Time machine osx server backup to multiple drives?

Hello,
I've just discovered Time Machine for Mac OSx Server. It can act as a centralizad point for the backups of all the computers in the network, how cool!
I know that Time Machine "client" can back a system up to multiple drives. My question is, can I do something similar with Time Machine "server" so I can have more than one storage product onto which I can back up all the systems? That would be very interestin if I want to implement a off-site backup from all my systems.
I would love to hear your inputs.Thanks in advance,
Regards,

I don't know. If the TM preference pane is scriptable then you could do it with an AppleScript. Unfortunately, TM is not designed to also schedule different backup times. For example, assume you could automate drive switching, you still need to tell TM to backup to one drive at some time then backup to another drive at a different time.
I suppose the latter could be done via a cron job as long as you did not use TM preferences to turn TM on in which case it will backup each hour automatically.
It seems to me you'd be better off using a different backup utility that would allow you to schedule such backups. For example:
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
10. Tri-Backup (Commercial)
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Not all of the above will backup over a network, but most can backup to any mounted device including a network drive except SuperDuper!.
In an enterprise setting your best choice of the above is Retrospect. There are a few other enterprise level backup utilities (costly) that you can track down at VersionTracker or MacUpdate. BRU is an example.
Oh, and if you know how to use the command line you can use the Unix tools, ditto and rsync.
Message was edited by: Kappy

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JsPr wrote:
I have tried setting up Time MAchine "from scratch" but it still won't backup the esata drive.
I'm out of ideas, perhaps someone out there can help?
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Can I restore a time machine osx lion backup using snow leopard install DVD?

Hi.
I've been using osx lion but my hard drive died. Fortunately I have been making time machine backups. Since I downloaded lion from the app store I only have the snow leopard install disks.
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Time Machine "read-only" error across multiple drives

Hello,
I've been having an ongoing problem for more than a year now. I continually get a "read-only" error message from Time Machine. To be specific, the message is: "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only. You may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can’t be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk."
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Hello,
I've been having an ongoing problem for more than a year now. I continually get a "read-only" error message from Time Machine. To be specific, the message is: "Time Machine could not complete the backup. Files can’t be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read-only. You may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can’t be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open Time Machine preferences to select a different backup disk."
The problem is, this has happened with three separate backup drives. They are all G-Tech 2TB 4th Generation G-Drive external hard drives. So I'm wondering if there may be a Mac OS software problem, or perhaps a hardware problem.
There's a lot to this story, so if you're game, read on.
First, about a year ago, I noticed that my Mac Pro frequently spontaneously ejected the backup drive, for no apparent reason. I didn't deal with the problem right away because I was having other, pressing troubles with my display (which took forever to solve).
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With the replacement drive, I was getting the same "read-only" message. So I tried a few times erasing/reformatting/repartitioning this drive. No luck.
So I was sent yet another replacement drive. I experienced the same problems, and in addtion, I once got a message saying the backup drive was full when it actually wasn't. So I tried a) using a different firewire cable, b) using this different cable on a different port. Same problems.
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Reset Time Machine Password to Backup Using External Drive

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I just tried to backup my files, all of a sudden Time Machine now asks me for a password which I don't remember setting. Time Machine Preferences looks like this.
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Dear Eric,
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I followed a couple of similar threads, but the situations don't seem to apply. I did install Time Machine buddy so I could see the error messages.
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If I remove the external drive from the backup, it starts to work again.

The mystery deepens . . .
I tried to replicate the problem. Renamed an empty partition from Misc2 to Misc2/test and copied some docs into it and ran a backup.
Sure enough, the message refers to it as Misc2:test and the deep traversal took almost a minute and a half (one folder, 3 sub-folders, total of about 30 items!), but it ran successfully.
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Edit: Some of your posts say you're on 10.5.3, others 10.6.2. Which is correct?
Message was edited by: Pondini

Time Machine doing full backup of external drive again

I have a Time Capsule, as well as an external data drive connected to my Mac. The external drive (named Yoda) is NOT excluded from backups. Yoda has about 703 GB of data on it.
I recently replaced the hard drive inside my time capsule. Consequently, a full backup was made, which was to be expected.
When the new full first backup was done, I disconnected the Yoda drive. A day later, I reconnected it, and now Time Machine is saying it's doing a 703 GB backup. Since the size TM indicates its backing up is ever so slightly larger than the total amount of data on Yoda, I'm assuming it's doing a full backup of the Yoda drive for some reason (the only other drive, the system drive, only has about 200 GB on it).
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Why is Time Machine repeating a full backup of this external drive? Is this going to happen every time I disconnect and reconnect the drive? Is there any way to make this not happen, short of excluding the drive (which I don't want to do)?

