I am confused with Mac OS X Server Time machine backup plan

I just purchased a Mac mini with Snow Leopard server. I just start use this Mac mini for home file sharing server, iTune musics, photo processing (under my user/Picture directory) and iPhone coding (under my user/Document directory).
Since there are some critical personal file in this Mac mini, I am looking for a backup plan.
Original, I setup Time Machine as my iMac and I though Time Machine will backup everything, especially my photos. So, I enable my Mac mini Time Machine and assign backup to my 1TB external hard drive, it seems works correct.
But I happen browse this document today the "Apple Documentation for setting up Snow Leopard Server".
http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/AdvancedServer_Adminv10.6.pdf
And it seems said Time Machine will not backup everything and it also not mentioned if photos and musics will be backup or not.
Then I look into my external 1TB hard drive via terminal, it's free space decreased and looks like my data are already backup in this 1TB hard drive.
So, should I choice another backup plan, like purchase another external RAID and use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup?
Any suggestion is welcome. TIA.

Sorry to hear you've had so much trouble with backups
On the contrary. I have no issues with my backups. What gave you that idea?
From your post, I guess you know something that CA or Tivoli doesn't.
If you're referring to my umm... disdain for Retrospect I would have to assume they're aware of the problems running their product on production Mac OS X Servers. It's not hard to find references to people running into problems with it. If they're not aware then their support escalation process needs work.
Your method may work, but not if you have a site power or fire failure
OK, you lost me there. Which method are you referring to? replication? That's entirely viable as a protection against power or fire - locate the replica in a different datacenter/office/whatever.
want to have a cost effective solution (requires complete servers)
How valuable is your data? How much does downtime cost you?
How much does a second server cost?
or have off-site backups (to take one off-site for storage you will have to buy another server)
See my point above.
not to mention various compliancy issues
If you're dealing with any of the major compliancy issues (e.g. SOX, HIPPA, PCI, etc.) then the cost of a replication server is trivial compared to the cost of even thinking about compliance (most consultants charge thousands of dollars just to walk in the door and say 'hi').
Not to mention that any of the above compliance rules pretty much require replication, and you taking a weekly (or even daily) copy of your disk home with you is just not going to cut it.
I have been using BRU for some time now
I have a lot of respect for BRU. One of the better options out there (assuming they fixed the awful UI issues they had in early versions).
save for having to shut off the sql engine before one short backup
Thank you for validating my statement - you cannot backup an active server without terminating services that are writing to the disk.
Of course, in the replication model, you could temporarily stop replication, shut down the service, perform your backups, then restart services/replication (which will automatically catch up with the intermediate changes), while allowing clients to continue talking to the primary server.
THAT is the definition of performing backups of live data/servers without impacting users.

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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.

Is it possible to downgrade to mountain lion with the help of a time machine backup after having updated to Mavericks?

Is it possible to downgrade to mountain lion with the help of a time machine backup after having updated to Mavericks?

Just to be clear, if by downgrade you mean uninstall, then the answer is technically, no.
You can't uninstall an OS. You can erase and re-install the old OS, but if you don't have a prior backup of your data, you'll lose it during the erase procedure.

I'm having a hard time setting up my external hard from with my AirPort Extreme and Time Machine Backups.

I have been using a Mac Mini with an external hard and Time Machine. I bought an Airport Extreme and have had problem setting up the hard drive using the USB port on the Airport Extreme. I also just recently bought a Mac Book Air and hope to have both computers back up to the external hard drive using Time Machine and Airport Extreme. I have been using the optical drive from the Mac mini to load programs into the Mac Book Air. I think I'm just getting confused in Finder. I am just not seeing the hard drive. I ended up plugging the hard drive back into the Mac Mini and that is work fine again. How do I setting the external hard drive up to the AirPort Extreme and use for both computers? Or at least to start with the Mac mini.

It's critical to understand that Time Machine (TM) stores backups differently between local and network drives. That would mean the TM backup on your locally attached USB hard drive will not be directly useable when it is connected to the AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS). There is a way to copy a local version to a network version, but it is not fool-proof. When you do connect this drive and point TM to it, TM will start a brand new backup, leaving your existing backup as is.
If your current backup is critical to you, you may want to consider getting a second USB drive to attach to the Extreme and use your existing one as a backup ... or use TM's multi-backup process to backup to more than one destination drive alternatively.
So, at this point, you may want to make a decision on how you want to go forward to help provide a solution for you.
To directly answer your question, when you go to select a destination for a Time Machine backup, the drive(s) that show up under "Backup Disks" are those that TM already recognizes and has backed up to. Those listed under "Available Disks" are drives (either local or on the network) that TM can back up to.

