would lead to the computer with the largest backup needs taking up too much space
Client-Driven Time Machine Backup:
+ Allows for customization of backup processes by computer
+ Can setup specific space requirements for each computer
+ Backups are separate from each other
- Wireless backup from laptops to Drobo is not functioning currently
Any thoughts or experiences on how best to set this up? I tend to do most of my work on the MacBook, hence I am concerned about it having it's backup space eaten up by the server, but that may be more of a theoretical issue than a real one.
Thanks in advance for your help!

Well I'm not sure if I am following you but I will explain how I set mine up. When I got the Drobo I inserted 2 drives and selected the highest available volume I could (16TB). My drives are 4 TB each and I knew I would soon add 2 more. Then Drobo did its thing and prepared these drives. The Drobo shows up on my mini desktop as an external drive. When I log into my server from my other computer I can see the mini server volume and the Drobo volume. I can access each no problem. They act as regular volumes. Soon after I added the second two drives and everything stayed the same meaning I could still see and access the Drobo on the desktop of my mini. So it sounds like you used the Drobo dashboard to partition yours for two volumes? Are they both showing on the desktop?
"Maybe the Drobo needs to be mounted on the desktop to be considered AFP feature enabled." I could be wrong and hopefully someone will correct me but I think the Drobo (or volumes) have to be mounted on the desktop to work with AFP.

Can't boot my Mac after attempt of Time Machine backup

So guys,
I just bought new Macbook Pro and it came with Yosemite. It is one thing that I specifically asked not to get with it, but I did. Anyway, since I didn't want it, I instantly went to Time Machine backup my previous Mac to the new one.
I booted my new Mac in recovery and started the time machine process. It went trough, found a backup that I wanted, asked me for my password and all looked nice. When the process started, it said something is wrong and rebooted. Now each time I want to start time machine backup process, I get the same message that says "searching for disks" when it comes to the moment of finding the system drive in the lap top. It will not boot any longer to the system. When i wanted to reinstall Yosemite, it doesn't see the drive that is supposed to see to install it. It sees only some small recovery drive. When I go to disk utility, I see Machintosh HD and some disk 1 drive that has sub group OS X Base System. Non of the options on drives like erase, format or similar are available. I basically can't do anything.
Someone has any idea what should I do?
Thanks in front!

Please install OS X on an external device (USB/FW/TB/Flash disk-16GB) using OS X: Installing OS X on an external volume - Apple Support and boot from it.
Post the output of the following command from OS X Terminal when booted from this external device. Enter your password when prompted, and it will not be echoed back.
sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

Entering password for an encrypted time machine backup

During a recent hard disk failure. I have had to restore my system from a time machine backup.
I keep this backup on an encrytped external drive.
I booted into recovery mode, erased the drive to fix the hard disk errors (it wasn't repairable).
Then I tried to mount the encrypted drive for recovery.
Everytime I entered the password, a 50 character string with all character types it failed to unlock.
I tried the disk on another mac and it unlocked fine.
Then I noticed that the recovery mode defaults to US Input Source and I have a UK macbook (2007).
So I changed the input source to British.
Still the password doesn't work.
Then I noticed that once you click unlock the password entry box defaults to US again and doesn't let you change it.
Fortunately UK keyboard isn't very different to US and I figured out that the only difference was to use Shift 3 for # rather than option 3 that we normally use on the UK keyboard.
Is there a work around this? Is it a known issue.
Glad I don't have an arabic or russian keyboard :-)

File a bug report with Apple.

Apply preferences for lightroom from time machine backup

I have a new 27inch iMac. The previous (most recent) TM backup from my previous computer might have had some corrupt files (not related to adobe software). Apple instructed me to only migrate my applications (which I've done) and to then manually drag documents over. I've set CS6 and lightroom up but non of the 3rd party editing applications I used like topaz, alien skin, and NIK came over. Furthermore, all my preferences that were saved like watermarks, export settings, develop settings etc are missing. I'm searching for file(s) that I could drag over from the time machine backup over to my new machine that would as best possible save me from rebuilding Lightroom from scratch. NOTE: I am able to access all my various cat files stored on various external drives without issue. Just need to preferences back if possible.
Thanks!

