Time machine large amount of computers

We are a school looking to invest in 60 macbook pro's. I thought it woudl be a great idea if I could use time machine to backup all of these macs. Does anyone recommend a nas that would be capable of doing this? I undestand there are some hurdles like the first backup taking a long time.
Any suggestions?
thanks

the question must be asked, backup to a restore point where its all configured and applications on it
in which case HD clones or SSD clones to HD would be recommended.
Or, are you referring to perpetual data backups to additional data created on said 60+ Macbooks?
Time machine is NOT for backing up to a NAS
see:
http://pondini.org/TM/2.html
You would want autonomous backups for each (or several at a time) Macbook, otherwise you create a bad choke point for data failure.
such that: (large 4TB HD for example with multiple macbook TM backups goes down / crashes, then its bad news).
Several options exist, your considerations are
1. ease of use
2. cost
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

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Is it possible to back up an external hard drive to Time Machine from two different computers without creating two different records?

I have an external hard drive that I do my work on. I use it on my office MacPro and on my MacBook Pro. I have Time Machine setup on both computers to back up the external hard drive to a remote backup drive, but when it backs it up, the backup goes into either the MacPro record of it, or the MacBook Pro record. The effect of this is that if I'm at my laptop and I need to access an earlier version of a file that existed when I was working on my MacPro, I can't access it.
Is it at all possible to create a universal record (or Sparse Disk Image Bundle to use Apple lingo) for my external hard drive?

Hi BDAqua,
Thanks for your help as always, sorry I never thanked you earlier, finally got some time to attend this.
I'm in the mail folder in the library of my user name. Just to make sure I get all my mail boxes I'm going to archive simply the whole 'Mail' folder after going in to the library of my unsername.
I notice you mentioned about importing there .... I've seen the .emix files you mention .... i have 30,000+ of them.
What I find helpful in mail is that if I type a client's second name, in this case 'Lopez' I can pull up all the mails relating to him in an instant, around 450. Obviously it would be impossible to pick through 30K .emix files to find the right ones .... so could I easily import them in to my Mail on my new computer?
Could I select the whole lot of them, then drag and drop them in to my new Mail on the new computer, and then use the search function on Mail? ... the normal desktop search function doesn't seem to look through the emix files, or emails for that matter.
Also, just as an extra precaution, could I make a smart folder in Mail with the name of said client for example for, then archive that folder separately?
TY
Message was edited by: Scottishengineer

Time Machine to keep two computers synced

After lugging my 13" macbook pro back and forth to class I finally bit the bullet and got an 11" macbook air. I would love to use Time Machine to keep these two computers synced easily. Is that an option to simply backup the pro and then apply the changes to the air? Also, if I restore the air to the backup that was made with the pro will all of my programs and applications transfer or will I need to re-purchase all of them?

mhale11 wrote:
After lugging my 13" macbook pro back and forth to class I finally bit the bullet and got an 11" macbook air. I would love to use Time Machine to keep these two computers synced easily. Is that an option to simply backup the pro and then apply the changes to the air?
No. This is not something that TM does.
Also, if I restore the air to the backup that was made with the pro will all of my programs and applications transfer or will I need to re-purchase all of them?
It will depend - most should work fine.

Time machine on two remote computers

I'm trying to set up Time Macine on two Macbooks, using one external hard drive. One is a work laptop and one is a personal laptop. They do not share the same network. How do I get access privileges for what's backed up on my work computer when I'm on my home computer? It won't even give me the opportunity to put in my password, it just says I do not have privileges. Help! Thank you!

Is it possible to have a hard drive connected to one computer physically backing up on Time Machine and have another computer wirelessly connect on the same network and have its own Time Machine backups on that hard drive?
Yes. I have an iMac with an external drive connected. The iMac is connected to the network via Ethernet. My wireless iBook connects to the network and uses the iMac's external drive as the destination for it's Time Machine backup.

Time Machine with Two Separate Computers?

Is it possible to have a hard drive connected to one computer physically backing up on Time Machine and have another computer wirelessly connect on the same network and have its own Time Machine backups on that hard drive? Can the wireless computer be backed up out of the main network?

Is it possible to have a hard drive connected to one computer physically backing up on Time Machine and have another computer wirelessly connect on the same network and have its own Time Machine backups on that hard drive?
Yes. I have an iMac with an external drive connected. The iMac is connected to the network via Ethernet. My wireless iBook connects to the network and uses the iMac's external drive as the destination for it's Time Machine backup.

Viewing Time Machine Backups of other computers

I recently got a new computer and the started with a fresh install. I am slowly copying files back over as I need them. I set up time machine for the new machine to the same disk. Now however I can't see the backup of the old disks through time machine. Is there a setting somewhere to do this or is there a way to see the old machines back ups?

chaseholden wrote:
It seems to me that Time Machine used to display an option to "Browse other Time Machine backups."
[snip]
In Time Machine (or somewhere) it used to say "Browse other Time machine Backups."
I cannot seem to find that option any longer?
If you have TM in the menu bar or the Dock, hold down the option key as you choose the TM menu or the TM icon in the Dock.

