Can I use Time Machine with a Network Storage Drive?

I just picked up this drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Macally/NSA2S350NAS/ and I would like to use Time Machine for backups, and also use a different location on the drive for sharing files on our network. But this article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html says that network server must use AFP. How do I set that up? I just have a simple network using a 4 port wireless router. I have no idea what protocol the network is. I just use the "Network" option to connect to my new drive at smb://192.168.1.105.
Is this going to be possible or do I need to buy some other backup software???

On a Mac G4 I'm running OSX leopard with Time Machine. I have my other Mac (8600)networked. The 8600 was upgraded with a G3 Sonnet and IDE card, so it'll support OSX and large hard drives. I want TM to back up to the 8600, is this possible?
Thanks

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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

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.

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.

Can't use time machine with a network drive anymore

I am not able to use my network drive any longer now that I loaded Lion OS. Does anyone have have a work around. I tried the sharing of a folder trick that I had for snow lepard. I have a HP media smart server and 2TB of storage available it seems like a big waste not to be able to backup to a safe place.
Al

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

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

Time Machine with Ethernet network hard drive ???

I would like to buy a WD World Edition Ethernet hard-drive.
Can I use Time machine with an Ethernet drive plugged on my Ethernet router ??
(a SFR box - French ISP provider)

yes, I've read the article and others links, and there's some issues. When the NAS disk is full using this hint, some datas can be lost. Not recommanded.
Too bad ! I've not bought it yet, but it's seems a good product anyway for others uses (shared with others Macs, PCs, iTunes server with AAC support...)
but another disk is needed for TM... GRRRR. Now I hesitate to buy it.
Western Digital : some work for you here, as my fear is that Apple will not upgrade TM to add NAS support :-(((

Using Time Machine with a network Drive

I recently bought a WD My Book Live network drive to use as my Time Machine backup. I was previously using a USB external HD for Time Machine with no problems. I have set up the new network drive but when I go in to Time Machine to select it as the drive to back up to, it is not showing up. The only drive I see is my old USB external HD. I have the latest firmware for the network drive and I am running Mac OSX10.5.8. Any suggestions?

If you bought the WD in a USB enclosure it probably came formatted with NTFS (Windows). Time Machine can't use NTFS drives or SMB (Windows) network shares as a backup destination because that format does not allow the proper permissions to be set. If this is the case with your drive, open Disk Utility and reformat your new drive (NOT you system drive!!) with HFS+ aka 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' and then the drive should show up as a target selection in Time Machine.

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

Can i use time machine with a airport extreme and a external hard drive

I have connected a hard drive to my airport extreme.
Now i would like to use time machine to back up my computers, and would like to do this on the hard drive which is connected to my airport extreme.
Next step is that i would like to be able to approach my external hard drive via the internet.
Is this possible or not?

Both are possible. However, Apple does NOT support Time Machine backups to AirPort Disks attached to the 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn). Doing so will potentially lead to data corruption and is highly not recommended. Please check out this excellent Pondini article for more details. This article also provides the Apple Support references that states Apple's position. Bottom line? If your backups are critical to you, then you may want to rethink your backup solution.
As far as accessing the AirPort Disk from the Internet, the following is the basic steps to do so:
Start the AirPort Utility > Select the AEBSn, and then, note the IP address shown.
Select Manual Setup.
Verify that Connection Sharing = Share a public IP address is selected on the Internet > Internet Connection tab.
Select Disks, and then, select File Sharing.
Verify that both the "Enable file sharing" and "Share disks over WAN" options are enabled.
Verify that Secure Shared Disks = With a disk password. (Recommended)
Verify that AirPort Disks Guest Access = Not allowed. (Recommended)
Select Advanced, and then, select the Port Mapping tab.
Click the plus sign to add a new port mapping.
For Service, select the "Personal File Sharing" option. (Note: This option would only allow Mac clients to access the AirPort Disks. If you want both Macs and PCs to connect, you would need to leave this field at its default value and enter the appropriate SMB ports to the mix of ports to be opened.)
In the Public UDP Port(s) and Public TCP Port(s) boxes, type in a 4-digit port number (e.g., 8888) that you choose. In the Private IP Address box, type the internal IP address of your AEBSn that you wrote down in step 1. In the Private UDP Port(s) and Private TCP Port(s) boxes, type 548. Click Continue.
In the Description box, type a descriptive name like "AirPort Disk File Sharing," and then, click Done.
Click on Update.
To connect to the shared AirPort Disk from a remote location using a Mac:
From the Finder > Go > Connect to Server.
Enter the Pubic (WAN-side) IP address of the AEBSn, followed by a colon and the Public port number that you choose in step 11 of the previous procedure. For example: afp://www.mydyndnsdomain.com:8888 or afp://123.456.789.123:8888
Click Connect.
You should be prompted for your user name and password. The user name can be anything you like; the password should be the Disk password for the AEBSn that you created in step 6 previously.
Click Connect.

