Network Drive + Time Machine

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone knows how I can use a network drive as the backup drive for Time Machine. It is not showing up in the drive list and I was wondering if it is even possible.
Thanks a lot,
-Spencer

You can use a network drive attached to another Leopard machine, though setting it up seemed a little random for me. I have an iMac and a MacBook, both running Leopard, and am now backing up the MacBook wirelessly to an external drive attached to the iMac, using Time Machine. Setting it up seemed a little random. I first did a backup to the external drive directly from the MacBook, then attached the external drive to the iMac. When I first brought up Time Machine preferences on the MacBook after that, it said it couldn't find the drive. If I picked the option to select a new drive it gave me nothing to choose from. Then I went and browsed the external disk in Finder, and suddenly noticed that the MacBook had now found the disk and was doing a backup (without me having selected anything new). There may be an easier way of setting it up, but the MacBook has been doing hourly backups across the network (which have generally been taking about ten minutes).

Similar Messages

Iomega Home media network drive & Time machine backups

First timer guys, so go easy. :-)
I have macbook pro. Upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion couple of days ago. I have Iomega Home media network drive NAS box which I had setup for Leopard and my backups via time machine were working perfectly. I could also mount the shares on the Iomega box on my macbook. Post upgrade to Lion, I can access the shares on my MAC (over smb) but backups not working anymore. Apparently Lion requires shares to be accessible over afp only. I have confirmed Iomega box is compatible with smb as well as afp shares and I even tried manually mounting those shares using command, still no luck.
Command I'm trying to mount afp shares & the error -
bash-3.2# mkdir -p /mnt/backups
bash-3.2# mount_afp afp://username:[email protected]/backups /mnt/backups
mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error -5019, errno is -5019
bash-3.2# echo $?
101
bash-3.2#
Can't see any references to this error. I see few links that ask to carry out some clumsy steps to sort this out. That's not working either for me.
On a sidenote, why mac doesn't have /etc/fstab? Any alternatives?
Appreciate any kind of help here.
Cheers.
soulcurry

Hi,
Have you fixed your problem?
I have the same configuration, and I can't finish a backup. Every time, I have the message, "Try again a new backup".
Thanks
MacBook pro lion 10.7
iomega Home media network cloud firmeware: 3.2.3.15290

Mackbook Pro + Aperture 3 + 1TB drive + Time Machine + Carbonite....work f

Mackbook Pro + Aperture 3 + 1TB drive + Time Machine + Carbonite....work flow?
I have Carbonite On-Line back up running incremental (wifi to the cloud) backup in the background I just learned that I can nominate folders for it to ignore..
So... to prevent it grinding away needlessly using up resources, I was daydreaming I would import RAW files from my camera into to a "TEMP" folder that I would have Carbonite ignore
I am disciplined at sorting through shots directly after importing them..
Perhaps I can also get Time Machine to ignore that "TEMP" folder too? (Although hard drive storage is less of a worry...
This way I only back up 'keeper shots'?
Am I getting warm? Is this a valid workflow / back up regime?
I hear Aperture 3 has file management functions that are helpful.. But I am not up to speed with what they are...
Carbonite WONT back up attached drives - only the Laptop own drive.. And I want my 'keeper' library shots on two back up systems..
Am I missing a trick? Looking for do's and donts - pitfalls to avoid etc.. I want to set things up the right way from the beginning, I plan to migrate all my RAW operations from iPhoto / Elements set up on a MBAir to a new MBPro running Aperture 3 in about a week.
Suggestions please..
Thanks in advance!

