Time Machine to Home Server to S3?

I am thinking of getting an HP Windows Home Server to use for my Time Machine backups. I hear that the Windows Home Server can backup to Amazon's S3 offline backups, which would be awesome.
Question is, will this work with the Time Machine portion on the Home Server?
I would only want it to send new data to Amazon, not the entire home server volume.
Does anyone have any experience with how this works?

That statement says absolutely nothing about whether Apple supports Windows Home Server & Time Machine.
The link points to the official Apple statement. Apple does not mention any other type of system as compatible. Forum members are really not in a position to modify that statement.
I have seen a report and advertisements that the ReadyNAS drives are being supported for Time Machine by NetGear. Apple doesn't mention them either, but if the NetGear backs their claim, then at least you have someone to go to for problems or updates. http://www.readynas.com/?cat=13
Pondini also mentions that there are hacks available for non-supported hardware, but we can't really promote non-standard methods here on Apple's support forum. There are many hints and tips sites that can say anything they want. Some of them are pretty good. You might even get some sort of on-going support by some of the larger groups.
I've been using Super Duper for a couple years.. I only recently got Leopard.
I also use it. The paid version allows me to schedule the backups and choose what to backup. It's a great program.
I haven't yet seen the reason to start using Time Machine.
Personal preference. With these 1TB drives selling for so cheap, it's pretty easy to do both. I can quickly restore old deleted files if I need them, and I have a bootable backup in case my boot drive dies and I need to get back to work. We use Time Machine Server in Leopard server on an old Dual G4 tower to our advantage. The users don't know or care that they are always backing up their files, until they need them
I have Windows Home Server to back up my PCs, and to provide centralized storage for my multimedia files.
So with your experience with this solution, have you had any luck with Time Machine backing up over the network to a product like it? Have you tried and failed, or had any success at all? I would have assumed that it wouldn't work unless the company specifically stated support for Time Machine.

Similar Messages

Time machine on Leopard server..

I'm considering having my clients (only 10) use Time Machine to perform backups of their User directories using Leopard Server. The current configuration has them using OD Mobile Accounts with Portable Home Directories.
My question is how Time Machine would be implemented.
Would I have to revert to Local Home Directories?
I would like each user to be able to use the Time Machine space view, allowing them to view previous versions of files and/or deleted files.
Thanks!

I'd also really like to know more about Time Machine on Leopard Server. I just purchased a copy of Server and am trying to figure out a good backup system. I haven't yet installed it, but once I do I'm interested in setting things up so that users can have their home directories on the server and log in from any machine. I've never really figured out if that will require Portable Home Directories or what.
At any rate, I'm not sure if users will have to set up their machines individually to target the server as a Time Machine destination (and then I'd just exclude those home directories from the server's Time Machine setup), or if I can just set the server to run Time Machine and then the users will be able to access all of their histories.
I really hope that it's the latter, because that would make changing things like the drive configuration on the server so much easier.
Greg

HT3275 Time machine at home and it will not allow me to remove the listing of my external hard drive from the excluded files list.

Please help guys, I have a Time machine at home and it will not allow me to remove the listing of my external hard drive from the excluded files list.
I am trying to use time machine to back up the hard drive. For backing up from Macbooik pro and Imac, there is no problem. It seems to not want to allow the external drive to be removed from the Excluded list and as such will not back up from it.
Is there a way to be able to transfer files (music, movies etc) to time machine, format the external drive then put the files back to hard drive?
Sorry it is a long winded question but it is driving me nuts that I cant sort this out.
The <Macbook and Imac are both running mountain lion.
Thanks Guys

As for the hard drive to which you have never been able to write, is it by any chance in NTFS format? OS X can read NTFS for importing files, but it does not contain code for writing on an NTFS volume. That's a choice, not a bug.
There is third-party software available to install NTFS-writing capability into OS X. An example is Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X. Another alternative would be to use a disk format that both Macs and Windows systems can use for both reading and writing; this would require either a new drive or erase the existing data.
If by "the new system software" you mean OS X 10.9 Mavericks, you may want to repost that portion of your query in the Mavericks forum at https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/os_x_mavericks . I haven't made the leap yet.
I don't know what other problems you have been having, so I cannot comment on them. You don't seem to have any other recent postings on these forums.