Can an external drive connected to an airport express be used as a time machine drive for networked computers?

Help or trick appreciated. Thanks

The AirPort Express will not support a hard drive at all if you are connecting to the USB port.
While the AirPort Extreme will support a hard drive, Apple does not support Time Machine backups in this type of setup.

Time Machine- Large to Small Hard Drive

Recently, my hard drive crashed and so I was forced to get a new one. My old one was a 500GB and I have about 205GB backup up on time machine. I bought a 240GB SSD to replace it. When I try to use time machine to restore it, however, it says that there is not enough space on the new HD to restore from this backup.
Now I have put OS X back on the macbook, and put some of my files on it. I have backed it up on time machine, and it's around the same size as the old one, ~200GB. To test it, I tried to restore from this backup and it works. I'm still missing some stuff, though, and would really like to avoid other solutions and just use time machine to restore everything to the way it was. I would rather not use migration assistant or something like that.
So it seems that the source for the backup (500GB) is affecting what I can restore to my new hard drive (240GB), even though there's only 200GB to restore. Does anyone know how to solve this problem?
Thanks!

Well then maybe you should return the SSD you bought and either buy a bigger one or one of the Seagate XT series drive that is both SSD/Flash storage and Rotating HDD all in one package. a 750GBs model is selling for around $100. I bought one about 4 months ago from Amazon for $90 on special. Runs great, almost as fast as an SSD and tons of space.
But it does not matter how boig the drive was the time machine backupwas made on what size the drive you aere restoring to. As long as what you are restoring is smaller than the size of drive you are restoring to. That has been my experience for a few years now. Like I said in a pervious post. I restored a TM backup that was made from a 500GB drive to one that was 127GB.
I really do think it was you deleting files out of that TM backup that is causing it to fail to restore.
That is why your new TM back restored no problems to that same size SSD.

Time machine+WD mybookworld-multiple computers using time machine-possible?

Hello
i have 2 macbookpro's and a wd mybookworld 1 terabyte.
i would like to use it for backing up using time machine but for both laptops, is this possible?
thanks so much in advance

Hello and thanks very much for your help
situation:
both macbookpros are running 10.5.8 at the moment.
the drive is WD mybookworld 1 terabyte, i couldn't find whether it supports HFS or not
just found that the folders in the drive have NFS, CIFS, FTP, AFP capabilities.
1:
what i've successfully done is associate one of the laptops with the drive wirelessly and via ethernet with time machine.
How ever, when i tried to connect the second laptop (wirelessly or ethernet) it couldn't "find" the drive in time machine (under choose disk)
* [i suspect that once one computer "associates" itself with the drive another one cannot?
what can i do?]
2:
(it should be noted that i tried to remove any association the 1st computer has with the drive and followed instructions saying to delete the .backupdb- "put in trash bin and empty"
having done that still one computer can see the drive in time machine and the 2nd computer cannot.
* [question- maybe i have to delete the sparsebundle file from the WD drive as well?]
help!

One Time Machine drive for two computers

Okay I know that I can use one drive for my macbook pro and my iMac. But, I am wanting to keep both my computer connected to the drive, without having to disconnect one and then hooking up to the other. Is there a way for both computer to recognize the drive and pull from it for backups. Can a usb switch solve this problem or is there software that will work. Also if there is a way to do this I know that i will have to off set the backup time so that both computers are not writing to it at the same time. Thanks in advance,
Adam

you can't have a drive directly plugged in into two computers at once. what you can do is keep it plugged into one computer, back up that computer directly and back up the other computer over network (wireless or ethernet). you don't need to worry about overlapping backup times. the OS will take care of it itself.

Can time machine back up 2 computers

I have an iMac and a MacBook Pro and would like to know if I can use one drive to back up both computers. If so, does each computer need to be hard wired to the back up drive? Thanks

There are several ways to approach this.
You can partition the disk into 2 parts, and have the iMac use one partition, and the Macbook Pro use the other. You woud need to manually plug the disk into each Mac one at a time. That is to say, you CANNOT plug the drive into both Macs at the SAME time.
You could again partition the disk and have the iMac use one of the partitions, but mount it on your iMac, then enable System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing on the iMac. The Macbook Pro mounts the OTHER partition, and then tells the Macbook Pro TimeMachine to use the mounted shared file system for TimeMachine backup.
You could look at other network backup solutions (I use CrashPlan (free option) to backup from my Macbook Pro to a Mac mini in my home; also my Wife's Macbook Pro and Macbook Air, as well as my Mom's iMac (300 miles away)).

I get prompts from time to time that large amounts of Mb are being used what is causing this?

