Shared Hard Drive work with Time Machine

I've been having limited success with using a USB hard drive connected to my Extreme Station.
Is the Airport Extreme Base Station not really approved for use with Time Machine then? I know you can connect it and USE the hard drive but as far as Time Machine and successful incremental backups, it's not really made for that is it?

Welcome to the discussions, zamboknee!
Some users have reported success with using Time Machine for backups on a USB drive connected to the AirPort Extreme, but Apple does not officially support this function.

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Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine

Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine.
installed new internal disk first with fresh 10.7.3 Lion software. Also upgrade ram to 4GB. Work great, super fast.
BUT.... my WD 1TB firewire400 external disks no longer work with the Lion enabled machine now.
FURTHER... I read somewhere that WD is problematic with Lion but Seagate was not... so I went and bought a new 3TB Seagate GoFlex.
When it didnt work properly either, I patiently searched and found a software/firward upgrade and applied.
I re-partitioned disk to extened/journaled standard, etc.
Then assigned the particition to Time Machine. Drive turned the blue/grey color, so I thought it would work.
But, it has now been in "preparing" mode in Time Machine for HOURS....
What is up Apple? So dissappointed. Ive read these type of problems are notorious with Lion and I wish I never upgraded.
Are you trying to make issues with External disks, to drive people to iCloud? That trick ont work in me. I will not reward bad behaviour Apple.
Please provide a fix... I wasted hours/days screwing around with this, instead of using the Mac for what its intended!

Solved by Pondini, on another thread I opened...
Answer:
Sounds like either:
A directory problem on your internal HD. Verify your internal HD, and Repair any other volumes being backed-up per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Something in OSX may be damaged. You've tried the "combo," so a fresh copy of OSX (that won't disturb anything else) would be worth a try (and you don't need a tech for that). See Installing the ''combo'' update and/or Reinstalling OSX.

Replaced hard drive - problems with time machine

My hard drive failed and I have had a new one fitted by Stomfront but now need to replace all the data. They recomended putting Mavricks on the new drive and that was put on the new hard disk but the time machine back up has Yosemite. Seems to cause all sorts of problems.
I cannot seem to get iPhoto or the photos that were in iPhoto back. The same with iMovies.
The Mac is a 27 inch late 2009 with 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 12 GB Ram running OS x 10.9.5

Inherit a Backup
Inherit a Backup (2)

USB hard drive used with Time Machine runs continually

I have a USB SATA external hard drive that I am using for my Time Machine backups. The drive is configured to run on USB power. The drive begins running as soon as it is connected to the port, and runs continually, as long as it is connected. I expected the drive to sleep between TM backups, to save the moving parts. Is there any way to keep the drive sleeping until a TM backup is done, and then go back to sleep?

Kenneth Mclauchlan wrote:
I have a USB SATA external hard drive that I am using for my Time Machine backups. The drive is configured to run on USB power. The drive begins running as soon as it is connected to the port, and runs continually, as long as it is connected. I expected the drive to sleep between TM backups, to save the moving parts. Is there any way to keep the drive sleeping until a TM backup is done, and then go back to sleep?
I believe that is up to the drive manufacturer. In the Preferences Energy Saver see if you have checked "put drive to sleep when possible" and see if the external drive sleeps when you put the computer to sleep. If it does not then it's not a "sleeper." Even if it does, it may not have an internal clock or switch to sleep after so many minutes of inactivity.
Can you use the drive with external power? See if that does anything.
My LaCie d2 quadro sleeps between backups. I don't use USB, I use FW800.

How can I backup my photographs to a seperate hard drive (not with time machine)

I am in high school, now a senior and i am very into photography so a lot of my memory space is comprised of pictures adn my hard drive is filling up (Ive had my computer for about 5 years now and there's about 9.44 gb available). I have an external hard drive that I use for time machine back ups, I went out and bought a second hard drive and i want to put my photography on there so i can erase some of the older ones off my computer but i will still have them on my hard drive. How do I do that?

iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
Move iPhoto Library to External Drive
First... Make sure the EHD is Formatted Mac OS Extended (journaled)...
See here > Format, Erase, or Reformat a drive
From here > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU.html
Quit iPhoto if open.
Open your Pictures folder and select the iPhoto Library.
Drag the iPhoto Library to the External Hard Drive.
Note:
Make sure everything is working to your satisfaction Before Deleting anything.