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

Can you use time machine with 2 drives

I'd like to make two Time Machine backups - one per external drive - so that I can keep one in a different location. Is that possible? When I switch drives will each backup know where to pickup?
Thanks.

Yes, although that's not the best way to keep secondary backups.
See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for details.

Can I use Time Machine on two different Hard Drives?

Hi, I have a Time Capsule on which I make my Time Machine back up every time, but I also want to back up all my data on another external HD using Time Machine as well... how can I do that? Thx

Alfonso, let me give you a warning. What you want to do should work, but does not work well for me. Here's my story:
I have Time Machine (TM) backing up a MacBook Pro to a Time Capsule (TC) on my home wired network. First backup (BU) took 24 hours. Subsequent incremental backups were very fast and convenient. All was working well.
About 6 weeks setting up TM/TC, I had to take my MacBook in for repairs. Being paranoid, I wanted a second backup, so I connected the computer to an external LaCie drive via FW800. Second BU also took 24 hours, even over the MUCH faster firewire connection. That really hacked me off, so I got CarbonCloner and made a bootable image on another external LaCie drive over FW800. That took only 2 hours.
I got the computer back from Apple after repairs and directed TM to start backing up to the original TC drive (no changes to the drive during repair). The TM software decided it had to do another initial backup! As I write this, it's been running 36 hours and has completed only 19 of 76 GB. This is MUCH MUCH worse than the first initial backup.
I want to like this TM software because of the convenience, but it is really crap and unusable in my opinion. With my setup, I simply cannot switch to a second backup drive without triggering another lousy initial LONG BU process. Frankly, I really regret buying TC and trying TM.
I used to use Retrospect with great success with the two external LaCie drives, but they went into the toilet when EMC bought them and spun them out. The quality of the software has really suffered and it is very buggy now.
So, unfortunately, it looks like my best strategy is to use CarbonCloner and the two LaCie drives.

Intermittently using Time Machine with an External Hard Drive

Ok, Kappy answered some questions I had about how Time Machine works with an external hard drive.
After doing more reading about Time Machine, I found out that a person can, for example, leave the drive powered-off for a couple of weeks and only periodically or intermittently use Time Machine for back up. However, in the online article I read dated 2009, the author suggested that he didn't know how well Time Machine would work making up for the two weeks, or however long, no files had been backed up.
Specific questions: I have 10.6.3 SL (I have not yet been brave enough to download 10.6.4) and a 4 month old iMac. 1) Have any of you had experience with only periodically using Time Machine for back up and 2) with my current system would you think I might run into some trouble if I only intermittently backed-up using Time Machine?
Thanks for reading this and thanks if you feel my questions warrant answering.
Note: I do have another external hard drive where I occasionally manually back-up photos, gifs, music, etc.

JohnHusk wrote:
Ok, Kappy answered some questions I had about how Time Machine works with an external hard drive.
After doing more reading about Time Machine, I found out that a person can, for example, leave the drive powered-off for a couple of weeks and only periodically or intermittently use Time Machine for back up.
If you go several days between backups, Time Machine may have to do a "deep traversal," comparing every folder on your system to the backups, to determine what's changed and needs to be backed-up. This depends on the volume of changes, so can happen after an OSX update, but in other circumstances might be after several days. This isn't a big problem, but it does take longer, and the more data you have, the longer it takes.
Worse, after an extended period, Time Machine may do a new, full backup of your entire system, rapidly filling-up your TM drive.
If that's the way you want to back up, Time Machine is not the backup app for you. One of it's main features is the way it can do quick hourly backups of what's changed, so you have an excellent chance of recovering a previous version (or versions) when you change or delete something in error, or a file comes up corrupted, or your Mac fails.
Why don't you want to just leave the drive connected and Time Machine running, to protect you best, as it was designed to do?
For alternatives designed to do less frequent backups, see Kappy's post on Basic Backup.

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

Can I use Time Machine with a Network Storage Drive?

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