Do I need time capsule hardware to run time machine?

Do I need time capsule hardware to run time machine?
I have a Mac Mini and a non-Apple 2TB sitting on a wifi network at home. Can I run Time Machine to backup from Mac Mini to non-Apple 2TB drive?

Kappy wrote:
No. All you need is an external drive connected to the computer. But, Time Machine does not work on any NAS except the Time Capsule.
Not quite.. it will work on a NAS that has Time Machine Extensions.. many do.. the big brands.. Synology, QNAP, Netgear, etc.. and even some small one, I am using a cheapie made by zyxel works fine..
But some like buffalo have no updates to later versions of OSX.. Apple dramatically changed the way Lion handles AFP in network disks.. so plenty of companies had to release updates.
See this for setup info.
http://code.stephenmorley.org/articles/time-machine-on-a-network-drive/

Similar Messages

Need Time Machine and Time Capsule Advice

I'm planning to purchase a Time Capsule to use with Time Machine on our two computers. Only planning to backup the Home folders on each-only about 8 gigs on both. My main purpose is to backup our photo and music libraries along with some other files. My reasoning is that if a hard drive fails or a logic board gets replaced, which has already happened on one machine, I would be able to restore all those files to either a repaired computer or perhaps a new one if one gets replaced.
However I've been reading a few posts that seem to indicate that in those instances Time Machine may be unable to restore those files because it doesn't recognize the changed board/hard drive/new computer. Is this correct? And if it is could I use Time Capsule as just an external drive and back up those files manually using another method other than Time Machine? We have a .Mac/Me.com account and use the Backup program occasionally so that could possibly do what I want.
Thanks for any advice,
John

Pappasbike wrote:
I'm planning to purchase a Time Capsule to use with Time Machine on our two computers. Only planning to backup the Home folders on each-only about 8 gigs on both. My main purpose is to backup our photo and music libraries along with some other files. My reasoning is that if a hard drive fails or a logic board gets replaced, which has already happened on one machine, I would be able to restore all those files to either a repaired computer or perhaps a new one if one gets replaced.
I would strongly recommend you let it back up EVERYTHING on your computer. That is the purpose of TM, and that is how it works best.
However I've been reading a few posts that seem to indicate that in those instances Time Machine may be unable to restore those files because it doesn't recognize the changed board/hard drive/new computer. Is this correct?
You should be able to restore fine, the issue is with continuing the same backup set--and that's ONLY after a logic board change. There are steps (see: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080128003716101 ) you can take to fix this fairly easily, though.
And if it is could I use Time Capsule as just an external drive and back up those files manually using another method other than Time Machine? We have a .Mac/Me.com account and use the Backup program occasionally so that could possibly do what I want.
You could, but TM is a MUCH simpler solution.
Good luck!
Message was edited by: joshz

External Drive connected to Airport Extreme, need Time Machine 3 Mac's Help

I own an Airport Extreme and just recently added two new Macs with the Time Machine feature to our household. I would like to use Time Machine to backup to my Airport Extreme that has a 500 GB hard drive connected. It seems Apple has this blocked since they have released the Time Capsule version of the router. Is there a work around this feature so I don't have to go out an purchase what I basically have already got? Please help. We would like to upgrade our older macs to Leopard and us the same system to back them up as well. Please advise. Thank you.

I had my USB drive on my APE working with Time Machine under 10.5.1 very reliably. A few days ago however, I needed to suspend a backup operation, and when I came back to restart it, time machine refused to mount the disk image on the drive. After several attempts to get it to connect with no luck I decided to delete the image (the sparce image file) and start over. Now TM refuses to create a new image.
BTW, on the Mac OSX hints site there have been suggestions to start a backup with the drive directly connected, then stop the backup, move the sparce image file to the root of the drive, reconnect the drive to the APE base station to get it working. I tried this again, but I think Apple has changed something in 10.5.2, because when directly connected TM no longer creates a sparce image file.
Anybody else seen this behavior after upgrading to 10.5.2?

I need time machine restore help

Can someone please tell me what the screen should look like when I do a complete restore onto a new hard drive? The blue candy cane bar is spinning. There is no percent complete or hours until completion showing. It ran all night. 500G hard drive. I think it could possibly take 20 hours but I don't want to let it run if it is virtually locke

First I would like to say thank you for replying to my question. After 24 hours of the blue candy cane bar just spinning and spinning I decided to open the disk utility option that was being offered. I noticed that the same number of files and gigs were still on the hard drive. I figure it was NOT doing anything. So I opted for a restart and held command R again and tried it with a slightly older time machine file. This time it started right up and now I see the progress bar. It has 7 hours left to go. Hoping this will actually work. It will save me so many hours trying to drag files from my old hard drive. BUT I am going to mark that you answered my question just because you replied and I am certain that if I had not discovered this on my own you would have known the answer. So thanks for the help. (editing so that hopefully it will let me click the correct support acknowledgement)

Need Time Machine Password

Had to replace my iMac hard drive. I am unable to restore all my data from Time Machine as it is requesting a password that I don't ever remember creating. Help! All my data will be lost if I don't figure this out!

