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.

Similar Messages

  • 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 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.

  • HT201250 Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?

    Can I use Time Machine on two different Macs to back up to one external drive?
    I have one 1T Western Digital backup drive that works well with Time Machine and my MacBook Pro.  I now want to back up my wife's MacBook Air using Time Machine on her Mac and want to know if I can use the same WD external drive or if I need to get a 2nd back up drive?  If I can use one external drive for the two Macs do I need to do something special on the drive or will Time Machine do it automatically?

    Yes. You will need to configure Time Machine preferences on each computer to backup to the same drive. Note that you cannot connect the backup drive to both machines at the same time.

  • Can the time machine be accessed remotely over the internet?

    Hi, I am thinking about purchasing the time machine. Can the hard drive on the time machine be accessed remotely over the internet?

    Do you realize that if you store some of your Mac's data (photos, music, etc.) ONLY  on the external Time Capsule, AND also  store your "Time Machine" app "system backups" on the Time Capsule,then if the Time Capsule hard drive ever fails you will have lost the " original" and the "backup" copies of all that data  (photos, music, etc.)?  They will be gone forever.  NOT recommended!

  • Time Machine with two computers - "You do not have sufficient access privileges"

    I am currently running an Intel-based iMac at home and was recently given a new Intel-based MacBook Pro to use for work.  The iMac at home is running Leopard and the MacBook is running Snow Leopard.  After I loaded all of the necessary files from the home computer to the work computer (using the files on my external that I use for time machine backups), I decided to use the same external hard drive to use as the Time Machine for both computers.  However, now whenever I try to access the Time Machine Backups from the opposite computer, I am told that I "do not have sufficient access privleges."  E.g., when I try to open the TM MacBook files on the iMac or vice versa, I recieve this message.  Opening the files that were backed up on the same computer is no problem.
    Any thoughts? Thanks!

    kabbydriver- No, no, no, no no! Do not screw around with permissions on the sparse bundle or the mounted disk image. Dude, this is the third bad advice from you I've read in the last hour. Isn't it enough that one of your responses violated the forum terms of use and had to be deleted? It's time to give it a rest; come back another day.
    UCOdoublebass- You need to create a different Time Machine backup for each Mac. Two Macs cannot backup to the same Time Machine backup image. Read this to get started learning about your options:
    http://www.macworld.com/article/131841/2008/01/multiplebackup.html

  • Using Time Machine for two computers, not simultaneously.

    Using a WD external HD via Firewire 800 to backup my main computer with Time Machine. I use my 13" MacBook Pro while away from home for weeks, then putting it away when home. (Note: not networking between them.) I do want each computer to be identical so that when I leave with my MacBook, my programs and data are the same. I do have MobileMe at both locations. Can I update the MacBook before going back to it by disconnecting Time Machine from my iMac, connecting Time Machine to my MacBook Pro via Firewire 800 and restoring?
    Thanks for your help.

    Using a WD external HD via Firewire 800 to backup my main computer with Time Machine. I use my 13" MacBook Pro while away from home for weeks, then putting it away when home. (Note: not networking between them.) I do want each computer to be identical so that when I leave with my MacBook, my programs and data are the same. I do have MobileMe at both locations. Can I update the MacBook before going back to it by disconnecting Time Machine from my iMac, connecting Time Machine to my MacBook Pro via Firewire 800 and restoring?
    Thanks for your help.

  • Time Machine backup to remote shared external HD

    I've read through a lot of posts about this and I'm stuck.
    I have a MacBookPro and a Mac Air.
    Both are on the same WiFi network.
    The MacBookPro has a firewire drive attached.
    The MacBookPro has File Sharing on and a "TimeMachine" partition on the external FW drive is "shared".
    From the Air I can "Connect As" a standard user account on the MacBook Pro.
    I can "Mount" the "TimeMachine" partition on the Air
    Problem: When I use System Preferences...TimeMachine and search for a drive to use for backup it does not see the mounted remote partition.
    Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated!
    -- Randy

    It might help to backup and tell you what I'm trying to accomplish, overall.
    I am trying to use Time Machine backup for two computers on a large external FW drive. The FW drive will be connected to my MBP and the Air will use the WiFi shared connection. Earlier you answered another question of mine about merging Time Machine backups and I realized that the best approach is to start fresh with a new external HD that I can reformat, etc.
    I use SuperDuper and Drive Genius as my HD tools.
    So, I'm able to take my new LaCie drive and partition/format it anyway that will work best with Time Machine.
    I'd like to attempt to use my Time Machine backup from this last month (on "TimeMachineBackup") by moving it to the "TimeMachine1" partition and then have the two machine send both of their backups to that drive.
    My steps this morning were aimed at verifying that WiFi Time Machine backup works, but, maybe with your guidance and suggestions I can just move directly to a suggested configuration.
    Thanks for your help. It is appreciated.
    -- Randy

  • Operating Time Machine over a remote Back to My Mac connection is a challenge -- can I do restores in Terminal?