Will this hard drive work for Time Machine?

Am I stooging over here? My son (12 years old) recommends a Seagate Expansion 1TB external hard drive. On sale for $79 from NewEgg. I order it. Plug it in to my Mac Book Pro and want to use Time Machine to back up my Macbook. The Mac says I need to initialize it. I hit OK. Disk Utility opens up. I can't see an option to initialize.
I go to Seagate's website... no mention of OSX (Lion). Only Windows. Upon a closer look at the box it came in it says Windows is a requirement. No mention of OSX.
Can I initialize it. Isn't a hard drive a hard drive? Do I have to return it?
And I thought I knew what I was doing...
Thanks,
Markoman.

Thanks Linc. There is a flip down Format window. The 2 OSX options are "Journaled" and "Case Sensitive, Journaled".
What's the difference?

External hard drive problems with Time Machine

My external Samsung G3 back Up hard drive disappears off the desktop when my imac sleeps and I have to unplug and reconnect the USB for time machine to see it again. The initial back up is fine and the drive re-formatted and partitioned OK. Any thoughts?
www.mtbmitch.co.nz

Hi Nick,
Avoid the WD files completely, not needed & often a problem.
You need to erase the Drive, & to use it on both Format it MS-DOS/FAT32, on the Mac or PC, but will have a 4 GB filesize limit, as well as other limitations.
One option not mentioned yet is MacDrive for your PCs... allows them to Read/Write & Format HFS+, so no need to reformat it...
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

What 3rd part NAS drives work with Time Machine on lion?

I've been waiting for 3rd party solutions to surface but keep seeing bad reviews and horror stories. Anyone have success getting time machine to work on lion using a network storage drive OTHER than time capsule?

Visit their websites. Look at what's available. If you have questions as their respective tech support.
No backup device is ever trouble-free. Nor do they all have exactly the same features or capabilities. Personally, I don't use NAS. Far too slow. I much prefer using directly connected drives or internal drives, if possible, because they are faster. Additionally, eliminating a network in the backup chain is eliminating just one more thing that can go wrong.
But I have no idea what your backup needs are nor why you need network storage, so my remarks may not be entirely germane.

External Hard Drive--Storage Device/Time Machine

I recently purchased an external hard drive compatible with Time Machine. I understand this application serves as a backup system. I am beginning my first year of teaching this fall and also need to keep a few copies of all of my teaching materials. Can I still use the external hard drive as a storage device (more like a flash drive)? How do I go about this and use it for both? Or should I just use it more like a flash drive for the purpose of keeping copies of my teaching material?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Of course. You can use the external drive to make Time Machine backups and to store other data. The only thing you have to do is to create two partitions on the external drive through Disk Utility > http://pondini.org/OSX/DU3.html
After doing this, you will have to use one partition for Time Machine, and another one to store your files. It's important to make Time Machine backups, as they allow you to restore the whole system if the hard drive fails. See > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