HT201250 Can I do a backup using Time Machine on a server, or it needs an external drive only?

Can I do a backup using Time Machine on a server, or it needs an external drive only?

Time Machine can back up to a server. The drive or partition used still needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
(65169)

Backups, time machine and share server screen

I've used Time Machine for point in time server backups, and a firewire external drive with Silverkeeper for cloning.
Firstly, Silverkeeper will not be supported in Lion... so maybe I should be mocing to something else? Intego Backup assistant came with the drive... as well as Silverkeeper.... I have no idea how reliable these are for cloning the drive, nor why I would need both... but no doubt Intego is a light version of something I would need to buy... so the quesiton would become... what should I buy?
Secondly..... Share Server Screen...
When I entered time machine using "Share Server Screen" from my imac (running lion).. time machine seems to run ok.. but the graphic interface isnt really usable... the time line down the side for instance..... does not appear.... and neither does the "today" bar across the bottom.... and of course... none of those star trek style flying stars we have all come to love so much.... So... I'm thinking that time machine is not compatible with "share server screen".... or I have doen something silly.... so which is it? :+)
Gaz

A lot of people prefer and use Carbon Copy Cloner for cloning drives, it is Lion compatible.
The animation (graphics) when you enter Time Machine is quite demanding, I have managed to view it using Timbuktu Pro a remote control package similar to Screen Sharing but it did struggle. Have you tried this more than once to confirm it is not working? A smaller screen resolution might help it cope.

Can no longer connect to Time Machine as a server

Have been using an external drive connected to the Time Machine to store my iTunes media files. All of a sudden, the computers on my home network can no longer access the drive as they now have problems connecting to the Time Machine server. However, the wireless router works just fine. Is anyone else experiencing this problem and if so, any advice on how to solve the problem? I can no longer access any of the content on the external drive through the Time Machine, although it appears in the Finder as a shared drive.

I presume you are on Mountain Lion.. it does have some network issues..
Try just rebooting.. and restart everything in the correct order..
Modem.. router/TC.. USB drive.. clients.. 2min gap between each.
If you still have issues do a verify of the drive.
See A5 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

How do I switch off Time Machine in Lion Server remotely?

So here's what I want to do:
I have a mac mini with OSX Lion Server running providing wireless backups for the laptops in the house. I want to rsync these backups, as sparsebundle images, to a machine at my work.
I have the rsync working over ssh correctly, and have verified that if I rsync a sparsebundle there and back again then everything works fine. However, this only works if the sparsebundle wasn't mounted at the time of the sync.
I can use 'ssh xxx@xxx "hdiutil info"' to determine if the image is mounted, but I would like ideally to be able to switch off time machine remotely for the duration of the rsync copy.
Does anyone know of a command-line way of switching off Time Machine in OSX Lion Server from the command line.
As an extra question, for bonus marks, is there any way of verifying that a sparsebundle is mountable from a windows machine?

I'm going to answer my own question:
I was more or less completely on the wrong track. When performing a networked time-machine backup the sparse bundle is mounted on the remote machine for one thing. So hdiutil won't tell me if the backup is going on.
Also, backing up the sparsebundle is probably a bad idea in general, since if it's corrupt then none of the files will be easily recoverable.
So instead I've written a bash script that
a) mounts the sparse bundle on the server machine. If this fails, then a backup is in progress. The script exits in this case, but I guess it could always try again
b) Performs an rsync on the contents of the sparsebundle
c) ejects the sparsebundle.
For those interested, here's the script. Note that I had to build rsync 3.0.9 to get this to work, the bundled rsync barfs on the hardlinks in time machine backups.
(go here http://www.behindtherack.com/?p=308 for the rsync build instructions).
And here's the script
#!/bin/bash
user=dave
remotehost=your.home.machine
remoteport=5050
sshkeyfile=~/ssh.key.file
imagepath="/Volumes/tmachine/Shared Items/Backups/machine-name.sparsebundle"
remotepath="/Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/machine-name/Latest/"
localpath=~/Local-backup-path
# mount path
mountresult=`ssh $user@$remotehost -p$remoteport -i $sshkeyfile "hdiutil mount \"$imagepath\" -readonly"`
devpath=${mountresult%% *}
# did the mount work out?
if [[ "$devpath" == /dev/disk* ]]
then
          echo "Mount succeeded, remote disk mounted to $devpath"
else
          echo $mountresult
          echo $devpath
          echo "Remote mount failed, exiting"
          exit
fi
# now run the rsync
/usr/local/bin/rsync -rv --rsync-path="/usr/local/bin/rsync" --rsh="ssh -p$remoteport -i $sshkeyfile -l $user" "$user@$remotehost:$remotepath" $localpath
# unmount sparsebundle
ssh $user@$remotehost -p$remoteport -i $sshkeyfile "hdiutil eject $devpath"