Awesome kglad I appreciate that very much!!

Unable to use Migration assistant to access my Time Machine backup???

I recently had hard drive issues in my IMac G5, archive and install would not work and required an erase and install this happened twice over two months so I decided to install a new hard drive on my four year old machine, replaced a 160 with a 500 and beefed the RAM up to 2 gb -- a friend and Mac 'expert' did the installs for me... after bringing the machine home I went to reinstall all my files & profiles from time machine using 'Migration Assistant' - I choose the second option, and my external hard drive fires up but then in the Select System to Transfer screen it remains blank, I click on Time Machine and get 'A storage location for Time Machine backups isn't setup.' I click on 'Setup Time Machine' and it opens Time Machine with an On Off toggle, it is Off so I toggle to ON, then get a setup Time Capsule screen, I click on that, it opens Airport Utility and scans for my network, it finds my Airport Extreme and two Airport Expresses, but what does this mean? I have no idea what to do from there... Any suggestions would be appreciated

Should be, if the eMac is running 10.5.x be sure to turn off TM backups though.

89 hours for Restore from Time Machine backup!! Is this typical?

Trying to restore my iMac after a hang up in the boot process....grey screen----->apple----->progrees bar to 1/10 full----->shutdown.
Troubleshooting steps thus far,
-Booted from Lion install USB.
-Ran Disk Utility and all tests show that the startup drive is in good order.
-Went to Restore from a Time Machine backup and chose Iomega USB 2.0 backup drive.......internal HD would not show up in destination list.
-Went back to Disk Utility and erased internal HD and formatted for HFS+ (Journaled)
-Tried to restore from Time Machine again, was able to select internal HD as destination this time.
-Estimated time.......89 HOURS!!!
24" iMac (Mid 2007)
2.8 Ghz Core 2 Extreme
4 GB Ram (667 Mhz)
500 GB HDD (ATA)
2 TB Iomega USB 2.0 backup drive.
I understand this machine is no spring chicken, however, this amount of downtime seems excessive. Why so slow? Any ideas to speed it up?
Thanks.

Sounds like your internal HD may be failing.
If it's working slowly, having to do numerous retries, etc., everything will be very slow.
Note that Disk Utility won't necessarily find that sort of problem with a HD; it only checks the file system on the drive for consistency -- all the various directories, catalogs, etc.
Less likely, but possible, are problems with RAM, the USB drive, the USB port on your Mac, or even the USB cable.
Unless you're well into the restore, you might want to try running this: Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test. Run the Extended tests (that may take an hour or more, depending on how much RAM you have). Write down any error code(s) it shows.

Can OS 10.7 limit the number of Time Machine backups

I'm using a 2TB Western Digital My Book Live to backup my 2011 MacBook Pro on a home network that's shared with Windows 7 machines. Can I limit the size of my Time Machine Backup to 500GB or limit the number of backups?

Falcon27453 wrote:
re: samberl's suggestion;
You can limit the size of the TM backup by using this automator script.
http://code.google.com/p/backmyfruitup/downloads/detail?name=CreateBackupVolume. zip
Has anyone else either used this suggestion... or can offier any input? Pardon the comment... but the mod worried me a wee bit.
No. Hacks worry me in general, and the deeper inside the OS they dig, the more I'd be worried. Here's why. It's not a matter of if they become a problem, it's when. The OS will continue to change. That's a given. As it does, they absolutely do not take into consideration accomodating hacks. In fact, there have been circumstances where they have gone far out of their way to make sure hacks do not work in future updates. Trusting your data backups to that scenario??? No thanks. And yes, the same continuous update situation is true of any software (it doesn't even have to be third-party, as we've seen many times), but software apps more in the mainstream continue to be updated, while hacks . . . .

Can I use a NAS for an online time machine backup?

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