How to move existent Time Machine backups to a NAS?

Hello everybody
  I am not sure if I am posting this discussion in the correct community, so please move it to the right one in case you need.
  Currently I am using a 1TB external hard drive to store all my time machine backups. This drive also contains other information (movies, photos etc). I bought a Western Digital MyBook World Edition II which is a NAS. I want it to move my Time Machine backups to my NAS. How can I do it? Just copy over the backups folder from the external hard drive to the NAS?
Thank you!
Gilson

That's just crazy slow. 
It won't be fast, as the data can't go directly from the old disk to the new one.  It must pass through your Mac, so is on the network twice, slowing the effective speed by roughly half.  But that's awful.
There could be any number of causes, from bad ports or cables to problems with either drive or controller.  I don't have any experience with modern RAID systems, but some of the older ones were extremely slow when there was a problem with one of the drives.  
And it may get worse -- if the backups are damaged, the copy will fail and the result won't be useable.
About all I can recommend is the usual:  it's always prudent to keep secondary backups. If you don't have any, I'd strongly recommend getting a (plain) external HD and making a "bootable clone" on it ASAP (that will probably slow the copy down somewhat).  See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for details and some suggestions. 
It wouldn't have to be a 2 TB drive, just the same size as your internal HD (or at least 10% larger than the data on it).  You might consider getting a portable drive, so you can take it to a secure off-site location once you get your TM backups working to the new WD box.  Then update it periodically.

Similar Messages

  • Move existing Time Machine backups to new (larger) drive?

    If I get a larger external HD for Time Machine backups, is it possible to move all the existing TM backups from my current drive to the new HD, or do I have to start from scratch?
    Has anyone successfully done this?

    One more question to the Pros here, please
    I perfectly understand how to clone a drive with SuperDuper. But I am unsure about how to clone the Time Machine backup file.
    In Finder's sidebar under SHARED I see the Time Capsule. On Time Capsule I see 2 sparsebundle files, one representing my iMac backup and the other my Powerbook backup, as the names indicate. But in SuperDuper's "Copy" dropdown I am not able to open either of them.
    So I tried a different approach: I activated Time Machine on the Powerbook. A virtual drive labelled "Backup of Powerbook" pops up in Finder. Now I am able to choose this virtual drive in SuperDuper's "Copy" dropdown. I assume that this the correct file to clone?
    Then I would say "to" Disk Image and give it an identical name ("Backup of Powerbook"). Now I should choose the destination where to store the clone. This will be the new USB-HDD that I am going attach to Time Capsule.
    Image type would be "Read/Write sparse image"
    Right?

  • Can I move existing time machine backups to new, larger disk?

    I have used Time Machine with success for a long time. Now I have a much larger disk drive and want to move the old backed up files to the new drive, then continue building files after that.
    The current Time Machine backup file's Info says it is --get this-- 48.66 TB in size. But it sits on a 2 TB disk. I don't know if that's a mistake or a peculiar way to account for all the updates.
    In the Time Machine preference screen it says I have 169 GB of 2 TB available.
    Can I just copy this folder onto the new (4 TB) disk and tell Time Machine to select that as the current disk and have it continue to build and houseclean my accumulated history?
    (I've started that process, but it tells me I will be copying zillions of files and will take a boatload of time to do it. It gives me a message that there isn't enough space to make the copy. But, of course, there really is.)

    See Pondini's Time Machine FAQ: http://pondini.org/TM/18.html

  • How to keep using existing Time Machine backup after replacing main hard drive

    The hard drive in my iMac (Lion) is failing. I cloned it to a new drive and installed it in the iMac. Now the system wants to start fresh with a whole new Time Machine backup.
    It seems obvious that there must be a way to keep using the existing Time Machine backup set, but I can't figure out how to do it. Help, please.

    If you had done a full system restore from Time Machine, it would have been done automatically.  But 3rd-party cloning apps don't leave a "trail" so Time Machine can figure out that the new drive has all the old stuff on it.
    Effective with Lion, there is a way to "associate" the new drive with the backups of the old one, but it requires the use of Terminal.  See #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.  As noted though, this only works on directly-connected backup drives, not backups made over a network.

  • HT201250 existing Time Machine backups to a new Mac

    how do i migrate existing time machine backups to a new mac from my time capsule?

    It took a little more research, but that link in the end solved my problem.  After mounting the Time Capsule and the previous backup sparsebundle, I ran these commands to inherit the old backup (with <capsule> and <machine> representing the names of the Time Capsule and machine/hard drive respectively:
              sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/<capsule>/<machine>.sparsebundle
              sudo tmutil associatedisk -a / /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/<machine>/2012-12-09-114511/<machine>
              sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/<capsule>/
    "2012-12-09-114511" was the latest snapshot that was there.  According to the documentation, you can pick any snapshot, since the "-a" in that command will update all of the associated snapshots.

