Time Machine disk and Airport Extreme issues

I have a portable USB drive I use as my Time Machine disk. It works great, but only when I manually mount the disk.
I recently got an Airport Extreme, which allows me to mount a disk off of it. So, I figure I'll mount my USB Time Machine disk there so Time Machine backs up hourly.
Well, the first issue I get is that Time Machine tells me the disk isn't properly formatted! Odd, since I've had it configured via the app for backups. I go into preferences to select a disk, and I choose my Time Machine disk. When I next tried to run a backup, it indicated I don't have enough room on the disk, requiring ~106 GB .... almost as if it thought it hadn't done any backups before and was going to run a full one.
I dismounted the drive from the Airport Extreme and hooked it back up locally, and I get the same results within Time Machine.
I also noticed a new file on the root of my Time Machine, with a .sparsebundle extension. Is this related in any way?
Anyway, what can I do, short of a full reset of my Time Machine disk, to get it working through my Airport Extreme?

Me again ...
I hooked up my USB TM disk again to my Airport Extreme. I don't see it as a mounted drive in my Sidebar. However, I see it under the Devices on my sidebar, under "my" computer, then Time Machine Backups, then a backups.backupdb folder.
To start fresh with TM backups I'll need to erase the drive. From what I see, do I just delete the 'backups.backupdb' folder and its contents?

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Large Time Machine Backup and Airport Extreme Bottleneck

Network Configuration:
Wall-Cable Modem (no wireless)-Airport Extreme-D-Link Switch (to extend the ports)-Devices
Three devices are plugged into the Airport Extreme. A wired connection directly from this computer, the D-Link Switch, and another remote wired connection.
In the switch I have plugged in, among other things, a Drobo5N NAS with 16TB worth of disk storage (netting 11 roughly usable space).
I am a photographer who has been at it awhile (10 years plus), so I have a large cache of picture files stored in RAW format.
On my local MacPro I have a pair of 1.5TB disks installed internally in a RAID 0 array for nearly 3TB of storage. I use most of it. The MacPro otherwise is unremarkable. I reconfigured it with an SSD boot disk and it has the original HDD drive along with an extra to fill out the remaining bay. My overall storage requirements for backup are 3.05TB.
I started the TimeMachine backup over the network and the performance seems slow. It ran some numbers out of the console and it looks like it's copying an average of about 5GB an hour on average.
I tried to do a quick review of the router settings but when I called up the Airport Utility it takes an extremely long time to show information. Since I started this thread, the message "Reading settings on (my) Airport Extreme" has been up, then finally as I was typing this line the information came through. It seems the router may be a bottleneck, but I am not sure.
The backup has been running 4 days and is about halfway done.
So where to go from here? Is this kind of performance in Time Machine the norm? Is the Airport causing this problem? If so, do I need to check for some sort of software upgrade or missing configuration? Not sure where to go next, but I am pretty sure I can move more than 5GB per hour over my network.
Any help appreciated.

Answered in your other thread. Please don't double-post. Thanks.

I Can't Backup to time machine through my airport extreme.

I Have recently paritioned by backup disks into two separate partitions and i now have the nice view of time machine because i switched to the GUID format. However, now i cannot backup to time machine through my airport extreme. Please help, it is very frustrating.

No you can't and the reason is Apple blocked the ability for Time Machine to backup over WIFI to a NAS connected to the AEBS. Though I was able to use iTimeMachine to enable the feature prior to the recent Leopard update 10.5.2 which seems to have closed this ability once again. Apple's comment to me was to buy Time Capsule claiming the feature was never supported over WIFI with the AEBS even though their advertising just prior to Leopard's release stated differently. A lot of us on this forum paid for an AEBS and NAS drive based on Apple's own advertising regarding a feature they later blocked/removed and are extremely upset with the way the issue seems to be ignored by Apple support who pretend there was never an issue to begin with.