After Time Machine restore, Lion Server doesn't have services

My poor old server finally died, so I replaced it with new hardware. I wiped the hard drive, installed Lion fresh, and did a restore from Time Machine. However, when I run the Server Admin app, it says it was unable to connect to the machine.
I re-ran the Server Admin Tools install, and I also tried to connect via IP address.
I must have missed something, hopefully someone will have a tip. Thanks!

Not from Time Machine which is backing up only a file, not its individual contents. Either you restore iPhoto Library or not.
Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive
1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.
2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.
3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.
4. Get an external hard drive on which to store some of your files after which you can
erase the data from your internal drive to free up space.
5. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.
6. See Where did my Disk Space go?.
7. See The Storage Display.
You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.
You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.
Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Migrating Time machine files to Server

We have installed Lion Server on a system at home and we want to use it to hold all of the Time Machine backups from our other workstations.
I have a iMac that I have recently upgraded from a Macbook Pro and therefore I have a Time Machine backup on an external (USB) disk that goes back for a couple of years.
I've looked around and I can see how to set up the Time Machine service on the server, but I want to transfer the backup I had previously to the server and I can't see any mention of how to perform this migration. I really don't want to start a fresh backup if I can avoid it
Can some kind soul please point me in the right direction?
Thanks
Susan

Time Machine Backups are stored in Sparse-Images. You should use an own partition or a seperate harddrive on your server to store the backups. The problem is, that there's no way to set any kind of quota to the backups of the seperate users or machines, so take care to have enough free space on your backupdisk. I have migrated all timemachine backups from one disk to a new (bigger) one by cloning it with "Carbon Copy Cloner" to preserve all owner and access rights.
Backups are stored in a directory path "Shared Items -> Backups".
Try the following.
Attach a new disk to your server. Configure the TimeMachine Service to use this disk for Backups.
Switch off the TimeMachine Service.
Be aware that there's also the "normal" TimeMachine Backup for the Server itself, but we are speaking about the Service that provides backup for your network
Attache your old USB-Disk to the server and clone your old Backups to the new backupdisk on your server with CCC.
Unmount your old backupdisk and enable the TimeMachine Service.
You will need the same User on your server that you have on the machine where the old backup comes from.
Doublecheck that the Backup-Image belongs to the right user. This is important.
After this configure the Time Machine Backup on your client machine to use the backups on your server.
You should now be able to make new backups to the old Image on the server. Also try to restore an old file from your backup to make sure that you have access to files older then your migration date.
Best regards,
Mario Keller.

Is there Time machine compatible PC server software?

I'm a photographer and running a dual hard drive Macbook Pro and I've reached the point where my NAS backup drive is not big enough for Time Machine to backup to. In order for me to upgrade the backup drive I'm looking at about £500 ($750) as I need one big enough not just big enough.
I have an old PC that is currently running Windows Server and is connected to my network, which obviously isn't Time Machine compatible. As buying HDD is cheaper than pre-boxed NAS drives, I wanted to use this instead.
Is there any server software that is compatible with Time Machine and I can use to build a home server? If not, I'd best start saving and hope my laptop doesn't crash or get stolen.
Thanks in advance.