hammer58 wrote:
During the initial setup for TM, there was one screen that required username wd_backup and password admin. Later I changed the username for the TM folder to garyham58 and a personal password. That is the username and password I am looking for.
As I understand it, the original name and password were supplied by WD and stored on the NAS. Any changes would have been stored on the NAS. And resetting it would have to be done via the NAS.
I would think that there is some way to reset TM and start from scratch
I fear you may have already done part of that, inadvertently, since the folder shows no contents.
But it's not a password for the Time Machine application; it's the sharing of the WD disk, which is done by WD. When you back up with Time Machine to a simple external HD, there is no password for the drive. When you back up over a network to a Time Capsule, or a USB drive connected to it, you set up the password, if any, via Airport Utility, and I believe that's stored by the router as well as in the keychain on your Mac.
Do you still have the original 250 GB HD? If so, your best bet may be to get an enclosure for it, from http://www.macsales.com/ or the like. You can put the HD into it and connect it to your Mac via USB or FireWire, and it will become a normal external HD. Then you can start up from it and "clone" the HD to the new one.
Then you might be able to re-establish contact with the WD, and see your backups, unless they got erased during all the problems, or erase it and start over.

Restore iPhotoLibrary specifically from EXTERNAL Hard drive Time Machine back up?

My laptop Photo Library is corrupted somehow. I tried to restore from a prior in Time Machine on laptop and made the mistake of not saying to keep BOTH copies, but after trying for 3 hours of telling me it was doing it through various windows, a little one popped open saying something about permissions and it opened an old iPhotoLibrary from 2 years ago! ... I do have that one now and am copying it off my laptop as fast as I can to FLICKR
cuz APPLE has become a PHOTO sinkhole... (We are talking 20,000 pics folks with scanned in family pics from 100 yrs ago!)
I think I have a good copy on my External Hard Drive Time Machine back up from about 3 weeks ago. How do I use that to Restore from
or should I just wait for this PHOTOS thing to come out?
NEXT Question is there a convenient way to split it into MULTIPLE ones..eg KEEP old stable photos in one or more.
and use another for all the new ones not editted or sorted yet? I do see there is a new Option under iPHOTO/File menu to just switch
libraries but, of course, you cant even see that if your Library wont open!

For TM help post in the forum for your OS - and see https://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/ and http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html and http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Depends on undisclosed information
With the current OS and iPhoto you switch library using the switch library command - with any version you can switch libraries by holding the option key down while you launch iPhoto which brings up the select library window
And generally it is not a smart idea to have multiple iPhoto libraries - it generally has no advantages and makes things much more difficult and complicated and often leads to user errors that cause major problems
If you want to anyway the most convent way to split libraries is to use the paid version of iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -
LN

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what?

I have stored everything on my Macbook pro in a external hard drive (Time Machine) Now that we have "wiped the machine" I am told I can start it over and load ontent--apps, docs, etc from the hard drive, just plug it in, find the time machine and what? I need to know what to highligh, what to click on.

hirogliffix,
take a look at this Apple page — in particular, the “Restoring data from Time Machine backups” section and its “Restoring your entire system from a backup” subsection.

Hard drive failure! New hard drive/Time machine backup/iPhone questions

Hello,
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro who's hard drive failed (rather acutely too, I do use disk utility to check it's health regularly) and I bought a replacement to install (SSD!). I have a bunch of questions but have only found partial answers in searches. Maybe it's best to list them:
1. I'd like to do a fresh install of the OS X using OS X Recovery because I'm concerned my Time Machine backup is partly corrupted. I hadn't updated to Mavericks, will I be able to install Mountain Lion? If not: will this be a problem with my backup files?
2. Say the OS X Recovery works, how do I use Time Machine to restore things like my iTunes library/iMessages/email/iPhoto library etc? In other words: just the data I can't get any other way (I hope it's not too corrupted). And/or should I use my iCloud backup on a few of these (iMessages/contacts)?
3. Do I need to set up the new OS X install with the same account names/home disk name etc. for the restored backup files to function?
4. Is this going to f'up iCloud or vice versa?
5. Finally, how do I sync my iPhone to the "new" computer without erasing the iPhone (which had an iOS update since my last backup to Time Machine). Or do I have to restore the iPhone too.
6. How come Apple doesn't have a mobile theme for their website yet?
Any help would be much appreciated,
Matt