Used Time Machine (USB) to Airport Extreme

Hi,
Last year, I set up a 1TB external hard-drive as my Time Machine... It all worked perfectly. Currently it has over 600GB worth of stuff on it. My macbook has a hard-drive of 320gb.
I recently bought a used Airport Extreme (A1354) and want to connect my existing 'Time Machined' external hard-drive but it won't allow me to...? It is recognised- I just cant seem to back up or access files at all.
In an article I read it said that the pathway when connected directly to my macbook via USB is different to a pathway when connected via wireless connection.
So my questions are:
• Can I rename the pathway?
• Or do I need to buy a new external harddrive and start afresh?• If I do have to start a fresh, is there a way to merge my old time machine files to the new time machine files - - - so I can keep both my 'time Machines" in the one place (Instead of having one lot of time machine from August 2011 to August 2012 and another time machine from September 2012 to x date)
I can't even restore all my time machined files to my macbook- then reformat my External Hard drive, because I only have 320 GB
I hope I am making sense. I am not too high tech so . . . my apologies =)
P.S. Sorry if this has already been answered-- I have read countless articles and can't seem to find an answer.

Hi,
Yeah I got an answer to connecting my existing time machine to my airport extreme
The airport extreme will not let you connect any 'time machine' - new or existant - as it acts as a drag and drop type of saving.... so i.e. if I want to save a file - i will need to go to shared>airport extreme and then drag and drop my file there to save it- it will not do it automatically like time machine. This is so if you wanted the automatic wireless backup, you would have to go out and buy a time capsule.
hope that makes sense.

Can i use time machine with a airport extreme and a external hard drive

I have connected a hard drive to my airport extreme.
Now i would like to use time machine to back up my computers, and would like to do this on the hard drive which is connected to my airport extreme.
Next step is that i would like to be able to approach my external hard drive via the internet.
Is this possible or not?

Both are possible. However, Apple does NOT support Time Machine backups to AirPort Disks attached to the 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBSn). Doing so will potentially lead to data corruption and is highly not recommended. Please check out this excellent Pondini article for more details. This article also provides the Apple Support references that states Apple's position. Bottom line? If your backups are critical to you, then you may want to rethink your backup solution.
As far as accessing the AirPort Disk from the Internet, the following is the basic steps to do so:
Start the AirPort Utility > Select the AEBSn, and then, note the IP address shown.
Select Manual Setup.
Verify that Connection Sharing = Share a public IP address is selected on the Internet > Internet Connection tab.
Select Disks, and then, select File Sharing.
Verify that both the "Enable file sharing" and "Share disks over WAN" options are enabled.
Verify that Secure Shared Disks = With a disk password. (Recommended)
Verify that AirPort Disks Guest Access = Not allowed. (Recommended)
Select Advanced, and then, select the Port Mapping tab.
Click the plus sign to add a new port mapping.
For Service, select the "Personal File Sharing" option. (Note: This option would only allow Mac clients to access the AirPort Disks. If you want both Macs and PCs to connect, you would need to leave this field at its default value and enter the appropriate SMB ports to the mix of ports to be opened.)
In the Public UDP Port(s) and Public TCP Port(s) boxes, type in a 4-digit port number (e.g., 8888) that you choose. In the Private IP Address box, type the internal IP address of your AEBSn that you wrote down in step 1. In the Private UDP Port(s) and Private TCP Port(s) boxes, type 548. Click Continue.
In the Description box, type a descriptive name like "AirPort Disk File Sharing," and then, click Done.
Click on Update.
To connect to the shared AirPort Disk from a remote location using a Mac:
From the Finder > Go > Connect to Server.
Enter the Pubic (WAN-side) IP address of the AEBSn, followed by a colon and the Public port number that you choose in step 11 of the previous procedure. For example: afp://www.mydyndnsdomain.com:8888 or afp://123.456.789.123:8888
Click Connect.
You should be prompted for your user name and password. The user name can be anything you like; the password should be the Disk password for the AEBSn that you created in step 6 previously.
Click Connect.

