Can i use time machine with a hard drive connected to the airport extreme?

Just wondering if there is any news on this since the last post was in 2008.
The Apple website info regarding the Airport Extreme mentions attaching a hard drive to the Airport Extreme, but I can't see whether that could be used for a Mac using Time Machine.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

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I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfully use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme? Some forums say yes, some say no.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfuly use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme. Some forums say yes, some say no. I'm also curious about formatting the hard drive to work both on my wife's MacBook Pro and my PC. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

You may be going on a recollection, that I share, that at one time Apple stated this would be possible:
In fact, Apple’s Time Machine Web page touted this very capability as recently as last Tuesday, as you can see from Google’s October 16 cache of the page
Effortless meets wireless. With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.
But if you look at the current Time Machine page on Apple’s Web site, that text is nowhere to be found.
That was a long time ago, it has never been officially implemented, and at present they specifically say it cannot be done.
In summary, it may work, but probably won't, and even if it does it may not be reliable.
Reference:
Disks that can be used with Time Machine
Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme, or...
and
Mac OS X v10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks

Using Time MACHINE with a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
Please click here:
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Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme AirDisk
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Note: If you got here by clicking a link that looks like this:
_. . . discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2299608#Q1_
Note the number at the end, after the +*pound sign,+* (#) and click the corresponding item below:
Please pardon the inconvenience.
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QUESTIONS
*Q1. Can I use the USB drive(s) for Time Machine backups AND other data?*
*Q2. How do I set up Time Machine to back up to a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme?*
*Q3. How do I delete backups?*
*Q4. How do I back-up my backups?*
If you don't see your question here, try Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
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PROBLEMS
*P1. The Backup disk image could not be created.*
*P2. Time Machine could not complete the backup . . sparsebundle could not be accessed. (Error 109).*
If you don't see your problem here, try Time Machine - Troubleshooting
This is the 3rd version of this tip. It was submitted on May 16, 2010 by Pondini.
Do you want to provide feedback on this User Contributed Tip or contribute your own? If you have achieved Level 2 status, visit the User Tips Library Contributions forum for more information.

Hi, Nubz!
Yes, I just saw that, and am still chuckling.
Maybe that will mollify the Jive gods?
Thanks again,
Jim

I can't use Time Machine with a USB drive plugged into an Airport Extreme.

I connected an external drive to the USB port of an Airport Extreme, intending to use it with Time Machine and one of the laptops in the Wi-Fi network (call it Laptop). The drive is visible from the Disks tab of each computer’s Airport Utility but from nowhere else, in particular not to Laptop’s Time Machine preference.
Laptop is relatively new and arrived with Mavericks. Time Machine used to work on Laptop before I upgraded the rest of the network (a desktop Mac Pro and another laptop) from OS X 10.6 to Mavericks.
The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I have tried other external hard drives, with the same behavior. The desktop correctly use Time Machine to back up its internal drive to another internal drive. Another possibly relevant factor is that our DSL connection has recently been upgraded, and now uses a 2Wire modem that provides its own router, so Airport Utility’s Network Router Mode is set to “Off (Bridge Mode)”.
I would be grateful for suggestions of what to try next.

Here is one from Pondini, who was the foremost Time Machine expert in the world.
http://pondini.org/TM/Airport.html
And another from Apple. Info near the bottom.
AirPort base stations: About USB disks
And another miscellaneous from Apple:
AirPort base stations: Time Machine hard drive compatibility

HT204057 is there a way to use time machine with a backup drive connected to my AirPort?

is there a way to use time machine with a backup drive connected to my AirPort Extreme?

Unfortunately, this is not officially supported by Apple......if you still have the 4th Gen AirPort Extreme that you list in your equipment profile.
However, the new "tower" shaped version of the AirPort Extreme does now officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the device.

Can I use time machine if my hard drive is hooked through my Extreme?

I have used my Airport Extreme for the past year just as a router but recently added 3tb usb drive and I feel I hit a wall trying to get time machine on my IMac, and macbook to auto back up. Am I going to need to plug them in directly when I want to back up and plub to the Extreme just for file sharing?

Make sure that the hard drive is formatted correctly in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and that you are using a powered USB hub with the AirPort Extreme to deliver the best chances of the hard drive working correctly.
Unfortunately, Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, but some users report that they have been able to make this work. Your decision on whether you want to try this unsupported method of backups.

HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

How can I get two hard drives connected to the Airport Extreme. There's only 1 USB port.

I believe I want to use TWO USB Hard Drives with my Airport Extreme, but it seems there is only 1 USB port.
I am currently using that USB port for my backup external hard drive (works with Time Machine). But now I have decided I want a common hard drive for music, photos, etc. for the two Macs in my home to share. I read that you do that via the same port.
What should I do? Is there a way to use 2 hard drives - a common shared and one for time machine?
Please advise and thank you!

singer777 wrote:
I believe I want to use TWO USB Hard Drives with my Airport Extreme, but it seems there is only 1 USB port.
Use a (powered) USB hub.
I am currently using that USB port for my backup external hard drive (works with Time Machine).
I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.

Using Time Machine with External Hard Drive

Hey everyone,
I had a few questions about Time Machine that I hope someone could answer for me.
I bought my first external hard drive in August, the 1 TB WD My Book for Mac and when I set it up, I configured it to Time Machine, and not the WD software.
I have an extensive music collection, which was my main reason for buying the external hard drive in the first place.
Anyway, when I plug in the hard drive and let Time Machine do the back up, I've noticed that it's backing up the same files every single time, and is eating up a lot of space on the hard drive.
Since I am mainly using this drive to store my music, I was wondering if there was an easier way to do things:
-Is there a way to not back up my documents, photos, applications, etc, every single time I plug in my HD?
-Is there an easy way to find my music on the drive? For example, some Time Machine back-ups have different files on them... i.e. my back up from August 10th has certain music files that do not exist on my backup from November 10th, as I deleted them from my computer after they were backed up to the external HD. I'd love to be able to see all of my music in one place, rather different versions of my music folder on different days.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot.

Hi,
1. Your Time Machine should should do the full backup of your computer just once and then only diffrences between backups - whenever you plug in the drive.
If that's not the case something is misconfigured.
2. You can exclude folders (documents, pictures etc) from being backed up. This is in in Time Machine Options (right bottom corner.
3. The drive is (most likely) indexed by Spotlight. However, provided those are backup files I would advise against browsing and searching them directly. This can damage the backup itself.
4. I cannot work out the exact scenario you are using - but the ideal (proper one) would be to have all your music library on your computer and only backup on your external drive. This you should not have to browse and use until you need to restore files.
5. If you keep your music library solely on the external drive - it should be not in the backup files.
Also such practice is risky as all drives crash sooner or later and you will lose your music.
Best would be to keep all music on the computer and backup onto your external drive.
Or
if the music library is too big for your computer you may keep it externally - but Isuggest you get one of the external hard dirves with RAID1 or higher. This will keep your music safer lest one of the drives packs up.
Let me know if you want me to elaborate on any of the aforementioned.
TZ

CAN I USE TIME MACHINE WITH A NETWORK HD CONNECTED TO MY ROUTER?

I have a 500gb hard drive connected to my wrt350n router usb port, can i use it with time machine? how can i do it?
do i need to format it for mac?
ones i format my hd would i be able to access from window?

You do not need to reformat the drive - it doesn't matter what format the drive is, as long as you can mount it via AFP, TM will create an image to write to.
See http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5653763#5653763 for more details.
Bear in mind that this is not supported, so if anything goes wrong - you're on your own as far as Apple is concerned... furthermore, there is always the possibility that a future update will break the existing functionality.

How can i use time machine with a network drive

I have a Western Digital Net N900 wireless router with a 2TB internal H/D. How can I get Time Machine to reconize it?

Relying only on TM to me is iffy but I would bet you have clones in addition to TM like I do. I agree with everything you said but to the OP question, it is possible. A time capsule or AEBS+HD are pretty similar but one is officially supported while the later is not.
Since I'm rambling a bit I will add this. I only use TM for the times I delete something and then wish I had it back. All my restores or migrations are done from my clones. One clone is made weekly and is a snap shot of my system. One clone I keep remotely located and is updated monthly.
My system:
Internal 1TB
Ext HD1 2TB (1TB data, 1TB clone)
Ext HD2 2TB time machine backup (internal + HD1 data, not the clone)
Remote 1TB clone
I'm fully redudant with my method and it has saved me before.

Using Time Machine w/external hard drive connected to airport extreme

I hooked up an external hard drive on my airport extreme. I see it in sharing, however, Time Machine doesn't recognize it as a back-up drive unless I have it directly connected to my MacBook Pro. How do I get Time Machine to recognize the external drive when it's connected to the airport?