  • How to revert a Time Machine backup storage?

    I recently just used the WD Elements SE external storage device as my Time Machine backup. But when I did, I cannot get the WD to work on my Windows anymore. And can anyone show me how to revert a Time Machine backup storage back just to its default state so i use it on the Windows? It's a priority.
    And if you can somehow show me how to get a Time Machine backup storage to work for the Windows as well then that would be even better.
    Thank you.

    Sorry, you can't get a TM backup to work with Windows.
    To use the HD as storage for both Mac and Windows, you'll need to reformat the disc as FAT32, or FAT64 if both systems support it.
    To reformat from Disk Utility on the Mac;
    Turn off Time Machine.
    In DU, highlight the WD drive in the sidebar (the actual drive, with the makers name and size)
    Select the partition tab
    Set the partition sceme to 1 partition
    Under the options button, set the partition map to Master Boot Record (MBR)
    Set the file system to MS-DOS and name the new volume.
    Click 'apply'
    The clean volume will now appear below the drive in the sidebar.
    Be aware that there is a limit to file sizes on FAT32 volumes of a little over 4GB.

  • Exclude Movies from Time Machine backups

      Is there a way to exclude iTunes movies from Time Machine backups? The "Movies" folder is visible and can be selected, but the "exclude" button grayed-out. I ask this question because I add TV shows and movies to iTunes really just for a short term, maybe a day or two, until I can watch them using AirPlay on my TV, and then they're deleted. For example, four 1-hour TV episodes equals about 20GB of mp4 files, and it's a waste of Time Capsule space to back them up.  I can exclude individual movie files, but I need to exclude the entire folder because the file names are always changing.
    Is there a terminal command I might be able to enter to exclude the "Movies" folder? Thanks in advance.

    Exposing the /Home/Library/ Folder
    Pick one of the following methods:
    A. This method will make the folder visible permanently. Open the Terminal application in your Utilities folder and paste the following at the command prompt:
    chflags nohidden ~/Library
    Press RETURN.
    B. Click on the Desktop, press the OPTION (⌥) button, select Library from the Finder's Go menu.
    C. Select Go To Folder from the Finder's Go menu. Paste the following in the path field:
    ~/Library
    Press the Go button.

  • When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

    I am tring to installe OS X Mavericks. When I get to the select disk page it says that the HD is uesd as time machine drive. How can I remove time machine backup from my Mac.

    Open up your Finder and click on Go on the top menu bar. Select Computer and then double click Macintosh HD. In here delete the backup folder. Might be called backups.backupdb.

  • How to continue use Time Machine backup after migration?

    Hi,
    I just purchased a new mac and migrated using my Time Machine backup from my NAS.
    This went smooth but now I would like to keep this backup as base for my new mac.  Unfortunately, this does not seem to work as my mac tries now to create a new image.
    As I have pretty important documents on my previous backup, it would be nice if there would still be a way to continue using this one.  I saw somewhere that the migration assistant should ask if we want to continue based on this backup after migration but I did not receive this question.
    Is there still a way to solve this?
    Thanks in advance for your input!
    Kind regards,
    Fred

    Hi Leonie,
    Thanks for your link!  I am migrating from Leopard to Mavericks.  If I understand correctly, this is the reason why I cannot inherit from previous backup.
    The procudure to tweak seems pretty complicated though... not sure I will risk it.
    Thanks anyway!
    KR,
    Fred

  • How might I move my Time Machine Backups.backupdb file to a partition on a different drive to enable reformatting the drive it is on, so that might put it back in place later?

    I have an external drive I use as my Time Machine backup location.
    Recently, I started getting an error on it.  It tells me there is a problem, and to repair it with Disk Utility.  Disk Utility cannot verify the disk, and needs me to repair it, but it cannot repair it. It advises me to copy all of the important files from this disk to another location, and then reformat the drive.
    So, I have copied all of the files that were not part of the Backups.backupdb folder structure to a partition on another disk, and removed them from the defecting drive, leaving ~250GB of files in the Time Machine backups files.
    I cannot seem to get this to copy to a ~350GB folder on another drive, formatted Journaled, Extended as recommended.
    What do I do?