Do you still have the original System Reinstall DVD set that came with your Mac?
If you created that Lion external drive you have from YOUR Mac, when Lion was installed on it, and it also contains a Recovery HD partition you can use that to boot to the Recovery HD and reinstall Lion on the new drive. And or Clone that external to the new internal drive you installed.
Right since your Mac came with Snow Leopard you can't use the Online Internet Recovery system to reinstall Lion, as your system didn't originally come with Lion, but you should still be able to boot to it to do diagnosic things like using Disk Utility, going to the Net to get help and even Restoring the system from a Time Machine backup. But you will get an error if you select Reinstall Mac OS X. The firmware update is usually applied with system updates.
If you created a New Time Machine Backup when any of the Download Only version of OS X were installed on your internal drive Time Machine, the system, Copies over the files needed to boot the system from that backup drive. If it was a care over backup from when Snow Leopard was installed is might or might not be bootable. Only way to tell is to connect it and at startup hold down the Option key to get the Boot selection screen, IE The Boot Manager screen, and see if it shows up as a Boot Source. If it does thenn it contains the files needed to get to the Mac OS X Utilities, IE the Recovery HD files.
What you should do is Boot the system from either the Time Machine backup, if it is bootable, or your External that has Lion on it, The Recovery HD if that drive contains a Recovery HD, or your Original Snow Leopard reinstall DVD that came with your Mac and then try to Restore from your Time Machine backup drive.
If that fails to restore your system properly then nyou should reinstall Snow Leopard and the iLife Apps from the Original Discs then upgrade to Mt Lion which will be in the Mac App Store under your Purchases area. Then maybe you can restore your files from that Time Machine backup.
scardanelli wrote:
I've had a bunch of issues with my computer (you can look at some of my other questions on these forums) which, to my mind anyway, seemed to be finally given a diagnosis when my HD crashed. It may be paranoia but there have been enough problems that I'd rather do a clean install to be on the safe side.
I have an early 2011, shipped with Snow Leopard.
I was under the impression that Time Machine can't be used as a boot drive and the OS X Recovery is a firmware update (on my computer) or hard wired in (on later computers). I might be wrong. I was planning on using the internet recovery, the HD failed right after I got some password protected files unencrypted and onto an external drive (was that necessary?) but wasn't sure if it's a problem if it installs Mavericks.
So Setup Assistant will configure my accounts the same and I don't need to worry about that? That's a relief.
Thanks for the lengthy response.

I am trying to move my old external hard drive (time machine ) to a new one

I have tried to move my old external drive time machine to a new external drive:
1. have formated the new time external hard drive
2. I have unlocked and ignored the drives ownership
3. I have turn of the new hard drive and them tried dragging the file (backups.backupdp) to my new external hard drive
when I do that a message come up that says "this volume has that wrong case sensitivity for a backup"
What does this mean and how do I fix it?
Thanks
Denise

Although the documentation says you can copy Time Machine backups in the Finder, it's very slow and sometimes doesn't work at all.
Launch Disk Utility, open the built-in help, and search for the term "Duplicate." Follow the instructions. All existing data on the destination volume will be erased. That shouldn't be a problem, because you don't want to mix backup and non-backup data on the same drive anyway. Turn Time Machine OFF in its preference pane while copying the volume.

Backing up to a thumb drive - time machine doesn't delete older backups when it's full. I will have to erase and re-do the drive. Why?

Backing up to a thumb drive - time machine doesn't delete older backups when it's full. I will have to erase and re-do the drive. Why?

You are both right.
Time Machine can backup FROM:
It cannot back up a USB thumb drive.
Time Machine can backup TO:
•A USB thumb drive (but most aren't large enough, and are very, very slow)

How to move external hard drive (time machine) off airport extreme network?