No, there's no supported means to target archival storage onto a Windows box with Time Machine.
As you're likely aware, Time Machine only supports specific devices as targets, and the file server are currently OS X Server, Time Capsule devices, and the most recent generation of AirPort Extreme devices with attached disks. Not Windows Server boxes, Linux or other gear.
More than a few folks and a few discussions and various hackery have allowed random devices to appear to work (and it's possible your NAS device has seen this same hackery), but whether those configurations will continue to work or will react appropriately during the inevitable network and device glitches is very far from certain. Among these sequences, whole-disk installs and related system restorations are key, but are also something that doesn't necessarily get thoroughly tested.
A Mac Mini running OS X Server can host a fair amount of connected storage, if you decide to replace or supplement your NAS.
For more information on Time Machine, start reading here.
It is possible to roll your own backups and to use third-party tools to perform the backups onto remote devices, and one of the more common recommendations here are based on a command line tool known as rsync. Copy your files over, and either acquire or custom-create your own archival processing. (If you're interested, search for previous discussions of rsync and backups for some of the available options, and there are tools and scripts available. rsync is pretty ugly to get going initially — it's arcane — but it works pretty well, and various folks have already figured out the syntax and posted example scripts.) Carbon Copy Cloner is an alternative to Time Machine, and there are others.
On the subject of creating your own custom software for these and related tasks, it's also possible to use software that targets photo studios and their related processing, and that manages the photos and videos and other assets, and that can manage backups and related processing, and various of these will deal with reprints and purchases and related. That's a bit further along than a backup device or a Time Machine backup, but it's something that might replace the requirements. (You probably don't care nearly as much about OS X and most other stuff here as that can be re-downloaded or reinstalled, it's your photos and your customer data that are key here, and that are not replaceable. That stuff is the core target for your backups.)

Should I use time machine to backup server?

moving from 10.4 server running on an emac, to a 10.5 setup on a mac pro tower, 2 500gig hard drives. I used to use silverkeeper as an automatic backup utility, I am wondering if it is a good idea to use time machine. I like the idea of being able to go back in time to restore users files, or take the system back when something gets messed up. Any suggestions? I have about 100 users with home directories on server. Clients are mostly running 10.4 with some 10.3. I am not talking about allowing clients to time machine to server, but rather backing up the entire server to the 2nd drive using time machine.

I think this is a controversial topic.
Apple certainly doesn't support it. Apple omits a bunch of key folders depending on what you use your server for. For example, Time Machine does not backup /var/spool which is where the mail store is located. Additionally, Time Machine does not back up logs.
These exclusions can be seen, and commented out, here:
/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Resources/StdExclusions.pli st
I personally comment out the exclusion of /var/spool and additionally any logs. I also set ServerAdmin to roll my logs so that Time Machine isn't constantly backing up the same log file for more than 7 days.
Of course, you must re-verify that your changes are in place after any software update.
Once I made these changes, I've been very happy with the use of Time Machine to backup my server.

Time Machine with OSX Server; what happened to the free disk space?

Hello all,
I am trying to do something that should be pretty simple. I have an iMac, with Mountain Lion and Server installed. My wife has a Mac Air. The goal was to get her to Time Machine backup through the wifi to my external hardrive. I think it is working, but here is the small catch. Last night, while getting it all going, it was saying "making buckup disk ready" through the night until now. Now it is actually doing the backup normally, i.e. I can see the data transferring. BUT, here is the question, in the mean time the external hardrive lost about 300gb of space which is the size of MY iMac backup. So I hope that when I turned on Time Machine it dosnt back up one time as my computer and another as a server. That may not make any sence at all.
Here is a screen shot of my external hardrive:
636.33 GB, before yesterday it was half that. But my wife's hardrive is 100 GB of Data.
Just a note, I had my hardrive wiped clean the other day before Mountain Lion was installed, and I have a "carbon copy" from before that on another hardrive. Can I delete the backup of MY machine and start over?
Thanks, I hope this is clear.
Best,
Justin

