Snow Leopard Time Machine - Backup to a Network Drive is it possible?

I have a MacBook Pro 17" 2.5Ghz, with a 250gb harddrive, running Snow Leopard 10.6.1. I want to do a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard and I want to run a backup first. I don't have any external drives big enough for the job, but I do have network drives that have enough space. Can anyone give me directions on how to set up Time Machine to work with network destination drives? I read an online article that it was possible to do this with Leopard, though I never got it to work. If all else fails, I'll have to buy a new external drive. (Money's tight right now though.) If any of you have recommendations for good fast external drives, I'd appreciate your opinions on that too. (But I really hope I can get the network drives to work.) Thanks!

Time Machine does not back up to network drives, except Time Capsules or a drive running Leopard or Snow Leopard on another Mac on the same local network. It will often back-up to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme, but even that is, technically, unsupported, and may require running a special Terminal command to make it work.
Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733
You may find some hardware or "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.
First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.
Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.

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Can't start with Snow Leopard Time Machine backup in Lion

Hi,
I have seen coverage in MacWorld (http://www.macworld.com/article/161421/2011/07/migrate_time_machine_backup_to_ne w_mac_in_lion.html) of using my Snow Leopard Time Machine backup as the starting point for my Lion TM backup. This saves all my revision history of all my documents and makes them available in Lion. However, when I follow the steps given in the MacWorld article, I don't get the same set of dialog boxes and am never given the option to use a previous disk.
Any hints to getting this to work would be much appreciated.
-Eric

A whole lot about Time Machine for help with TM problems. Also you can select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "time machine" to locate articles on how to use TM. See also Mac 101- Time Machine.
Pondini's Time Machine FAQ

Can Yosemite read a snow leopard Time Machine backup

Can Yosemite read a snow leopard Time Machine backup. Once I installed Lion over SL and it was a disaster since I could not get any docs or photos back, so had to put SL back on my old iMac.
Will 10.10 give the same problem or is there a way to migrate the old 10.6.8 data to 10.10?
Thanks

Yes, you can do that. The only limitation is that you can't encrypt the backup volume.

Upgrade leopard to snow leopard with preexisiting snow leopard time machine backup

I was using an old desktop Mac that had been upgraded to snow leopard from leopard a few years ago. Disk utility said I needed to repair my hard drive using the installation discs. I didn't have the snow leopard installation disc but still had the leopard installation disc which I used. When the computer re-installed leopard onto my hard drive, it created a partition: one with my hard drive running snow leopard, and then a new one with the space left over, running leopard. I got my replacement snow leopard installation discs and would like to delete the leopard partition, and go back to what I had before with the snow leopard drive. I do have a time machine backup (somewhat incomplete) and am making a copy of the physical snow leopard drive. I cannot access the most recent time machine backup since I'm back to running leopard and the time machine backup was made under snow leopard. I'm not sure how to proceed from here to upgrade to snow leopard. When I try to upgrade to snow leopard, I'm asked which destination drive to use. I don't want to use the snow leopard drive, since it would get deleted. So, would the leopard drive be the answer in this case? And what would happen to the contents of my old snow leopard drive? Would I end up with two partitions, both with snow leopard, but one being current (nothing on it) and the other being my old drive? Would I be able to get rid of the current drive and then use only my old drive? Thanks in advance for any help.

First of all, it's unclear to me why you cannot select the old Snow Leopard partition.
I also think you should have been able to repair hard disk using the leopard CD disk without actually installing leopard OSX by using the Utilities only.
Also, Why is your Time Machine backup incomplete? Is that under Leopard or Snow Leopard?
Now you have two partitions with two different OSX (Leopard and Snow Leopard). Your goal is to get back to Snow Leopard.
I going to assume that the original Snow Leopard partition is inoperable (this is also question?) I would upgrade the Leopard partition to Snow Leopard. Afetrwards, use the Migration Assistant to bring in your data, documents, app, and settings. Once complete, you should be able to see your Time Machine backups. If all is ok then you can delete the original Snow Leopard partition.
This is a somewhat complicated situation, so I am issuing a caveat that is my opinion only. Wait until another expert provides input regarding your situation to determine the best course of action.

No Snow Leopard Time Machine backups available

Hi!
I had Lion CLEAN installed (I first upgraded from SN and it was really slow, so I gave it a second chance with the clean installation). Before the installation I took a full Time Machine backup. When finished with the setup, I went to TM to retrieve my SN files but the backups are not there! I only see the first backup that Lion did when installed, but it won't go to "Yesterday" (that I had SN) or deeper in time.
When I had Lion upgraded (and not clean installed) I could see those backups.
Any ideas of what could be going wrong?
Thank you
Apostolos

Actually I think I found the solution in here: http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/15A.html (in the pink box), thanksto this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/15736211#15736211 that showed up in the "More Like This"sidebar. It's the same article that's linked in the url you gave! Sorry to have had you write all these, but thank you anyway, REALLY!!
I was going to install SN to get my files back and then clean install Lion again (I will never use upgraded Lion in my early '09 MacBook again, it was really a fail), but now that I found the files, I can restore them, even not with the classic Time Machine ease.
Thank you again!
PS: I accidentally gave you a "Helpful Answer",can I change it to "Correct"? Sorry...