    A Time Machine backup is owned by TM.. this is standard kind of issue.. the very fact that you cannot copy it suggests it is corrupt.. or you cannot change permissions on the whole file.. let me assure you the way TM works.. what you have so far copied is completely useless.
    Have you run a verify of the backup??
    The fact that disk utility is not working means something is wrong.. it should be able to fix a drive..
    And the fact the drive is only 12-18months old is also not relevant.. the present state of the drive is too poor to be considered reliable.
    What type of drive is it.. ie USB2 USB3 and what brand??
    It is not just the disk that can go bad but the controller/power supply as well.. and some brands seem to have bad batches.. eg seagate USB drives I was seeing recently.
    I prefer drives where I buy a shell and put the drive into it.. so I can move the drive to another shell without breaking warranty (or the case).
    The actual command for terminal I always just look up when I want to do them.. I am getting old and I have no space left for command line stuff.. although it was all there in the past.
    eg today I hit. http://www.cnet.com/au/news/using-the-os-x-terminal-instead-of-the-finder-to-cop y-files/
    This includes the rsync command.. lets try this one..
    I can copy my downloads directory to a time capsule disk. I start with login as super user just to make sure I don't have permissions issues.. you should definitely do this. running rsync is great as it will give you info when it fails and it will do incremental if you run it again later. You construct the command by simply dragging the folder from finder into terminal and slightly modifying it as per the article above.. So my actual command as I am copying deliberately to a new folder on the TC.. You don't want files to land on the root.. even if it creates another folder.
    $ sudo su
    Password:
    sh-3.2# rsync -av /Users/Ray/Downloads/* /Volumes/DataTCgen3/downloads/
    building file list ... done
    #A 12v25v Descrip.doc
    $T2eC16V,!)!E9s2fB+iqBQNKwsSzpQ~~60_3.JPG
    $_12.JPG
    0198f23d9wahwkzzsf20dk15czcy.pdf
    0340039AINETCNCTKGS.PDF
    I have 60GB or so in this folder and it is copying at about 20MB/s over ethernet.. so it is not super fast.. but there is probably some error checking going on at the same time.

  • Can I move old Time Machine backups that were USB to Network backups?

    I recently bought a new Airport Extreme and attached my 1TB WD HD to it for network file sharing and Time Machine backups. I had originally backed up my MacBook Pro with that external HD via USB directly connected to the laptop. I know (thanks to these foruns), that, since I'm now using Time Machine backups via wifi, the location of the backups is different and my wifi Time Machine can't access the backups on the HD that were made when it was directly connected.
    My question is: is there a way to move the old TM backups so that they can be recognized via wifi? If not no big deal, but then I would need to delete those backups, since they are taking up a big chunk of the external HD space. I saw a few forum posts about deleting TM backups and it seems that I would have to do it via TM itself...does that mean I have to reconnect the HD via USB to run TM so I can access those backups to delete them?
    Finally, once I do get to delete the old backups (or move them, if possible), is it safe to repartition the external HD so there is one partition for TM and one for storing files via my network? I've read about using Disk Utility to do this, but I haven't tried it yet.
    Thanks for any input.

    No, what you're doing is splitting the TM partition in half, so this will only work if you have more that 50% free space.
    See: Disk Utility - Add, Delete, and Resize Existing Volumes With Disk Utility
    My only concern about that would be that my other files would be on the same partition as the 'old' TM and thus I wouldn't want to delete it, which brings me back to my original issue of space being taken up on the drive.
    You should consider putting those files on their own partition, so think about spliiting the disk into 3 or more partitons, and 1st move all of your other files to the 3rd (last) partition.  You just need to decide how much space to allocate.
    With some limitations, you can do a lot with Partitoning without losing data, see: Disk Utility - What You Need to Know About Modifying Existing Volumes

  • How do I use time machine backup to restore onto a different computer

    I am trying to troubleshoot the best way to back up my Mac.  I have been a mac user since 20009 and always used a time machine.  The two times I have needed it for backup, my computer did not read the portion the backup was.  You could tell under disk utility the space was used.  Just before the need of backup, it was backing up.  So, I am wondering if I  need to use a different method.  I lost all of my Christmas 2015 movies.  My computer did some weird thing with passwords and it needs some resetting I had to do with the support team on the phone.  The support person could not figure out how to access the back up on time capsule.  I noticed the password resetting made my computer name different by putting a 3 behind the name I assigned it. 
    One thought that has crossed my mind is can you use the time machine backup and open it up on a completely different computer? If so, I should have been able to someone access my information.  I would like to know the answer and how do it so I know in case this ever happens again and so that I can rely on this expensive back up machine I have purchased two different times on two different computers and never been able to actually use.