Hello all,
I am trying to do something that should be pretty simple. I have an iMac, with Mountain Lion and Server installed. My wife has a Mac Air. The goal was to get her to Time Machine backup through the wifi to my external hardrive. I think it is working, but here is the small catch. Last night, while getting it all going, it was saying "making buckup disk ready" through the night until now. Now it is actually doing the backup normally, i.e. I can see the data transferring. BUT, here is the question, in the mean time the external hardrive lost about 300gb of space which is the size of MY iMac backup. So I hope that when I turned on Time Machine it dosnt back up one time as my computer and another as a server. That may not make any sence at all.
Here is a screen shot of my external hardrive:
636.33 GB, before yesterday it was half that. But my wife's hardrive is 100 GB of Data.
Just a note, I had my hardrive wiped clean the other day before Mountain Lion was installed, and I have a "carbon copy" from before that on another hardrive. Can I delete the backup of MY machine and start over?
Thanks, I hope this is clear.
Best,
Justin

Time Capsule both: Time machine and file server

Hi!
We have 3 macs that has access to a Time Capsule we use just as a file server.
Now, I'll like to do backups of all the data, and I was thinking about using Time Machine in all the computers to backup in Time Capsule.
My question is, can I use Time Capsule as both? With Time Machine and also as a file server?
Thanks,
Júlia

Time Machine can be used to backup your Macs to the Time Capsule. You set this up on each Mac by opening System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock and then opening Time Machine to select the Time Capsule as the destination for backups.
Time Machine will keep separate files for each Mac on the Time Capsule and your regular files on the TC will be left alone. Ideally, Time Machine needs about twice as much space for each Mac to allow for a good history of future backups.
Backup each Mac one at a time since the first backup will copy everything from the Mac over.
Things will go 3-5 times faster if you connect the Mac to the Time Capsule using an Ethernet cable for this procedure.
Once the "master" backup is completed for each, you can switch back to wireless to backup incremental changes since these will only take a few minutes on average.
As you know, Time Machine cannot be used to backup the regular files that you already have on the Time Capsule disk. If you need to backup these files, post back for a few suggestions on applications that can handle this task.

HT2497 Using Time Machine for home wifi just fine. Switched to cable modem from DSL. Now having trouble connecting laptops to wifi. ISP says it is not their fault. Mac books won't connect on their own.

Changed from DSL to cable modem. Now Mac book pro won't connect to wifi - Time Machine?
One Mac ok, other not. Help?

Thanks. We have been using an existing Time Machine for wifi. Cable modem replaced DSL router and was hooked up to Time Machine. What's odd is that 3 computers and iPad2 are connecting to home wifi just fine, using exact same network and password as before. My Mac book pro and an older iPad are not. IPhones are also connecting to home wifi just fine. I managed to get my Mac book pro hooked one time by copying ip address from a Mac that was working (entered manually) then turning that one off. That's not what I need.
The error message is "no ip address".

Time Machine OS X server weirdness

Is this anything to worry about?
My external Time Machine drive is connected to a 2014 MBP through OS X sever software and shows file size "zero bytes" for this MBP's sparsebundle when I open the drive in a finder window, yet from within the server program Time Machine Backups it shows the backup size as I'd expect.The other MBP and the iMac show sparse bundle sizes in the finder window that are appropriate.
Details: I just installed OS X server on my 2010 MacPro to use an external 3TB Seagate drive for three other macs (2 MBP, 1 iMac). I "think" Time Machine is working because entering TM seems to work on all three macs. BUT, opening the backup drive in finder is weird. The 2009 MBP shows "Bob MBP 2009.sparsebundle" with 44 GB size, the iMac shows "iMac 2007" with no ".sparsebundle" after it and a file size of 175GB, and the "MBP 2014" shows "zero bytes" also with no ".sparsebundle" following. I've deleted this zero bytes sparse bundle and re-backedup, but get the same results.
All three initial backups were made with direct connection to the MacPro. The older machines used FW800, and the 2014 MBP used a Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter. Subsequent backups are done wirelessly.
All machines have current software versions.

In my experience Time Machine will only work on the same VLAN, unless you have IP helpers on your routers pointing to your TM server. You could always put the sharepoint as an auto mount upon login. Either force it on the local machine, or if your using Leo server with OD, just do it via group control.

Time Machine to Home Server to S3?

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