    When operating Time Machine remotely via Back to My Mac (and by remotely, I mean from Illinois to Ohio ), seeing your remote mouse cursor is largely a no-go, even in Lion. It simply does not get displayed, with very minor, flickering exceptions.  Certainly it becomes impossible to operate the Time Machine's Finder window in any mouse-clicking way.  I can barely operate the CANCEL or RESTORE buttons, and that's if I help myself by mousing over from outside the Screen Sharing Window, and kind of estimating if I am over the button area.  Similarly, I can get the mouse to give me some approximate date in the backups progression.  But the way to select a file, I found, is through arrow-keys.  I can get to the right directory before starting the Time Machine, and I can navigate to the correct file with much delay using the arrow-keys.  In short, it's a major freaking pain, because of all the lag and invisible mouse. 
    But I was able to do what I needed, given enough pain and perseverance.
    Question:  Given the impoverished visuals for mouse operations, is there a way to do this on the command line, not through the moving galaxy syntactic sugar that just gets in the way?  Can I run the whole restore operation in Terminal?  Of course, still via Back to My Mac, because I don't know how to get to the remote iMac in any other way remotely, given that it sits behind a cable modem and a Time Capsule router with NAT.  And I don't want to set up port forwarding, if I don't have to.
    Thanks for reading, and I'll take your considered expert advice.
    -- Marek

    Well, I have now reformatted/partitioned my poor WD Elements 2TB drive about a dozen times as well as restarted my 1TB Time Capsule so many times it's no wonder it's as confused as I am! <G>
    Last night, at your suggestion, William, and in respect for your continued support, I tried creating two 1TB Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partitions on the WD external USB drive, both with GUID partition tables. Both volumes mounted to my laptop's desktop flawlessly and without issue.
    Once the external drive was connected to the Time Capsule, however, it was a crap shoot as to whether or not the drive was recognized at all, reporting a problem with the disk, or, even at one point, mounting one of the two volumes but not both. <sigh>
    I read somewhere on the Internet that you need to restart the Time Capsule for volumes on an external USB drive to be recognized.
    So I tried that. I connected the freshly partitioned/formatted disk to the Time Capsule and restarted it. This succeed in removing the issue of reporting a nameless drive with a capacity of 0MB. It then reported the drive with its correct name but would not recognize whatever volumes in whatever partitions that particular crack at it contained with the exception of the once, as I mentioned above, when only one of two volumes mounted correctly and was listed with the right name and capacity on the Time Capusule's Setup's Disk tab.
    At this point I have given up on my goal to use the external drive with Time Machine to back up my Macs or to hope I will ever be able to see its contents remotely via Back to My Mac. All I would like to do now is simply find a reason why I can't get it successfully connected and playing nice with my Time Capsule in the first place!
    Any further suggestions or advice as to what steps I might take next would be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you all.

  • Can I use Time Machine on two different Hard Drives?

    Hi, I have a Time Capsule on which I make my Time Machine back up every time, but I also want to back up all my data on another external HD using Time Machine as well... how can I do that? Thx

    Alfonso, let me give you a warning. What you want to do should work, but does not work well for me. Here's my story:
    I have Time Machine (TM) backing up a MacBook Pro to a Time Capsule (TC) on my home wired network. First backup (BU) took 24 hours. Subsequent incremental backups were very fast and convenient. All was working well.
    About 6 weeks setting up TM/TC, I had to take my MacBook in for repairs. Being paranoid, I wanted a second backup, so I connected the computer to an external LaCie drive via FW800. Second BU also took 24 hours, even over the MUCH faster firewire connection. That really hacked me off, so I got CarbonCloner and made a bootable image on another external LaCie drive over FW800. That took only 2 hours.
    I got the computer back from Apple after repairs and directed TM to start backing up to the original TC drive (no changes to the drive during repair). The TM software decided it had to do another initial backup! As I write this, it's been running 36 hours and has completed only 19 of 76 GB. This is MUCH MUCH worse than the first initial backup.
    I want to like this TM software because of the convenience, but it is really crap and unusable in my opinion. With my setup, I simply cannot switch to a second backup drive without triggering another lousy initial LONG BU process. Frankly, I really regret buying TC and trying TM.
    I used to use Retrospect with great success with the two external LaCie drives, but they went into the toilet when EMC bought them and spun them out. The quality of the software has really suffered and it is very buggy now.
    So, unfortunately, it looks like my best strategy is to use CarbonCloner and the two LaCie drives.