    Are you running Yosemite.. because it is the cause of loads of problems.
    As to opening the TM backup from another computer.. yes you can.
    Please read our TM expert Pondini.
    Q14-17 on restore here.
    http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
    Particularly as you will see Q17 and it will reference the prior info you need.
    I have gone through this with several people.. and I have a post showing a manual file location and restore.
    Can't access old files on time capsule
    But not from Yosemite.. it has its own bunch of bugs.. as mentioned. Good luck with those.
    I also strongly recommend people use a secondary backup method.. there are excellent third party.. I use Carbon Copy Cloner.. it is reasonable price.. $40 based on standard rsync.. and will create either bootable clones to a local drive or sparsebundle on a time capsule etc.
    The bootable clone is the ideal way to recover files. since it is based on a simple computer reboot and then access of files that are in exactly the same place as you left them.. TM backs up in a most complicated manner.
    See how tm works here. The top couple of articles and how it is different to clones. As Pondini suggests.. using both is no bad thing.
    http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
    This is also useful for yosemite.. it is not working as TM used to.
    Find files in Yosemite.
    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6681850?searchText=time%20machine%20yosemit e#27139370
    While in Time Machine, press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible. Select the one you want and navigate to the files you want to restore.
    I am not sure why your previous use of TM failed.. In the midst of all its problems it does still work ok.. as mostly people can recover stuff they do.. albeit it needs a lot more messing than is typical Apple.

  • Backup management: how to update a Time Machine backup on a different Mac?

    Hello everyone,
    I need some advice. I have a question, which I think is simple, but my situation is a bit complicated, so I am not sure about what to do.
    I will try to describe it as simply as possible.
    There are 3 macs:
    A: an old macbook (the white one)
    B: a modern macbook pro (retina)
    C: another modern macbook pro (TBD)
    I am giving away B now; I expect to get C in 2 months time; I keep A with me all the time.
    The goal is to migrate all of the data from B to C.
    I have Time Machine backups of B.
    Since the transition is a long time (2 months), I need to keep working on my data during this period. For this I will use A. This will generate new files, modify old ones, ...
    Since A's HDD is much smaller than B's backup, I can move only part of them.
    By the way, I have totally erased A and used migration assistant to restore part of my old data from B. So, when I use A now, I do it with my same account as in B (and the same I will use in C).
    How do I manage my backups in such a way that, when I will get C, I can safely move all of the data I had in B plus all of the changes and modifications that I have done during the 2 month transition?
    Can I just continue to use Time Machine (on A) to update the old backups? I am afraid that some mess could be created because the computers are different (before the backups were taken on B, while now on A), even the present data are different (because now A only contains a subset of the original B data, which I do NOT want to lose), the good point is that the user is the same.
    Thanks for the patience to read through. If something is not clear I will be happy to explain better.

    When you get MBP C and start it up for the first time you will be given the option to transfer data or not. You can transfer data from another Mac or from a backup such as Time Machine. The former requires that you be able to connect the two computers directly together either by Ethernet cable or by having both connected to a local Ethernet network. You can use wireless, but it's very slow compared to Ethernet, so I don't recommend wireless.
    If you expect to perform the transfer from a Time Machine backup, then be sure to perform a backup of MBP B just before using it to transfer data to the new MBP C.
    This same process can be used from MB A provided it is running Snow Leopard or later.
    Also, see Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

  • How do i install time machine backup from old mac to newer one

    Hi, I know how to set up a brand new imac with full info and settings from an old mac from a time machine backup on a portable drive, BUT.... this time i have a 2011 imac in my studio already in use that we want to be completly swapped with full info and settings/software etc from an older 2009 imac, which we may sell on.
    I have backup up via time machine the older 2009 mac, but when i plug this into the 2011 imac how do i completly wipe it and set up with info from the time machine?? it was easy doing it on a factoryt new mac but not this.
    thanks
    lee

    If I have understood you properly, you want to migrate the data from the 2009 iMac onto the 2011 iMac but keeping the existing files on it.
    To do this, use Migration Assistant > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889 It will create a new user with the transferred files from the old iMac.
    If you want to wipe the 2011 iMac and restore everything from the 2009 iMac, the most reliable way is erasing the hard drive, reinstalling OS X and restoring the backup. If you are using the same OS X version on both iMacs, you can restore the Time Machine backup without having to reinstall OS X, just starting from the Mac OS X DVD (or Recovery HD, if you have OS X Lion or Mountain Lion)

  • Link my Macbook with an existing time machine backup of the same macbook.

    I am using time machine via an airport extreme with an external drive. This works fine most of the time. But sometimes time machine loses the connection with the airport extreme. Instead of refinding the backup location I have to set the whole thing up again and the macbook will start a complete new backup instead of taking the existing backup as a starting point. How can I tell time machine to use the ols backup as a starting point?

    No. Only those Apps that are not installed on the new will migrate over.

Maybe you are looking for