Time Machine Disk - A few 'minor issues'

Hi All, (note not all caps
I've had some issues with macs or another over the past week but to cut a long story short, the one that had a 'logic board' issue starting booting up so I took the chance to re-install leopard, but, during the calculating phase when restoring from Time machine the system froze....since then my time machine disk can't be mounted or read in anyway. This is my only backup and contains just about every single movie and picture of my kids from day of birth so...I assume that the many data recovery apps out there would do the trick? or failing that does anybody have any recommendations or actions i could take without spending out too much?
Thanks all

hello again, got a copy of boomerang which seems to have listed most if not all files for recovery, so this begs another question, does anybody here know or if speak to apple, do you think it's possible to do a manual restore as it were? I can see all files so can I effectively drag and drop from the disk to the new mac so keeping most of my apps and settings? I guess what would be cracking would be to find out if I could copy the contents to another disk and effectively make a proper time machine disk from the recovered one...which incidently was never erased just fails to mount.
Any pointers gratefuly received.

Browse other time machine disks and hidden folders

I recently did a clean install of Snow Leopard, and used the "Browse other Time Machine disks" option to restore my documents from my backup. Now, however, I want to restore a folder that resides in the hidden /usr, and can't figure out how to do so. Normally, the solution would be to open a Finder window go use Go > Go to Folder and type the path to the folder, then enter Time Machine. However, when using Browse for other disks, once it enters Time Machine, it resets the Finder window to Macintosh HD. Does anybody know how to restore hidden folders from a Time Machine backup on another disk (from a different installation of Mac OS X)? Thanks

Shardsofmetal wrote:
The problem I have is navigating to the hidden folder in the Time Machine backup. It resets my Finder window when I enter Time Machine, and I can't figure out how to navigate to the hidden folder within the Time Machine interface.
it should not reset the finder window when you enter TM. open a /usr in finder. enter commandshiftg and enter /user in popup. this will open /usr in a separate window. enter TM from that window. provided you did not exclude system files from backups you'll see past backups of /usr and the view will not reset. if you did exclude system files from backups then the view will reset.

Time Machine, Hard Drive, AirPort Extreme, and possible damage?

I plugged in an external HD to my AirPort Extreme (gigabit) base station today and started a Time Machine backup to it. After about 8 hours, I had transferred only 12 gigs of my 46 and ended up stopping it. I realize only the initial backup should take forever, but I am afraid that running the MacBook Pro hard drive constantly for hours could damage it. Are the portable hard drives capable of running for hours on end? What's the risk of damaging it?
I didn't notice any major heat issues with the Penryn MacBook Pro while doing this, but I didn't want the hard drive to break either. Plus, the wireless backup just takes way too long. I can't run an N only network because I have older AirPort expresses (WDS), older G clients in the house, and some iPhones that need to get online. I understand that 802.11g is slower than N, but it's way too slow for wireless backups.

Connecting a USB HDD to an Extreme can be used for Time Machine backups, but it is not officially supported by Apple. You will have to start a new TM backup if you are using the Extreme as TM backups to a NAS (vs. local disks) will backup as a sparsebundle (vs. your current folder format). The same goes for backup to a Time Capsule.

Can two macs use same disk for Time Machine backup with Airport Extreme?

Hi
I use a Western Digital disk as a wireless Time Machine backup connected to the USB port on my Airport Extreme and it works great. My question is: can my girlfriend use that same disk for Time Machine backup from HER computer too? (I don't mind formatting the disk if needed.)
If she can't, is it then possible to connect a USB hub and have two disks hooked up to the Airport Extreme?
Thanks for helping. I am constantly in awe of all the help people like you give people like me. Thanks!!!
Jakob