OK - I just had this issue when setting up a new computer (macbook pro 13"). Felt super dumb when i figured it out. My dialogue box had two "drives" - one was Time Capsule and the other My Macbook Pro. Naturally I selected what I thought was the external drive. But of course in this case you should select your own computer because this is in fact the time machine back up. Once i selected that it was fine.

Unique Problem That Needs Time Machine

The title of this post may very well be misleading, but nevertheless i am in a predicament. I recently installed the 10.5.3 update, but some errors occurred. Since these errors are not the problem, i won't go into it.
Suffice it to say, i used my brothers recently bought MacBook's install CD to try and revert back using my external HDD with Time Machine. My original Leopard install CD is in storage 2000 miles away (college student home for summer). My MacBook was purchased in August of '06 and I installed Leopard on it in Jan '08. My brother's MacBook was bought only a couple weeks ago, if that long.
Looking back now, i would assume the newer Install CD isn't compatible with the older Mac. I get the error message "Mac OSX cannot be installed on this computer." and given the options "OK" and "Restart".
I was hoping that i could use this newer CD to tap into the Time Machine "archives" on my external HDD and restore my Mac to the way it was.
Please help me...

You can call any Apple number if you don't have AppleCare. Tell them what you need and give them your serial number. If you registered your 10.5 install disc when you installed it, they can pull it up and verify.
I just went through this a few weeks ago when I thought I lost my install disc. As soon as I received the replacement and went to put it away, I found the original.
EDIT: I made a point to ask them if this service had anything to do with my having AppleCare and they said it did not)
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

How to backup NAS Drive to Time Machine

My iMac, early 2009 model has a 1TB HDD which is now full with a few GB to spare, but not enough for any kind of video edited etc.
So, I purchased a NAS drive to use as an external storage device, so I can move and free up disk space on the iMac..... An other reason why I got a NAS drive instead of a regular external drive was because the WD My Cloud let's me create my own Cloud storage and also stream audio, image and video files directly to my TV, eliminating the need for an Apple TV or to keep my iMac/iTunes turned on.
Anyways, my issue is, I need Time Machine to backup my NAS drive and I don't know how to do this. Because once, I delete the files off my iMac, TM will not be making any future backups of the files I've moved.
There has to be a solution, any script/software? Any commands I can enter into Terminal for TM to see and backup my NAS?
ONLY IF, it was easy as upgrading the iMac ram, to upgrade the Hard Drive, I would have upgraded the internal HDD instead.
Please help, urgent.
Thanks in advance.

My question now is, is it worth keeping the NAS My Cloud drive and backing up My Book to the NAS My Cloud drive instead of to Time Capsule ?
Or shall I just stick to backing up to TC ?
This is more an opinion question.. IMHO the WD MyCloud will not be as reliable as the TC.
Apple build stuff with lots of tricky bits and one of those tricky bits is when you try to use non-apple products they simply have more issues.. Apple do not support TM to a WD mycloud.. they support it to a TC.
If you want reliable backups.. use CCC to the MyCloud or the TC.. that is not a problem.
Or use Time Machine to the Time Capsule.
If I needed to recover a file, I would use the TM backup.
If I lost a disk, I would use the CCC backup to restore it.
They are different.. they have different strengths and for reliability with Mavericks in particular.. I would rate CCC as top of the class and TM as the dunce in the corner.
So IMHO for the $40 cost of CCC I would do both. It is not hard.. nor expensive.. and if your data is at all valuable to you.. the extra cost is fairly small. You already have all the hardware.

Can Time Machine back up to 2 separate external drives?

I have one 1TB drive in addition to a 2TB drive. The 2TB drive is used by Time Machine. I'd like to add the 1TB to Time Machine's space. So I need Time Machine to back up to both drives. Is that possible? So my total backup space for Time Machine will be 3TB.