  • Why does Time Machine make two copies when backing up

    I use Time Machine to back up to an external harddrive and it is duplicating files, how can I fix this?

    Daisy Duke is a third party software app I bought on App Store that helps to find easily find files that you no longer want or need and delete to create more HD space.  I don't believe that I reformatted the source volume, is there a way to check for that.  I have been doing some research that talks about multiple users,  DD did show me the files under two different users and I wonder if it showing me the file but is not really on there twice.  As you can probably tell by now I can get around a computer for personal use but do not have much hardware or software experience.

  • Can Time Machine combine two HDs into one big one?

    I know Mountain Lion added the ability to use multiple HDs simultaneously (I have done this). As it stands, it just rotates among the different HDs each time it does a backup. Is there a way to have OSX combine two HDs to make a 'virtual' bigger HD?
    The reason I ask this is because my existing iMac has a 1TB internal hard drive. I have two external LaCie drives of 2 TB each that I use for Time Machine. I'm planning on getting one of the new iMacs and custom-ordering it with a 3TB internal drive. Obviously a 2TB drive won't fit, but if OSX can combine the two HDs virtually, it'll end up with a 4TB volume, right? Can it do that?

    A hardware RAID is as reliable as the hardware. I believe the LaCie product you mention is a hardware RAID. I have no opinion of its reliability, and I don't know whether you can configure it as a mirrored RAID.
    Maybe I should clarify. I see no reason to use a RAID for backup unless you need the space. If you need a 6 TB Time Machine volume, you have to use a RAID -- striped, not mirrored. For the safety of your data, regardless of the amount, you need redundant backups, not RAID. That is, you should have at least two independent backups, at least one of which is off site at all times.

  • Time Machine mixed two backups

    We have two Macs (call them a.local and b.local) sharing one Time Capsule. We've been using that system for two years without a problem.
    Just to be prudent, I delayed the upgrade to Maverick until the .1 release came out. We upgraded to Maverick last week.
    Hovever, Time Machine now backs-up both Macs to the same .sparsebundle (call it a.sparsebundle).
    How can I restore order in this confusion?

    Start with A4 in the 1st linked article.
    Time Machine Troubleshooting
    Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems

  • Using Time Machine with two external hard drives

    Hi. I use Time Machine to back up the hard disk on my MacBook Pro onto a Western Digital external drive. For secure storage of family photos and things we don't want to lose, I would like to do the following:
    For a week or two, back up my MacBook Pro onto a Western Digital drive. Let's call this WD Drive 1. Then walk downstairs and put WD Drive 1 in a fireproof safe. For the next week or two, back up my MacBook Pro onto a different Western Digital drive. Let's call this WD Drive 2. Then put WD Drive 2 in the safe, take out WD Drive 1, and use WD Drive 1 as the back-up medium for the next week or two. Then keep alternating between WD Drive 1 and WD Drive 2 every couple weeks. This way, I will always have up an to date back-up on the WD drive that is connected to the MacBook Pro, and I also will have a two-week old back-up on the WD drive in the safe in case of a fire or something.
    Can Time Machine be used in this manner, alternating between two different external back-up disks? Will Time Machine "know" when I change external drives and manage all back-up files appropriately?
    Thank you!