I've gone through the manual setup and the assisted setup and can't seem to get my MacBook to use the Time Machine. Any thoughts or help would be greatly appreciated.
Well, as the Jolly Giant points out....+this type of configuration is not supported by Apple+, so it's difficult, if not impossible, to provide a fix for something that Apple says that you cannot do. Reference these Apple Support documents regarding this topic:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
Your situation is not unlike other users who try this and find that one computer may backup...(usually for a limited time before corruption issues start to creep in)...but another computer cannot backup. Count me as one of those users who thought that because things seemed to work that I had somehow "beat the system".
I started getting the corruption error messages after 4-5 weeks of successful backups, so I figured that it did not make sense to continue to try to get a second computer to backup (yes, I too could not setup a second Mac to backup).
Sorry, I could not get a second machine to backup, so can't tell you how to accomplish that goal. If you want to continue to try backing up this way, you might want to also think about a second backup strategy...just in case backups become corrupted on the WD drive.
Maybe if Apple says you cannot do this, they just may be right?
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Help: Set up Time Machine Drive with Airport Extreme

I've read a few posts on this topic, none of which addressed my specific issue, but all of which stated that this functionality is not officially supported. I really hope this is not true because I bought my Airport Extreme and Hard Drive based on numerous Apple Store clerks assuring me that this was possible. So any help would be most appreciated. Here's the details/story:
I have a 13" MBP 2.53ghz, running 10.5.8 I've been backing up to a local 1TB HDD over FW800 since July with no problems.
I bought an Airport Extreme and am trying to move the drive to the AE to back up wirelessly. Here's what's happened so far:
1. I connected the drive with USB to the AE. It mounted no problem and I could see all my backups easily, but Time Machine did not recognize it as my back up drive. When I used the "Change Drive" button in the hopes of "finding" the drive, it just tried to start a new Time Machine back up set, wirelessly. So I think the broad concept is working, it just a matter of getting TM to recognize the back up set.
2. I plugged the drive in locally with USB (rather than FW800) and did a back up, no problem. After doing this, and plugging the drive back into the AE, TM no recognizes my backup set as mine, and tries to start the next backup, but I got an error message about not being able to write to the drive.
3. I did some reading online to get some ideas, I used Disk Utility to verify and repair the drive (over USB locally) Disk utility did find some errors, but it didn't seem like anything major.
4. Now, TM really starts to get going doing a backup, but when it actually comes time to transfer/write the new data over, I get an new error, that my drive is not formatted as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I use disk utitilty again, which confirms that the drive IS Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is partitioned GUID (which I read is also a requirement)
And this is where I am. Any one have any ideas?
Thanks in advance for your help.

TSomers wrote:
I'd hate to think it's just to sell their $500 2TB Timecapsule (which is more than 2x the cost of competing 2Tb drives). Maybe Apple should share their secret sauce with the other drive makers so that they all can work.
Though you seem to hate it, you have indeed hit the nail... I also had issues with USB attached drives on my AEBS (Airport Extreme Base Station). This problem occurred before Apple had the policy statement in place and they ended up exchanging my AEBS, since it was crashing the AEBS when the USB drive did not become accessible (it was a WD brand that didn't play nice with any USB connection, as it later turned out). I suspect there was nothing wrong then with my original AEBS' USB connection, but the replacement was more reliable overall however, so it proved a boon. Perhaps Apple learned something from my previous problems.
Anyway, Apple is not without its reasons for this policy. That's the long story.
Short story? Use supported configurations only if you want a reliable backup. In my case, can easily move my drive to a Mini and have it run in a supported configuration whether by sparse bundle format or otherwise.
Network connections do indeed format the way described. You can check this very thorough article...Suggest you read the unofficially sanctioned discussion list article by Pondini (kudos for your thoroughness, sir/madam!) first. Many great suggestions and nifty storage ideas to maximize your use of available media in your particular situation will come from a careful reading.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018

Will time machine work with airport extreme?

Hi all, is there a way to create a time machine back up on a USB disk that is attached to an airport extreme? I've tried it a couple of different ways and it's not seeming that it works very well. Any help would be appreciated.