Only one backup drive at a time can be used. You can switch backup drives by changing the backup drive in TM preferences.
You can try creating a striped RAID array using Disk Utility and using the array as the backup destination. A striped array will give you the 3 TBs you want but it will appear to TM as a single backup device.
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server: Hardware and Service Comparison.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

Time Machine and Sleep

Hi gang,
I have a 1 TB Time Capsule, and I am running Time Machine under Mac OS X 10.5.2 on a MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. I've run all software & firmware updates.
Our laptop hasn't been sleeping since we started to use Time Machine a few days ago. We have our MacBook Pro set to sleep after 45 minutes, but for some reason it's not sleeping... and Time Machine keeps backing up every 60 minutes. Not sure if Time Machine is WAKING it from sleep or if it's just not going to sleep, but we certainly don't need Time Machine backing up constantly throughout the night when files aren't changing at all. Shouldn't the computer's sleep override Time Machine kicking in? It's either NOT sleeping, or Time Machine is WAKING it from sleep.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Scott

I too have a similar problem and for a while I just ejected the drive everyday and once a day connected it and made a back up and re-ejected it again. I don't like this method because I only recently realised how TM is important to me (saved my work few days ago) so I started letting it run again... strangely enough, my MacBook goes to sleep during the day when I am not around. I have also noticed that external HD on which there is a TM partition turns off after a while that there is no app that uses it (as it should happen, it has only movies and other media files and my TM partition) but then all of a sudden it comes back to life and 10 minutes later falls back to sleep again. it happens all the time in the same intervals but I am not sure about when I am asleep . are these two problems connected some how? for example now the drive is working for no apparent reason... may be TM access the TM partition on regular intervals to see if anything has changed and if yes it will record the change in the next backup, this in turn keeps the drive running which in turen may keep the computer from sleeping... I will check to see if a setting to sleep in less than 10 minutes have any effect.

HT201250 When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ?

When migrating from time machine to my new hard drive, it migrates the first back-up I made several years ago. How can I migrate the latest back-up ? I need time machine to migrate the latest back-up. Should I delete the older back-ups ?

As noondaywitch says, it should use the latest backup.
Where are your backups (external HD, Time Capsule, etc.)?
It sounds like there are two separate sets, and you're not connected to the right set.

Mac OS X Server 10.6.7 update - Time Machine not working and other trouble.

I've upgraded my mid 2010 mac mini server to 10.6.7 with server Combo download.
After installation (without any errors) i've detected this troubleshooting.
Time Machine (backup hd is the 2nd 500GB Hd of mini server) dont work more and
display error message that suggest to verify hard disks (done with no errors detection).
Mac Help display white page.
And if try to install Server Admin Tools, installation utility not recognize system HD and cannot be done.
The mac mini server seems however works and services seems works rights. Can be rebooted without problems.
I've tried to backup the system disk on the second hd with Carbon Copy Cloner without problem and it recognize system disk well.
I've upgraded also two others mac minis (mid 2010) with standard 10.6.7 version (no server) and a macbook and a macbook pro without problems (but i've not tried time machine on them).
Thanks in advance for any help!

I know the problems with Time Machine on Mac OS server. In your case: Look at the log files, searching for "backupd", if that tells you anything.
In my case, Time Machine in the last year stopped several times. Occasionally, there was a helpful message in the log files where I could identify a file where it had hung -- typically intermediate build results of Xcode. After excluding or deleting the offending files (where possible), Time Machine ran successfully.
Another situation which has repeatedly occurred is that time machine just hangs and does not progress, and no log entry helps. In 3 such cases what helped was to delete the spotlight index (e.g., with TinkerTool System) and let it rebuild. It took inordinately long (10 hrs) and there were log entries by mdworker that it had difficulty processing files. But when the spotlight index was finally rebuilt, Time Machine worked again.
BTW: I don't need Time Machine to backup the server system, for that I run mirrors etc., but for user files it is most convenient and has helped several times. Thus I have excluded nearly everything but /User/*.

Time machine not working on macbook pro 10.6.8

My time machine is not working, I want to upgrade to Lion do I need time machine?