External hard drive not working with Time Machine

I have an Iomega network hard drive attached via ethernet cable to my Airport Extreme router.
I plugged the hard drive in. Everything works like it should. I can see the drive in Finder and I can read and write to the drive. I do share the network drive in a mixed WIN and OS X environment. I never had to reformat the drive and I can read/write to the drive with no problems from all of my computers.
I turned on Time Machine on my iMac and walked through the simple setup screens there. I never set anything up on the hard drive through the drive interface software. And Time Machine worked fine for about 4 months. Then all of a sudden, Time Machine just stopped backing up and I got all kinds of error messages saying that the TIme Machine backup failed.
So I went into Time Machine, turned it off, turned it back on. No luck. Same error messages.
So I started fresh. I deleted the prior Time Machine backups and I am back at the TIme Machine set up screen. OS X can see the TIme Machine share on my external hard drive and I tell the setup wizard that's the drive I want to use.
Then I get a window that says it's trying to connect to the external hard drive which I call "Cloud_Drive". After about 30 seconds, I get an error window that says
"There was a problem connecting to the server "Cloud_Drive-TimeMachine"
The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.
At this point the external drive is still visible in FInder and I can read/write to it from my iMac. I just cannot understand why Time Machine was working and then all of a sudden it stopped.
I did go into the software management of the drive and found an area in which to turn Time Machine on on the drive's side. Which I never did before so I turned it on and then I'm prompted to enter the name of the computer and the ethernet ID. I entered the name of the iMac and I have tried using the WiFI MAC address - no luck getting TIme Machine to work and I've also entered Terminal, found a MAC address under the line titled "ether" and still the same result.
I have also changed the destination of the Time Machine files on the external hard drive and the Time Machine wizard does write a sparcebundle file to that new location but still get the same error message above.

Is it a firewire ext. HD?
Yes, many are reporting same, there is a firewire fault and TB HD on external HD from LaCie (Seagate) and from WD especially.
Technicians are looking into it.
Until there is resolution, consider setting up a USB ext. Time machine HD.
Until then consider confining Mavericks use with USB HD.
Ive tested a long line of USB HD on Mavericks, all seem fine.

La Cie Porsche Design External Hard Drive no longer working with Time Machine since update to Yosemite.

My La Cie Porsche Design External Hard Drive USB 3.0 is no longer working with Time Machine. Is Yosemite the cause? How do I fix?

Can you see the drive in Disk Utility? If so, try selecting it and using the Mount button in the top menu. You can also run repair disk and repair permissions.

If I completely fill my hard drive 500Gb how time machine will keep working having 1Tb of total space, I mean I have to delete mu hard drive but how I keep my previous information on time machine and keep using to with new information?

If I completely fill my hard drive 500Gb how time machine will keep working having 1Tb of total space [externak hard drive], I mean I have to delete my hard drive but how I keep my previous information on time machine and keep using it with new information?

Time Machine does not provide archival storage.
If you delete a file from your disk it will eventually be deleted from your TM backup without any notice to you.
You need a second external disk to use for archival storage.
You also need a third disk for backups of the second disk.

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. if i just want to backup and recover my photos and movies how do i do that with time machine?

I have a 250GB western digital external hard drive for my time machine backups. I did not download the software that came with the external HD. If I only want to backup my photos and movies from my Macbook how do I do that in Tme Machine with my external HD?

Format the HDD in Disk Utility>Erase to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the open System Preferences>Time Machine and set up the external disk as the Time Machine HDD. Then look at the Options, and exclude what you do not want backed up.
Ciao.

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media? Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?

Can I set up multiple usb hard drives- one for time machine and a second for media?
Yes.
Can one also print wirelessly with an old HP C6280 printer?
Possibly by using an Airport Express, but depends on what type of port connection the printer requires.

Can I partition a Firewire 800 drive to work with Time Machine and Final Cut Pro?

Hey, I was reading that having Final Cut Projects and Events on the same external Hard Drive as a time machine backup doesn't work well together. So I was wondering if I partition a 2 TB External Hard Drive and use 1 partition for Time Machine and the other for Final Cut Pro, would it work like it should? I had thought so because it would recognize it as 2 different drives but I wasn't sure. Thank You for your time!

aside, if it is supported or not:
A backup is a crucial element in your set-up - is it wise to 'stress it' as a working drive for video-editing ...... ?
or, vice versa:
The moment, Time Machine launches, your working drive drops its performance by half or even more.
Plus, depending on your settings, the drive is forced to copy tons of data from partition I to partition II ... due to, a partition is no 'real'/physical drive, this stresses a drive extremely .....
drives are sooo cheap. and drive-space should never be an 'issue' while movie-making ..

Shared Hard Drive work with Time Machine

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