    pomme4moi wrote:
    Can Time Machine be used in this manner, alternating between two different external back-up disks? Will Time Machine "know" when I change external drives and manage all back-up files appropriately?
    Yes. Each drive will have an independent set of backups; and each will be a complete "snapshot" of the way your system looked at the time of the backup.
    When you swap drives, the first backup will be somewhat longer, and may involve a "deep traversal," while Time Machine "catches up" with all the changes since the last backup to that drive.
    And try not to go too long between swaps; it's undocumented, so we don't know the exact parameters, but after at least 10 days (apparently), Time Machine may do a new, full backup instead of an incremental one of changes only.
    And you only need to worry about Time Machine deleting old backups if you've deleted the originals from your system; TM will never delete the backups of anything that's still there.
    But . . .
    As MusicWind says, thats' probably not the best strategy. One of the reasons you want dual backups is because no hardware is perfect -- it all fails, sooner or later, right? Similarly, no app is perfect, either. The "works" of Time Machine are more complex than most backup apps; it's pretty reliable, but if you're going to have dual backups, you're probably a bit safer with a different app for your secondary backups.
    I don't know about SuperDuper, but CarbonCopyCloner does have an "archive" feature, where it will keep copies of things you've deleted. I've never used it, so don't know just how it works.
    Also see Kappy's post on Basic Backup, complete with links to the web sites of each product.
    p.s.: Don't try copying Time Machine's dated folders; you'll get a complete copy of your entire system.

  • Time machine backups to remote volumes

    Hi all,
    Been having trouble with backing up a Lion system onto a remote (network) volume.  The idea is basically to back up a (client) Mac onto a disk hosted by another Mac (the backup server).
    I can get the initial backup to work:
    1. share the disk to back up to on the backup server via File Sharing, and ensure to use an administrator account at the client Mac to log onto in order for it to see the backup disk.
    2. mount the backup disk over the network onto the client Mac.
    3. get Time Machine to select that network disk as a backup disk.
    4. start the backup.
    All this works, and I am left with a good initial backup.  However, subsequent backups fail with the following message after the client Mac is next rebooted:
    The syslog shows some rather perculiar difficulty in managing its backup disks:
    15/12/11 11:44:31.309 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
    15/12/11 11:44:31.436 PM com.apple.backupd: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://Tony%20Kavadias@L%C3%B3rien._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Rivendell
    15/12/11 11:44:31.792 PM com.apple.backupd: Mounted network destination at mountpoint: /Volumes/Rivendell-1 using URL: afp://Tony%20Kavadias@L%C3%B3rien._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Rivendell
    15/12/11 11:45:10.045 PM com.apple.backupd: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Rivendell-1 (FSVolumeRefNum: -104; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
    15/12/11 11:45:10.046 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
    15/12/11 11:46:10.108 PM com.apple.backupd: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/Rivendell-1
    15/12/11 11:46:46.912 PM com.apple.backupd: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Rivendell-1 (FSVolumeRefNum: -104; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
    15/12/11 11:46:46.913 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting 60 seconds and trying again.
    15/12/11 11:47:46.967 PM com.apple.backupd: Network destination already mounted at: /Volumes/Rivendell-1
    15/12/11 11:48:23.618 PM com.apple.backupd: Failed to eject volume /Volumes/Rivendell-1 (FSVolumeRefNum: -104; status: -47; dissenting pid: 0)
    15/12/11 11:48:23.618 PM com.apple.backupd: Giving up after 3 retries.
    15/12/11 11:48:33.630 PM com.apple.backupd: Backup failed with error: 21
    More digging around leads to the observation that /Volumes/Rivendell-1 (the filesystem that Time Machine mounts from the backup server) is now stuck and cannot be unmounted—to get rid of it, I have to reboot the client Mac.  And that the sparse disk image file Annuminas.sparsebundle is mounted read-only when Time Machine attempts to mount it for writing subsequent backups to!
    The only way I can recover is to erase the backup and start another initial one, but that defeats the purpose of having a continuously running Time Machine backup.
    The client Mac is running Mac OS X 10.7.2 Lion, while the backup server is running Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.  The latter is really just using AFP services to export a disk to the network, whereas Lion is using Time Machine to make backups on the network disk.
    Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.  Many thanks,
    —tonza

    Oh... discovered something odd... the Time Machine Backups volume (that is the volume that is mounted from the Annuminas.sparseimage file on the fileserver) is being mounted read-only!
    /dev/disk0s2 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
    devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
    map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
    map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
    afp_000000004oMw0oYHtK1bbUQr-1.2d000004 on /Volumes/Rivendell (afpfs, nobrowse)
    /dev/disk1s2 on /Volumes/Time Machine Backups (hfs, local, nodev, nosuid, read-only)
    How is Time Machine going to write to a read-only volume?!  This is not making any sense!
    If there is one thing I do know about the BSD kernel is that filesystems are mounted read-only if it has been detected by the filesystem driver that a volume is marked dirty or corrupt.  Another thing I'll do is check via Disk Utility that Time Machine Backups needs to be fixed.  If Time Machine is indeed making faulty sparse images, it may be due to Snow Leopard's AFP server after all.
    —tonza

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