Will my snow leopard time machine backups work with lion?

Or do I have to reset the drive in order for them to be compatible? I want to avoid this, because I have another mac that I wont be upgrading from snow leopard for now. They both share the same drive for backups.

MacManolo wrote:
Or do I have to reset the drive in order for them to be compatible?
after upgrading to Lion, time machine will just continue normally.
i have three Macs. two are on Lion while the 3rd is on SL. all are backing up to the same drive (time capsule) without issues.

Encrypted Time Machine Backup on a Network Drive?

Hi
I have a server (Mac Mini) in my LAN that I'd like the various Macs to be able to use it as the backup location, but I'd like the backups to be stored in an encrypted state.
Any way I can do that?
If not with the standard OS X options, perhaps with some clever combination of other tools? (e.g. use encfs to trick OS X into thinking that the TM destination is normal whereas it's actually encrypted)
I tried a few things but no luck so far - would love to hear from someone how actually figured this out and has such a setup actually working.
Thanks!

meistermilchreis wrote:
(Hint: I want to use the same partition both for the iMac backups as well as for the MacBook backups.)
That's usually not a good idea; for best results, they should be in separate partitions. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4 for an explanation, and #22 for setup instructions.
I can mount and select the drive on the MacBook. However Time Machine on the MacBook asks me, if I want to envrypt the backups. Which of course I want to do. But the USB drive and therefore the entire mounted volume is already encrypted (from the iMac).
Backups made over a network are placed in a sparse bundle disk image, separate from the backups made directly. The disk image is like a disk-within-a-disk; it has it's own partition map scheme and format. So it will not be encrypted unless you tell TM to do so.
In short: I want both Macs to backup to the same drive. And I want both to encrypt the backups (with the same password).
Since the backups are separate, they must be encrypted separately. You may use the same password for both if you want.

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

Janet.b wrote:
About 3 years old...pretty dated now I guess. Am thinking I may just need to have it upgraded by a Mac tech.
For what the Apple Store's charge you can buy almost buy a new computer.
Just for giggles I brought my old laptop in for a drive upgrade and asked, they wanted $600 for a drive that only cost $120 at the time and it was a slow 5,400 RPM drive. The new Mac's of a similar make were going for $1000.
I did the drive replacement myself, got a faster drive of better quality for $300 instead.
Then another time I asked for a RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, they wanted to charge $400 + $35 for the labor.
The same RAM is on Crucial.com for $90 and all I need is a 00 micro phillips screwdriver.
So you see what's going on here.
I think what you should do, if your out of warranty/AppleCare, is to call up the local PC tech guy who also does Mac's and have them fix you right up.
They can offer more personalized care which you need. Clone your old drive to the new and everything.
With Apple they are overworked at the Genius Bar and just place roadblocks so you buy a new machine instead.
For instance, all new iMac's now have proprietary drive software installed on the hard drives for heat monitoring. So now the only choice a user has is to bring their iMac into a Apple Store for a very expensive drive upgrade, which a person then decides the money is better spent buying a new machine.

Transfer Time Machine backups to a new drive

Is there an automated or an easy way to transfer my current Time Machine back ups to the new Time Capsule (I am sure I will inevitably buy it]. Looks like a great system for notebook users but I wouldn't like to start again with time Machine I like having the security of back ups I have already accrued. My current drive is certainly not full and won't be for a while.

So far not very many people have had much success in copying their Time Machine backups to a new drive although the Restore option in Disk Utility ought to be able to do this. However, SuperDuper will support that capability when their new Leopard compatible version is released which should be in a week or so.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/

Can I turn off Macbook while Time Capsule is archiving Time Machine backup to a USB drive?

My Time Capsule is archiving my Time Machine backup to a USB drive attached to it. I have initiated this process on my macbook (on the same lan with the Time Capsule), on which I am monitoring the archiving progress on the Airport Utility. Still almost a couple of days to go... Can I turn off my Macbook, or will that interrupt the process of archiving?