Leopard Server - Time Machine Backup - Full

IHi, I have Leopard Server (10.5.2) running on a Mac Pro. Its is setup with 1 Boot Drive and a pair Mirrored Data Drives. It also has a large External Drive that the Data from the Mirrored Drives is backed up onto via Time Machine. The Boot Drive is excluded from the Time Machine Backup. After a couple of weeks Time Machine reported that the External Drive was full and Time Machine stopped working. I was under the impression Time Machine would delete older files and replace them with new files. To get around this I have replaced the External with an even larger drive, but guess this will report the same problem soon. Has anyone got any ideas why Time Machine isn't doing what its meant to? Cheers.

No - Leopard Server acting as a File Sharer and Retrospect Backup Server. No false volume/data sizes are listed. Its just filled the external Lacie RAID Drive and is refusing to discard old TM data to create enough room for newer TM data.
I've tried reformatting external since first posted and all works great until the disk is full and the problem reoccurs.
The reason TM filling drive up fast is because the server is accessed my a group of designers storing a lot of data. It would just be great to give designers ability to recover files at various stages through a job process.

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I also had to restart the server and client after applying the "fix" I described above. Basically, no user should have multiple, simultaneous file sharing sessions on the server. But even clearing the user sessions does not resolve the problem beyond the next Time Machine backup, so I also tried disabling and enabling file sharing, but the problem also returns after doing this. Only restarting both the client and server after clearing the sessions has worked for me when I have this problem. The problem may return much later, but this work aroudn definitely works as a temporary solution.
Next time I encounter this problem I will try restarting just the server or just the client, because it is unlikely that the problem exists due to something on both systems. Server 3.x is definitely not as stable as it should be, but for my use, it is getting the job done.

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Sorry, I don't mean to be stupid, but I want to be sure. My impresion of Time machine disk images (I'm not a computer genius, but I'm , lets say, an expert novice) is that disk images (my term for the 'total view' of a computers main disk), differ depending on the OS. I assume that applications and preferences referenced under SL could not be seamlessly imported into a Lion environment. I'm assumng that the upgrade to Lion server has irrevocaby altered my startup/main volume into a "Lion Server" volume, and that if I try to pull my applications/data/preferences/mailboxes back onto a fresh Lion interface, it won't work. Are you saying I'm wrong, and that I can simply erase my disc, clean install Lion via an internet connection, and re-import my "lion Server- altered' stuff back from aLion-server Time Machine disk image, seamlessly, into a Lion OS environment? Sorry to be so concrete, but my wife will kill me if I %$@ the bed on this. I appreciatre your help.

How to reinstall on client from Lion Server Time Machine backup?

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Jason

One partition 2.5TB will be my new Time Machine Backups and the other 2.5TB for iTunes Library so I never have to worry about this again.
Your worry now is what will you do when the single hard drive containing both your library and its backup makes a screeching sound one day and is toast, or get stolen?
from a YouTube video
Uh-oh, those unspecific and sometimes incorrect YouTube videos. I dislike those things. I watched one once and some kid droned on in a barely audible monotone for about 5 minutes to show how to do something to which I could have typed instructions in two sentences.
Downloading (using iOS or computer) past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2519

Manually tell new mac to use previous Time Machine backup

Hi There,
We have a Mac Mini server which we use as a Time Machine backup disk - and we have a new Macbook which I migrated from the previous one using Migration Assistent.
But after configuring Time Machine to use the server's backup drive, I didn't see or missed the options to "Use previous disk" or "Inherit backup history".
Is there a way to manually tell Time Machine to use the previous backuop - the Macbook was migrated so has the same username and files.
Any help would be much appreacited.
Cheers
Ben