FWIW, the AEBS has known problems sharing a directly connected HD. Take a look over in the AEBS forums, and you'll see that this is a very common problem. Perhaps Apple will update the firmware and rectify this problem.
Cheers,
Andreas

Time Machine and External Hard Drive wireless backup over airport extreme

Ok can this be done? I have an external HD that I used a firewire to connect to my macbook pro and it backed up my movies,photo's etc without a problem.
When I realized I could plug the HD into the back of the extreme I tried that and I can see the shared HD in my finder but I cannot get time machine to backup wirelessly now and I can't see my previous back up in Time machine but I can see it when I look on the HD.
Can I continue to do my backups over the extreme wirelessly? How do i do this? Or do I have to plug the firewire and mac into the HD each time I want to back up using time machine?
Thanks,

I hope that support is added to the airport extreme. I would be disappointed in apple to learn that they have disabled it for the airport extreme and connected hard drive in order to only sell another piece of hardware (time capsule) that is simply the airport extreme with a hard drive built in.
There are reported work arounds for getting the airport extreme and external hard drive to work with time machine. A couple google search results outlined the process, it didn't look too complicated. I would prefer it was a feature and not a work around though.

What's the most recent opinion about Time Machine backups to Hard Drives connected to the USB port on the Airport Extreme Base Station (5th generation)?

I have been searching the Apple communities and Internet for a final answer. I just bought an Airport Extreme Base Station (5th generation) and LaCie d2 quadra 1TB external drive as a replacement for TWO failed Time Capsules, neither of which Apple would replace due to failed power supplies. I formatted the 1TB drive using Disk Utility (Mac OS extended (journaled)) from my MacBook Pro, and then plugged into the Airport Extreme Base Station USB port. The Airport Extreme Base Station see the Hard Drive, and my MacBook Pro sees the Hard Drive in my finder under shared resources. Time Machine, however, does not see the drive. Is there a solution for this problem? If Time Machine will not work, is there another software product out there that will work, like Carbon Copy. Having to plug the backup drive into the USB port of your laptop every evening kind of defeats the purpose of having a laptop. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Keeping in mind that this is not supported by Apple, I have been successful at doing the following:
1) Format the entire drive (1 Partition) as Mac Extended (Journaled). You must click in Options and set it as a GUID Partition Table (first option)
2) Plug drive via USB to AEBS
3) Using Airport Utility, use Manual Setup, then under Disks, select the new Disk and click File Sharing, then Enable File Sharing and Secured Shared Disks (recommended, of course). Other settings are up to you.
4) IMPORTANT: you will NOT see this Disk in Time Machine until you open Finder and double-click on it. You will not need to do this again (hopefully).
5) Now it should appear in Time Machine. Remember to exclude any large files like Virtual Machines, since they will be re-backed-up (is that a word?) every time it changes in any way.
6) Remember that the first backup (over WiFi) is the longest. Leave the computer alone during this period.
Good luck, and let us all know how it went for you!

Using Time Machine with 2 hard drives in an iMac...

If I get the iMac configuration with an SSD and a 2TB HDD drive inside, will Time Machine easily back up both? I guess I'm wondering if Time Machine backs up more than one drive automatically. Thanks.

About TM "Backup Drive is Full"
TM only deletes older files if they have been deleted from the source and when TM needs space on the backup drive for a new incremental backup. Time Machine "thins" it's backups; hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first of the day; those "daily" backups over 30 days old, except the first of the week. The weeklies are kept as long as there's room.
So, how long a backup file remains depends on how long it was on your Mac before being deleted, assuming you do at least one backup per day. If it was there for at least 24 hours, it will be kept for at least a month. If it was there for at least a week, it will be kept as long as there's room.
Note, that on a Time Capsule the sparsebundle grows in size as needed, but doesn't shrink. Thus, from the user's view of the TC it appears that no space has been freed, although there may be space in the sparsebundle.
Once TM has found it cannot free up enough space for a new backup it reports the disk is full. You can either erase the backup drive and start your backups anew or replace the drive with a larger drive.
Having a sufficiently large enough backup drive doesn't prevent this problem but it can help provide a longer period of time before the problem occurs.
If this is something of concern for you then you should opt to use a different type of backup utility and a different backup strategy.
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

Can i use time machine with a hard drive connected to the airport extreme?

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