For several years now, I've had an external hard drive connected to my airport extreme and it's servered as an awesome external back-up of my Macbook via Time Machine. However, now I've had to remove the external hard drive from my network (that's a whole other story). Anyway, when I connect the external hard drive to my MacBook, it doesn't recongize it as my Time Machine back-up. It is still looking for "My Book" on my network, which obviously doesn't exist anymore. Can I simply re-direct it to "my book" that is now connected via USB to my computer? Do I have to start over? If possible, I'd like to keep the back-ups I already had and simply continue with my new back-ups. Please advise! Thanks!

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

Airport Extreme USB Hard Drive & Time Machine?

For my iMac I have a FW800 external drive set to perform Time Machine backups.
My question though, is for my Macbook Pro. If I get a USB drive, can it be set and operate as a Time Machine backup through the Airport Extreme? I thought this was a possibility, but have not seen anything addressing this.
Thank you!

As Tesserax says, backing-up to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme is not reliable.
You do have a wireless option, though: back up via your network to a "shared" drive connected to the iMac. If it's large enough, you can use the same one the iMac is backing-up to. See #22 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum) for details.

AirPort Extreme & USB Hard Drive Time Machine Backups

Hi everyone. I'm a brand spanking new MacBook Pro owner and am looking at ways to backup my machine and to save my films, photos and files on a wireless network that is available to everyone in my home.
I'm the first to admit that I'm not the most computer savvy person but I'm okay with the basics. I've read through a lot of forum sites and the community pages on here and most seem to recommend Synology products. They do seem very good but are a good price too once you've bought the hard drives to go with it. I already own an external hard drive so I thought that maybe the AirPort Extreme would be the ideal choice as I know that it can be connected and files can be saved wirelessly. I did read tonight however that you cant backup your macbook using time capsule which is a little bit annoying.
I have two questions really, firstly is it the case that time machine won't backup to an external hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme and secondly, how important is it to back up through time machine? I'm what you could describe as a low level user and will only be using it for simple tasks such as watching/saving films, storing and editing photographs, surfing the web and saving the odd pages and numbers document.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Simon

I have two questions really, firstly is it the case that time machine won't backup to an external hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme and secondly, how important is it to back up through time machine?
The very latest 802.11ac version of the AirPort Extreme DOES support Time Machine backups to attached external USB HDDs. All other 802.11n models are not supported by Apple for these types of backups. A number of folks have been successful doing so, but most typically post here about data corruption issues.
Time Machine is not the only backup strategy, but it is very convienent. I would recommend that your overall backup strategy includes at least two types of backups: 1) Incremental ... like the ones Time Machine supports, and 2) Disk cloning. The latter is very effective for quickly getting you back up and running if your Mac suffers an internal HDD loss.

Lacie external drive time machine error

I'm using my Lacie external drive (2TB) for my time machine. And it has this problem that every time after I put my macbook to sleep, the time machine won't work, it keeps showing this message "error occurred during back up" (but it doesn't not specify what kind of error). And the time machine can't recognize the history backup from the drive.
However, it will function again if I eject the drive and replug it in.
It's not a major problem, but it's kinda annoying and I wanna know what's causing it.
Thanks yall.

Hi George,
The one way I found to get the TM back on the rail is to access my back up disk from finder, choose the sparse disk image. Hit cmmd-delete and banish it.
Start over again. Be sure to be connected by a wired connection as on a wireless network it will take a while. But I guess you have the HD attached via firewire or usb so it should not be a major issue.

Time capsule & external drive - Time Machine Back-up of two macbooks - Can't connect

My wife and I each have a macbook pro and want to back them up using Time Machine. I had my macbook and a time capsule for a while before she got her laptop, so I backed mine up to the Time capsule - no problems.
Now, I have purchased an external drive so that mine backs up onto the time capsule drive and hers is set to back up on the external drive due to space limitations.
However, with hers set up, my macbook can no longer see its original back-up file. Meaning that hers will back-up all the time, but mine can't ever connect.
Is there a different configuration / setting that I should try to make this work?
Help is greatly appreciated!