The page had a lot of other stuff on it so here's what I did to inherit a backup:
Info from: http://pondini.org/TM/B6.html
Get ready:
Turn off Time Machine in: >System Preferences >Time Machine
Mount the Time Machine Backup Drive
If a network or Time Capsule, mount the network drive share
Open Terminal: /Utilities/Terminal.app
Paste the following (ignore $) but don’t hit enter
$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup
Make sure there’s a space after “inheritbackup “
If inheriting from a hard drive:
Open the drive and open /Backups.backupdb
Find the folder name of the backup you want to inherit
Drag the folder into terminal after “inheritbackup “ so the path looks like this:
$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Backups\Backups.backupdb/Computer\ Name
If inheriting from a Time Capsule or network drive:
Mount the drive
Find the .sparsebundle name of the backup you want to inherit
Drag the .sparsebundle into terminal after “inheritbackup “ like this:
$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/Client\ Backups-1/Computer\ Name
Inherit the backups:
Ensure there's a space between "inheritbackup" and the path to your backup and hit enter
Enter your machine’s admin password
When finished you should see:
Claiming disk image for machine...
Ejecting disk image...
$
Quit Terminal
Turn on Time Machine in: >System Preferences >Time Machine
Trouble shooting:
If you see the following error: “Failed to attach disk image. (error 35)”
Then Time Machine wasn’t off or hadn’t shut down before you ran the command

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Hello,
I use my OS X Server box as a time machine server, to which my other computers back up, just like you would to a time capsule. However, I now want to use one of those backups to restore to a new computer. When I try to use migration assistant to do this, it sees my server machine, but it says there are no backups on it. I noticed on the hard drive the server uses to back up the clients, the sparse bundles are saved under a "Shared Items" folder, unlike what happens if you do time machine backups connected directly to an external disc with USB, where the backups directory is at the top level directory.
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Applications
Library
System
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Hi Roxpat,
It is possible to export and import selected mailboxes with the Mac OS X Mail application, and that would allow you to select only the mail that you want. Am I right that is what you want to do?
This article explains how you can do what you want -
Mail (Yosemite): Import or export mailboxes
Export the mailboxes from your older Mail application on the previous computer, then move the exported mailboxes, then import them into the new Mac's Mail application.
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Brett L

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

Problems with Retina Macbook pro and time machine backup

I was able to successfully copy over data from myn old macbook to the new pro via a time machine backup. But now can not get it to use the time machine to start creating backups. I have tried with two different time machines (home and office) and on both I am getting the same error: unable to create sparse bundle. Tried updating the airport firmaware reboot etc, any ideas?

Here is the actual error:
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Issue with restoring to most recent Time Machine backup

My hard drive was acting up and not letting the single partition take up the entire space of the hard drive so I thought I would restore from my time machine backup. The problem is the backups shown are from months ago when I first created the Time Machine drive and initial backup. When restored they are just that backup, not the most recent sets. I can look in the time machine application to scroll back into the past and see my files to be put onto my computer, but can't figure out how to restore to that latest backup. It would be awesome if i didn't have to reinstall all my new apps and figure out which files changed manually. Any way to restore to that latest backup?

Restoring the most recent folder or file from the Time Machine backup will include all of whatever was on the computer at the time of that last backup.
Pondini's Time Machine FAQ
Mac 101- Time Machine
Time Machine - 101 Tutorial

Re-Purpose Power Mac G5 - Media Server, Time Machine & HD Video Playback?

apologies if this is a novice ill-informed post. i tried to find more info via a search, but didn't find a succinct answer for this.
i have a Power Mac Dual G5 2.0Ghz PCI-X w/ 3GBs Ram running Leopard. i am looking at getting a new Mac Pro or iMac Quad Cor 27" after the new year. i am also considering getting an Apple TV in the near future as well. My wife has an Intel MacBook running Leopard (upgrade to SL when I uprgade to a new machine) and we run a Airport Extreme Wireless network.
my question is this: can my G5 Tower be a good machine to pull triple duty as a media server (Itunes, Photos, etc..), Time Machine BU destination and HD Video playback to my rear projection HD TV?
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any advice or other thoughts to consider appreciated.
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Well, It has so many options,but people that can only punch a TV remote get turned off.
I can create a Bootable clones, I can only update changed files or everything, or only certain folders, I can Time it for whenever, I can have it wait until an external Network or other drive is connected to do it's thing, it gives me far better reports of any problem(s)... I think it'll be 10 years or more before any other Bacjup APP catches up to where TB was 10 years ago!
I have a choice of about 20 different Backup options, including Apple's Time Machine... there is no comparison though many other than Apple's provisions can be quite useful & do work, just that none do as good or are updated as fast!
Even TM works if you're a drone or something!
In which case TriEdre has an even better inerface to TM clled Back in Time.

I am confused with Mac OS X Server Time machine backup plan

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