If LaPastenague is willing to do a "test", then we will all know more.
Opened my big mouth.
The archive is happening.. I turned off the computer it was setup from.. running Mavericks and latest utility once I got it started. I have been checking from v6 utility on Mountain Lion.. and it is excruciatingly slow. But is running.
I can check the progress but v6 utility is utterly and completely useless.. it continually shows the same numbers.
v5 utility does show it is crawling along.
v6
20min later..
Look, look, there is a tiny blue fleck in the progress bar!!
v5 utility shows the actual progress. Actually tells you total and amount backed up so far.
Amazing how advanced v5 utility is over v6.
The estimate of 10hours is probably correct at the present rate of progress. I suppose for 500GB, around 50GB/hr is about what we expect from TM backups etc.
I will post another picture in an hour and probably kill it then before I die of watching paint dry.

Transfer Time Machine backup from one external drive to another

Surely this has been covered, but I can't find it.
If you have your time machine backup on an external drive and get a new (larger) external drive, what is the best way to transfer the backup from one drive to the other (and define the new drive as the backup drive)? Straight copy ? Then to define the new drive, rename old drive to something else and name new drive the backup name?

I haven't tried this yet but a few other methods are described at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071128055047339

Errors when transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive.

Hello,
I need some help transferring my Time Machine backup to an external drive. Let me explain what happened.
I have a Mac OSX Mountain Lion that was upgraded to Mavericks when the upgrade came out. Prior to upgrading, I've been backing up WD Passport Mac with the proprietary software "WD Unlocker on it". It worked flawlessly but after upgrading to Mavericks, I decided to backup and noticed that once i inserted the WD Passport, my screen will flicker, windows will close and reappear.
I decided to read up on this and discovered that Mavericks is not compatible with the "WD Unlocker " program on the Passport drive. Since I already have a backup in place, i decided to restore my computer to factory settings and when I attached the Passport drive with my backup on it, My device will see the backup but it will keep spinning for hours without restoring my backup. I decided to read further on this and I got the same Mavericks compatibility conclusion.
I then copied my entire backups.backupdb folder to my Mac desktop and formatted my WD Passport external drive and got rid of the proprietary software "WD Unlocker".. Once this was completed, I then tried to copy my backups.backupdb folder to my external drive within finder. Each time i tried, i get error messages and permission messages. Even when i changed the permission on the backups.backupdb folder to read & write for everyone, i still get the permissions error.
Please helppppp. I have over 500gb of vital data in my backup.
Thank you.

Since you don't really have a question, I will give you a very broad information source for the next time you have a Time Machine question.
Please visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Oh, you cannot use a computer whose only disk drive is the target of a an OS X cloning operation regardless of what software is used for the clone. You can, however, use the source drive except if you try to clone using Disk Utility.

Can Time Machine Backup to Two Different Drives?

I have many Apple Computers, and I was wondering if it were possible to have time machine backup to two different drives.
I want it to back up My documents, Mail, and other files/folders that I access often to a partition of my internal drive every minute.
And
I want it to back up Everything on my Mac to my external each night upon connecting it to my mac.
I take my MacBook everywhere with me and I need to make sure that the files I work on the most stay Perfectly Accessible no matter what, and I don't want to sacrifice too much space for that procedure. I would rather just be able to do constant backups of my most used files and folders, and then do a system backup each night to make sure I always have what is needed.

Let me add some more observations. I use two disks, one at home (its a mounted volume on another Mac at home) and the other is a portable disk that I attach to my MBP at work. This works fine.
About your details - TM backs up every hour. If you look around you'll find some posts that give instructions on changing the frequency (I haven't paid attention to these, so I can't help you). However, backing up to another partition on the same drive is not what I'd recommend. If the drive dies, you may lose both partitions.
As for doing constant backups of the most used files and at night doing a system backup - it seems to me you aren't "getting" TM. This sounds like the type of backup strategy one uses with "regular" backup software. I don't think I'd recommend backups every minute, but for short intervals, why not just do a default backup of everything. It doesn't really back up everything, just things that have changed. The only time it does a complete backup is the first time you use it with a specific drive. After that it no longer does complete backups, unless you reformat the drive and start from scratch.

Does Time Machine backup other external hard drives?

I am using a Seagate 500 GB to backup my data. Will Time Machine backup another external hard drive on which I store my iMovie projects? If so, how do I access them in the Time Machine mode? Thanks in advance.

nachdenki wrote:
strange, my external HDs were added to the exception list automatically. maybe because they wouldn't fit on the time machine volume.
It seems to depend on when the drives were connected. When you first turn Time Machine on, it only excludes the TM drive itself, and any drives not formatted HFS+.
If you connect a drive later on, that drive will be excluded automatically.

Can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?

can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?

can time-machine backup the boot camp drive?
No. Use third-party software such as WinClone to do that.
Time Machine can backup a Windows image file used by an emulator such as Parallels Desktop.
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Snow Leopard Time Machine - Backup to a Network Drive is it possible?

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