MacBook Air and Time Machine

Hello,
for doing my regular backups I am using a QNAP NAS. It works well with my Ethernet connected iMac and also with my wife's Macbook Pro.
Recently I bought a Macbook Air for my work and I want to backup this one on the NAS, too.
But all my attempts failed up to now.
All Macs in our house are running OS X 10.9.2
Basically I have tried out two ways to do it:
1) Via WiFi
2) Via Thunderbolt bridge connected to my iMac.
There are only 20GB of data on the MBA to back up at the moment, so I thought it could be done vie Wifi. Time Machine even starts the procedure but it stops irregularly. After the 5th or so try Time Machine only manages to backup several MB, before it stops again - so this procedure is quite tedious.
When I tried to backup over Thunderbolt bridge, the TMBackup volume does not show up in the list of volumes available. First I thought, it may be a networking problem, but my router tells me, that MacBook Air, NAS and iMac are within the same network.
Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can persuade my MBA to be backed up?
Thanks in advance =)
Joachim

Just in case anyone cares:
According to the QNAP board OSX Mavericks and QNAP do not work too well together at the moment. I found this out later when Time Machine on my iMac - not the MBA - did not recognize the old sparseimage any more.
The upshot was that I gave my QNAP back and got a Synology NAS of a comparable size. Now all is fine, even backups of the Macbook Air.

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If the Air is "brand new", you are in luck. Use Setup Asistant on the very first Boot. Upon that boot, the system will aks if you would like to transfer files, applications and settings from another computer. You would then attach your USB disk, the Time Machine Backup, and direct the sytem to import all the information from the TM backup.
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I just bought the new version of Macbook Air. At the store they said that transferring programs such as Office for Mac was as easy as just opening the sharing folderin preferences on my Imac and new Air and it would be a breeze. Do I have to install anything from the DVD that came with the Macbook Air to enable anything, or will I just, by wifi, start the two machines communicating?
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First, the instruction book that comes with your MBA will walk you step by step through how to use remote disc. Its not just an open and play thing -- you do have to futz with your other machine, copy over security codes to allow communication, etc -- but it will walk you right through it, so the manual is the place to start.
You can use your Time Machine backup by using the Migration Assistant -- that starts right off the bat when you first initialize your MBA right out of the box, or you can go to Applications>Utilities>Migration Assistant anytime you want.
One thing you should be aware -- you don't really have too many options for the migration -- it will copy over everything from your TIme machine so you better have enough room on your MBA to do that. You can select if you don't want files copied (i.e. music) but that is about it. I did just that wiht my MBP backup on TIme machine -- it was about 100 GB and my new MBA is 120 GB. No problems there, worked perfectly.
Don't do your migration wirelessly -- about 100GB wirelessly on the MBA with a fast cable broadband connection would take 16 - 20 HOURS to do a migration. Connect your MBA via the optional ethernet dongle to an ethernet cable, and hardwire that to an open ethernet port on your router -- 100GB will then take about 2 - 3 hours instead.
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Dear All,
If anyone can help me solve this I'd be very grateful.
My MacBook Air's (MBA) hard drive had to be replaced (S.M.A.R.T. issues). All well and good, I backed up regularly by Time Machine before I took it to be replaced.
However, as the MacBook Air only has one USB port, I couldn't plug in the external HD that had the Time Machine back ups on it plus the SuperDrive with the Snow Leopard Installation Disk on it (you actually use the disk's Utilities section to Restore System From Backup). So there went that solution.
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I was going to use the remote install disk and then use it's Utilities option as mentioned above.
I just don't know what else to try and have reached my level of computer knowledge now.
I take my MBA to work at the office every day so I really need it up and running as it was.
Does any kind soul out there have a solution for me on this one? - and if it's highly technical would you mind explaining it step by step in layman's terms as I'm no IT genius ;-D
Thanks ever so much
Clair

ClairHL wrote:
I tried using a multi-USB plug-in but this has NEVER worked with the MBA - it just doesn't recognize that anything is attached to it.
This is a guess, but if you're referring to an bus-powered USB hub, I'd try a hub that has its own external power supply.

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Thank you.
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http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Air-Retina
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MacBook Air and Time Machine

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