Not to upgrade, but you may want to use Time Machine for your regular backup.
How to Install Lion/Mountain Lion Successfully - You must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 Installed
A. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions:
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. Then select Disk Utility from the Utilities. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (4.3.) if DW cannot fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall Snow Leopard.
B. Make a Bootable Backup Using Restore Option of Disk Utility:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the
      Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the backup volume. Source means the internal startup volume.
C. Important: Please read before installing:
1. If you have a FireWire hard drive connected, disconnect it before
      installing the update unless you will boot from this drive and install the
      update on it. Reconnect it and turn it back on after installation is
      complete and you've restarted.
2. You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-
      party system software modifications, or if you have modified the
      operating system through other means. (This does not apply to
      normal application software installation.)
3. The installation process should not be interrupted. If a power outage or
      other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone
      installer (see below) from Apple Downloads to update. While the
      installation is in progress do not use the computer.
D. To upgrade to Lion/Mountain Lion:
1. Purchase the Lion/Mountain Lion Installer from the Mac App Store.
      The download should start quickly. Lion is nearly 4 GBs so a fast
      internet connection is essential. Download time could run upwards of 4
      hours depending upon network conditions and server demands at the
      time.
2. The installer will run automatically after the download is completed.
      Click on the Install button to begin the upgrade.
3. Follow instructions for installation.
You may also wish to consider this:
Make Your Own Mountain/Lion Installer
1. After downloading Mountain/Lion you must first save the Install Mac OS X Mountain/
    Lion application. After Mountain/Lion downloads DO NOT click on the Install button.
    Go to your Applications folder and make a copy of the Mountain/Lion installer. Move
    the copy into your Downloads folder. Now you can click on the Install button. You
    must do this because the installer deletes itself automatically when it finishes
    installing.
2. Get a USB flash drive that is at least 8 GBs. Prep this flash drive as follows:
a. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
b. After DU loads select your flash drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left
      side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
c. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one.
      Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the
      partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until
      the process has completed.
d. 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.
e. 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.
f. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to an hour depending upon the flash
     drive size.
3. Locate the saved Mountain/Lion installer in your Downloads folder. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on the installer and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. Double-click on the Contents folder to open it. Double-click on the SharedSupport folder. In this folder you will see a disc image named InstallESD.dmg.
4. Plug in your freshly prepared USB flash drive. You are going to clone the content of the InstallESD.dmg disc image to the flash drive as follows:
a. Double-click on the InstallESD.dmg file to mount it on your Desktop.
b. Open Disk Utility.
c. Select the USB flash drive from the left side list.
d. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
e. Select the USB flash drive volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
f. Drag the mounted disc icon from the Desktop into the Source entry field.
g. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
When the clone is completed you have a fully bootable installer that you can use without having to re-download Mountain/Lion.
Note: The term Mountain/Lion used above means Lion or Mountain Lion.
As an alternative to the above (you still have to do your own download of Lion/Mountain Lion) you can try using Lion DiskMaker 2.0 that automates the process of Steps 2 through 4.

ITunes Playlist and Time Machine

I just spent a couple of hours making a playlist for an event. Then I made a couple more playlists for different parts of the event. All the while, Time Machine was dutifully making its backups. I was listening to some songs in the playlist and deleting ones that might not fit after all, when I accidentally deleted the entire playlist. No confirmation dialog from iTunes; it was just gone.
I hadn't lost hope yet, as I was certain that I could just use Time Machine to scroll back in time and retrieve the lost list. But that wasn't the case. The only version of "iTunes Music Library.xml" was the most recent version. For some reason, Time Machine doesn't keep an incremental backup of it.Most likely it's because it has to be kept exactly up-to-date or there would be orphaned/missing songs.
It figures. The one time I actually NEED time machine, it didn't seem to work. Unless I'm missing something.
Any ideas? At the very least, how does one re-enable the prompt on deleting playlists?

Music/iTunes/iTunes Library.itl contains the playlists but it also contains all the other information about what you see in iTunes such as items added, ratings, etc. If you last backup was not long ago and you have made almost no changes to your library since then, you could just replace that one file an more or less revert to what it was when the library file was last saved. If you have added a few songs you could just find them in your media folders and drag them to iTunes again to bring things up to date.
If the above is not acceptable then there may be other ways to do it such as saving the old library file in another location on your computer, opening it in iTunes and exporting the playlists, then re-importing them in the current library. This may also require some file editing and I haven't tried any of this to be able to advise you specifically at this point.

How to make Time Machine only back up once per day?

I really really don't need time machine to back up EVERY HOUR. It's overkill for me and with the level of computing I am forcing my computer to do most of the day its VERY irritating. Is there anyway to change the settings so it only backs up once every night?

Yeah, we tried using TimeMachineEditor on a friend's laptop. There will be 2 laptops backing up, and we wanted them both to backup overnight at different times when there would be no interruptions (for user or computer). It seemed to work OK (have to check w/ them), but how do you verify when backups were actually done?
I have a couple related question to this, though, that may also be helpful for folks:
- I'm guessing Time Machine cannot do a backup when the computer is asleep, correct? If a Time Machine backup starts while the computer is 'awake', will it keep the computer from sleeping so it can finish?
- If I set a schedule in the Energy Saver preferences to 'Wake Up' the computer at midnight (before scheduled backup), and 'Sleep' later on (say 4am), does this override the other preferences set for sleep in Energy Saver? (ie - if it's set to sleep after 30min., will the computer wake up at midnight only to go back to sleep 30min. later, or will it stay 'awake' until 4am?)
- Do you need to uncheck 'Put the hard drive to sleep when possible'?

Where is the Time Machine backup of my home/user folder?

I just realized that Time Machine hasn't created any backups of my "home directory"/"user folder" ... i.e. I can't find any of my documents or pictures (e.g. the iPhoto library) on the external hard drive.
I checked whether I somehow had listed my user folder on the "exclusion list", but the only thing listed there was the external hard drive (which makes sense).
Does anyone know what I can do about this? I really need Time Machine to backup my photos!!!
(I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4)

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

Do I need time capsule hardware to run time machine?

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