After posting this thread, I did find a similar thread (in the "More Like This" section) and saw your responses in it. You had suggested the same thing, as well as doing #A5 if that didn't work.
I tried #A4 and although that seemed to work in the other thread, unfortunately it didn't work for me. So I moved on to #A5, but I could not get my Time Capsule drive to show up in the Disk Utility. I didn't see a "data folder", but I did try directly dragging the sparsebundle to the left pane of the Disk Utility, but that seemed to hang Disk Utility.
At this point I'm probably going to try deleting the plist file as per #A4, erasing (reformatting) the drive, rebooting, and starting a whole new backup from scratch. It's not going to take much longer than backing up the entire external drive by itself would have, and I still have older backups (up to a few days ago) on the original Time Capsule drive in case of massive disaster.
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Time Machine: Cannot find backup (external hard drive)

Hello and thank you in advance for your help.
I have a MacBook Pro and am running OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard). I use TM to back up to a 500 GB LaCIe external hard drive, which has worked fine for over a year of ~monthly back-ups. The back-up porcess typically takes some time, but less than an hour or so. While backing up this week, it just halted....and was still backing up 24 hours later. I quit the back-up, dismounted and remounted the LaCie, tried again, but it still got stuck in the backup process overnight. After searching the forums, I used the disk utility to re-partition the LaCie to ensure it had only one partition. When I re-started TIme Machine, I got the message "Your Time Machine backup disk can't be found." It shows up in finder, but when I tried to find it in the TM Preferences, it's not there, so I cannot select it. I dismounted the LaCie, rebooted, and remounted the LaCie, but that didn't fix anything. Help, please?

Part 1 of my problem is fixed. I decided to run the disk repair and then re-do the partiton process, but this time, I kept the default name assigned to the partition by disk utility ("Untilted-1"). Now TM sees it, and is backing up. Part 2 remains to be seen. I expect it will take 24+ hours anyway, BC I reformatted the LaCie, and this is essentailly the first backup on a re-formatted hard drive.

How do I get Time Machine to ONLY backup my main drive?

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All true, and I do not actually use CCC that way. I use TM for my daily backup (actually, I have it set to run every 12hours), and I use SuperDuper for a pair of clones (one offsite) that I manually incremental update weekly or so. I also have CCC for a monthly additional clone that lives in my firesafe when not being updated.
There is an older freeware (or maybe it is donationware ?) utility named Time Machine Scheduler still around, but I do not know how or even if it runs on OS X 10.8, although it runs on 10.7 so may well work fine - it will let you specify a particular time to backup.
The default TM backup frequency can be easily modified from the command line:
sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 43200
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How much extra space does time machine need to backup a 512gig drive?

... in practice, how big does my backup drive need to be for 512gig primary drive?
I know time machine does "snap shots". I can imagine this takes extra space over and above 512gig.
What's your experience here?
Thanks

Web Wizard wrote:
Any other solutions to this quandary?
Yes, go with a smaller drive and be content to have oldest backups deleted more often.
If you don't need hourly backups, you can get a smaller disk and clone with SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner. You can schedule a backup nightly, if that enough.
The advantage of having a clone is that it is bootable in case you run into trouble on your internal, you can boot from the external and keep right on working until you have the time to fix it. You can also run repair programs from that disk.
-mj

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Time Machine will not backup Time Capsule drive

I was filling up my time capsule so I bought a new 2GB drive for my backups. It is attached as an air disk on the Time Capsule as I also use it to backup other computers in the house.
My problem is that I am now using the HDD in the time capsule for my iTunes and iPhoto library, so that they can also be shared, but they are not being backed up by TM.
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Time machine osx server backup to multiple drives?

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