I don't follow how the change on one laptop can affect the other, unless they are networked together in some way.. how is the second laptop connected??
I suggest you reset Time Machine.. and rediscover the TC..
A4 here http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
If you upgraded to Lion or ML recently that is the issue.. reboot the TC and maybe the whole network to clear the old IP addresses.

External Hard drive/Time Machine backup error message

On a sidenote, I posted a question a week ago about what external hard drive would be compatible with my Macbook, and I so happened to get a WD My Passport Studio hard drive as an unsuspecting gift, so I didn't have to buy one.
Anyways, I started the backup on this hard drive and I had an error message: "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while copying files to the backup volume." I searched this on the Apple Support Communities and found that I wasn't the only one who had this problem. So, I came upon one discussion that suggested downloading Time Machine Buddy (link:http://pondini.org/TM/A1.html) (link that prompted me to download: http://pondini.org/TM/C3.html). I downloaded it and found out that the error was occurring in my Library folder, specifically in the folder entitled "db" in the "Receipts" folder. There's one file in the "db" folder entitled "a.receiptdb" <----can someone please explain what the heck this is??? Lol. Anyways, I decided to exclude the whole "Receipts" folder from being backed up and now my external hard drive is backing up my files fine. My MAIN question is this: What is wrong with my receipts folder that is causing the error?
P.S. here are the error messages in the Time Machine Buddy log:
Error: (-36) SrcErr:YES Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to (null)
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Stopping backup.
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Library/Receipts/db/a.receiptdb to /Volumes/My Passport Studio/Backups.backupdb/Josh Brew’s MacBook/2012-01-29-162450.inProgress/D9F83053-7FE1-4EBE-991A-F400C35D37CC/Macin tosh HD/Library/Receipts/db
Copied 246 files (277.4 MB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Copy stage failed with error:11
Backup failed with error: 11
As you can see, iy is located in the "db" folder. I have no idea what's wrong. Thank you for your time! It is MUCH appreciated.

The connection to 10.6.7 may just be a coincidence. I had a similar problem with a disk and was about to throw it out but decided to try a different USB cable. That fixed the problem and the drive is still in use.
Try a new cable if you have not already done so.
Dave

External Hard Drive/Time Machine 101

I was using a 500 GB external hard drive with my MacBook Pro. I cloned my hard drive to the external hard drive, then used the remaining space to store videos, images, etc. When my aging MacBook Pro finally crashed, I was able to boot up the cloned drive and work with it.
I now have a new MacBook Pro with a bigger hard drive (750 GB, I think). I also bought a 2 terabyte external hard drive (My Book for Mac), planning on doing the same thing - cloning my hard drive, then using the remaining free space to store extra stuff.
However, I discovered that my new external hard drive is much more sophisticated than the last one. It gives me the option of using Time Machine or automatically copying all my files to the external drive. So I'd like to go back to square one, find out what my options are and figure out the best strategy.
First, if I use Time Machine to back up my files, will they effectively create a clone that I can boot up? (I've never used Time Machine before.) If so, then I'm thinking I might not partition my new hard drive. Instead, I would just let Time Machine back up my files. If it creates a 1,200 GB clone, then I could copy videos and images to the remaining 800 GB of hard drive space.
If Time Machine doesn't create a bootable clone, then I'll probably just do what I've been doing - use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my hard drive, then use the remaining space to store graphics. However, I wonder if I could still get by without partitioning my new hard drive. With two terabytes, it seems like it might be more efficient to just leave it unpartitioned and copy things into it as needed.
Any tips?
Thanks.

Time Machine does not create bootable clones. It does not even create a bootable backup. If that's what you prefer then do not use Time Machine.
If you use Time Machine then you must allocate at least twice as much space for the backups than the capacity of the drive you are backing up. A 2 TB backup drive would be suitable for a 1 TB main drive or smaller.
If you plan to create a bootable backup, then partition the backup drive with one partition the size required for the clone. Then use the other partition for you additional storage neeeds.

Network Drive + Time Machine

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