I've tried several configurations all of which started with formatting the drive with a single partition Mac OS Extended (Journaled) GUID.
The first configuration was where I did a 100GB Time Machine Backup to the drive while it was connected (so I wouldn't have to deal with a slow first backup over wireless, because my MacBook Pro is of the older 802.11G wireless versus N). Then moved the drive over to my Airport Extreme, mounted the drive and started the backup. It failed with the following error message "The backup volume is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required."
The second configuration was where, after reformatting to single partition to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) GUID, I connected the drive directly to the Airport Extreme without having done a Time Machine Backup. After mounting the drive, I started Time Machine and it began to run. I left it over nite to back-up and, while it got started, it did not make it past about 9GB after over 6 hours and it stopped.
Trying the second configuration again...and it is running but 7 hours later 25 of 101GB done.
Thanks for any insight!
Happy New Year

Continue Time Machine Backup with AirPort Extreme

Hi,
if've done my backup via usb, now i am owning an AirPort Extreme and would continue my backup; but Time Machine had start a new backup, how can i continue my old backup.

yes, I'm aware of such procedures but it's not worth the trouble in this case as the OP has only done one backup. also, it would require a separate hard drive to put the sparse bundle on temporarily before cloning the current backup drive to the sparse bundle. lastly, no need to rsync in this situation. you can simply erase the external drive and copy the sparse bundle by hand back to the external once the cloning is finished. but all in all entirely not worth the trouble in this case.

Time Capsule Network and Airport Extreme Configuration

I have a hybrid wireless and wired network in my home. TC is my primary router. I have a switch hanging off of the TC that distributes the ethernet around the home. To extend my wireless reach with an Airport Extreme, can/should I 1) plug the Airport into ethernet at the opposite end of the home, or 2) connect the Airport wirelessly to the TC? What are the implications of both?

The letters (N, B, G) refer to the speed of the wireless network. The higher the letter (N currently) the faster the wireless network. The Airport Extreme & TC's currently sold are the 802.11N version, 802.11 is just a number and refers to a set of standards for wireless local area network. Therefore if you here 802.11 you know they are referring to a wireless network and what ever letter follows (B,G and now N) referrs to the speed of that network. However remember this works at the lowest common denominator. What I mean by that is let's say you have a wireless router (like TC) that works at N speeds and you want it to communicate with a wireless printer but that printer is B speed well your router is going to adjust to the B speed so it can communicate to the printer.
Hope this helps a little.
Roger

Time Capsule, Sonos, and Airport Utility Issues

I have a new Sonos system that is accessing music on my Time Capsule, to which I copied my whole music folder. It works fine from the handheld controller, however the desktop controller will show the library, but won't show me the Zone Players or allow me to control the system. Can only control from the handheld.
Another problem is while I can access the hard drive on TC, and play music simultaneously on the Sonos, Airport Utility says it can't find any wireless devices (so I can't manually change any settings on the TC), so I can't tinker with its settings and try to get the desktop controller working.
That being said, the Sonos system seems to work wonderfully, main issue seems to be with the computer.
Anyone have a solution?
Brett

Thank you for your idea. However, after having imported the setup of the previous TC and having experienced problems, I had already done a factory reset and configured everything from scratch! Without using the profile. So I think we can safely exclude a problem connected with importing the older profile, which was in fact my first idea.
On the other side, I haven't tried your suggestion to give separate names to the 5 and 2,4 GHz wireless signals. I'll try this evening, as a last attempt before sending the TC back to Apple. BTW, I put my old TC back in place, and apart from the fact that the disk is noisy and almost full it works without a glitch. Which makes a software or configuration issue less likely, I believe.

Airport Express and Airport Extreme issues

I am trying to extend my wireless network to a detached garage by using and Express wired directly with the Cat5 wire but the Extreme does not recognize it and I am not able to "extend" my network. Any suggestions?

I cant get past the constant Amber blinking light. Airport Utility picks it up but I cannot configure it even though I have it plugged in directly to the Base via ethernet. My wifi is working in the house and the Express has been reset multiple times to see if it picks up the network automatically but fails to do so. If I could get past the blinking amber light I would have some progress. I once called support and I was told to "rescan" about twenty to thirty times to see if it would connect and it has failed using this method as well.

Time Machine disk and Airport Extreme issues

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