I am getting prompts that my Mb usage is very high and I should close Firefox and open it again. Can you tell me what is causing this and how to prevent this in the future? Is it possible I need to "delete" Firefox and download it again? Thank you

There is a known issue where multiple instances of plugin container open if history or cookies are cleared. Are you, or some utility clearing firefox cookies or history, that could be the reason. This problem continues even if plugins are disabled in Firefox.
*Are you opening multiple instances of Flash Player ?
* Is the problem reproducible ? <br/> for instance does it always crash the plugin or cause it to hang if you use a particular site ?
If you get the FlashPlayer plugin crashing use the option to submit the crash reports, it is then possible to follow them up. It is possible to stop the plugincontainer opening, but that could result in a firefox crash. Of course the firefox crash can also send crash reports out, and that could be useful.
* see [[plugin crash reports]]
* [[what is plugin-container]]
* [[firefox crashes]]
There are some problems with FlashPlayer currently under investigation, and there may be other threads in the forum about problems. (e.g. Bug 561019 - Plugin waveOutOpen hangs )
Sometimes using Firefox 3.6 is a workaround that helps with FlashPlayer problems, if you wish to experiment with that consider installing firefox Portable and using Firefox 3.6.23 (or soon 3.6.24) for tests with flash player, whilst keeping firefox 7 for day to day browsing.
* [[http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/localization#legacy36]]

Freeze when writing large amount of data to iPod through USB

I used to take backups of my PowerBook to my 60G iPod video. Backups are taken with tar in terminal directly to mounted iPod volume.
Now, every time I try to write a big amount of data to iPod (from MacBook Pro), the whole system freezes (mouse cursor moves, but nothing else can be done). When the USB-cable is pulled off, the system recovers and acts as it should. This problem happens every time a large amount of data is written to iPod.
The same iPod works perfectly (when backupping) in PowerBook and small amounts of data can be easily written to it (in MacBook Pro) without problems.
Does anyone else have the same problem? Any ideas why is this and how to resolve the issue?
MacBook Pro, 2.0Ghz, 100GB 7200RPM, 1GB Ram Mac OS X (10.4.5) IPod Video 60G connected through USB

Ex PC user...never had a problem.
Got a MacBook Pro last week...having the same issues...and this is now with an exchanged machine!
I've read elsewhere that it's something to do with the USB timing out. And if you get a new USB port and attach it (and it's powered separately), it should work. Kind of a bummer, but, those folks who tried it say it works.
Me, I can upload to Ipod piecemeal, manually...but even then, it sometimes freezes.
The good news is that once the Ipod is loaded, the problem shouldnt' happen. It's the large amounts of data.
Apple should DEFINITELY fix this though. Unbelievable.
MacBook Pro 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Is it possible to include an Airdisk in a Time Machine backup?

I currently have a large itunes library on a HD hooked up to my AEBS that is shared between my iMac and my wife's Macbook. I picked up a 1TB HD and a USB hub to use as a time machine drive for both computers and hooked it all up to the AEBS and started time machine. It seems to be doing the initial backup ok, the only problem is I can't figure out how to get it to also backup the contents of the HD with all my music on it. Is there a way to include an airdisk in a time machine backup?
(sorry about double posting...put this in the wrong forum originally)

Unfortunately, Time Machine will not backup a NAS (e.g. AirDisk). AirDisk can be used as a TM backup drive as you have already discovered. The only way to backup the iTunes library on your HDD is to connected directly to your Mac. TM will be able to back up to your 1TB HDD connected to your Extreme. If you are dead set with keeping your iTunes connected to your Extreme, I believe CarbonCopyCloner (donateware) or SuperDuper! (purchase) may support backup of a NAS to a NAS.
P.S. I've notified the moderator to remove your second post.

Using Time Machine in Corporate Environment

Hi, I have a question regarding time machine in a corporate environment. Instead of purchasing a time capsule, I thought it would be straight forward to share a large drive and have our ten Mac Pro computers share that drive for a time machine. This seemed to work for my test computer.
I then went to install it on one of our Mac Pros. I was able to map the shared drive but Time Machine did not recognize it. This made me take a step back and wonder if this use is even a good way to set it up. I read online where others were sucessfully setting up time machine using shared drives. Do I need to purchase a time capsule to use time machine on these ten computers? If so, will that configuration work over a wired network.
Thanks for any input.
-Stephen

soliveto wrote:
Hi, I have a question regarding time machine in a corporate environment. Instead of purchasing a time capsule, I thought it would be straight forward to share a large drive and have our ten Mac Pro computers share that drive for a time machine. This seemed to work for my test computer.
I then went to install it on one of our Mac Pros. I was able to map the shared drive but Time Machine did not recognize it. This made me take a step back and wonder if this use is even a good way to set it up. I read online where others were sucessfully setting up time machine using shared drives. Do I need to purchase a time capsule to use time machine on these ten computers?
No, not necessarily. You can connect one (or more) drives to one Mac. That Mac would back-up directly, of course; others on the same network can back up to the same drive(s) either via WIFI or Ethernet. See #22 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum. In this case, the Mac being backed-up directly should have it's own partition on the backup drive; the others could each have one, or could all share one.
You could back them all up to a Time Capsule (although with that many Macs, you'd almost certainly have to connect one or more USB drives to it for some of them to back up to). See #Q1 and Q2 in the Using TIME MACHINE with a TIME CAPSULE *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Time machine large amount of computers

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