Using airport extreme, an external HD and time machine for wireless backups

Hey All,
The whole reason I bought my airport extreme was to plug an external HD into and use it for backups. Then came time machine and Leopard, and now time capsule!!!
Does anyone know if you can use your airport extreme with an external HD attached and time machine in the same way as time capsule for wireless backups!??? The guy in the Apple store I spoke to says you should be able to if you mount the HD (a little cumbersome); I used to be able to mount the HD in Tiger, but cant in Leopard!!
Thanks!
Message was edited by: Fleery

Fleery wrote:
Does anyone know if you can use your airport extreme with an external HD attached and time machine in the same way as time capsule for wireless backups!???
No. Time Machine is supported in 3 configurations:
1. a directly attached HD
2. Time Capsule
3. A HD connected to a Mac with OS X 1.5 Server
I tried both 1 & 3 and they work perfectly.
The guy in the Apple store I spoke to says you should be able to if you mount the HD (a little cumbersome); I used to be able to mount the HD in Tiger, but cant in Leopard!!
Bogus. That is NOT a supported configuration. It will work for a while and you will eventually start to get errors when Time machine backs up, and they are not recoverable.

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Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

Does the new airport extreme support backing up via time machine to an external hard drive pluged into the usb port

Does the new airport extreme support backing up via time machine to an external hard drive pluged into the usb port

Yes, but you might want to note that the port on the AirPort Extreme is only USB 2.0, and that it runs at about half the speed of the USB 2.0 port on a computer, so things are going to be quite SLOW as far as backups are concerned, or anything else for that matter.

How to restart base station from airport utility? I used to be able to do it remotely I currently use a Mac Pro 10.8.4 and have a time machine for wireless 6.3 (630.34). Sometimes I cannot connect to the internet and use network preferences to diagnose t

How to restart base station from airport utility? I used to be able to do it remotely
I currently use a Mac Pro 10.8.4 and have a time machine for wireless 6.3 (630.34). Sometimes I cannot connect to the internet and use network preferences to diagnose the issue. This results in being told to restart the wireless. The airport utility includes the drop down option of restarting but is not clickable so I can't choose it.
With my prior macbook and same time capsule, etc if i had problems connecting to the internet I would run network diagnostics to help out. This included clicking on the airport utility ---> base station --> restart. This worked most of the time.
Bottom line, is there something I am missing in not being able to restart the wi-fi remotely? ]
Thanks in advance

You are likely forgetting a step.
Open AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon
Click Edit in the small window that appears
Now click the Base Station menu.....top of the screen....not the Base Station "tab" in the center of the screen
Click Restart

Here's a very basic question about 2 TB external drives and Time Machine.

Here's a very basic question about 2 TB external drives and Time Machine.
Ihave a Mac Pro with a .75 TB and 1 TB drive. It also has a 1 TB 2ndinternal drive. My current external drive is too small so I'll begetting a 1.5 TB or 2 TB drive.
Obviouslythe new larger 2 TB drive will backup everything on the Mac Prointernal drive with Time Machine. But there will be 1 TB of space leftover going to waste.
ShouldI partition the external drive so that the TM portion will be 1 TB andthe use the remaining extra partition for additional file backups withCarbon Copy?
Thanks for any insights.
I tried searching around on the new Apple discussion forum, but I find it much harder to use than the old forum I used to use.

The problem with terabyte drives is that that a 3 TB is about as big as you can get without going into RAID territory. Ideally, a Time Machine drive should be 3 times as large as all the drives you are backing up. So, if you have 2.75 TB of internal storage, you should have 8 TB of Time Machine space.
Of course, that is "should". If your TB drives are mostly empty, then you can get away with something 3 times the size of your used disk space. Just remember that you are pushing it. Linc is right about Time Machine needing space to work.
It is unlikely that you have regular churn on 2.75 TB of disk. I suggest identifying which drives and folders have the most activity and excluding those drives and directories that don't change much. It would be better to archive the data that doesn't change often and keep it out of Time Machine. Then you may be able to get away with a 2 TB Time Machine drive.

Question about 2 TB external drives and Time Machine.

Here's a very basic question about 2 TB external drives and Time Machine.
I have a Mac Pro with a .75 TB and 1 TB drive. It also has a 1 TB 2nd internal drive. My current external drive is too small so I'll be getting a 1.5 TB or 2 TB drive.
Obviously the new larger 2 TB drive will backup everything on the Mac Pro internal drive with Time Machine. But there will be 1 TB of space left over going to waste.
Should I partition the external drive so that the TM portion will be 1 TB and the use the remaining extra partition for additional file backups with Carbon Copy?
Thanks for any insights.
I tried searching around on the new Apple discussion forum, but I find it much harder to use than the old forum I used to use.

John,
I'm not sure why you posted in the iMac forum so I'm going to attempt to get you to the correct spot. I would recommend reposting in the Time Machine Forum, this is part of the OS X forums (Leopard or Snow Leopard) because you are using Snow Leopard (your profile indicates you are) please click Apple Support Communities and type Snow Leopard. Then you can narrow the search down by clicking Refine this List.
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If i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?

if i move itune to external drive does time machine still have backup?
I just moved my itunes off my macbook pro because it was taking up too much space and put it on an external hard drive. i have a second external hard drive that i use for time machine. when i update time machine next will my itunes files be removed from the backup since they are no longer on my internal hard drive (what time machine backs up?) basically, i want to make sure i have a second copy of my itunes besides the one on my first external hard drive and i was wondering if time machine will still have all of that data (on the second external hard drive).
i cant find this answer anywhere!!! thanks so much!!!

Check to see whether or not it's excluded in the Time Machine pane of System Preferences.
Items deleted from the hard drive won't be deleted from the backup until the backup location runs out of space.
(63157)

Ich habe eine externe festplatte an meinen airport extreme angeschlossen welche ich über time machine laufen lassen möchte, jedoch funktioniert dies nicht..? beim ersten update geht es meistens, jedoch springt es danach aus.?

hilfe?

Leider ist dies nicht eine unterstützte Konfiguration. Time Machine erfordert eine lokal angeschlossenen Volumen oder Time Capsule.
Ihre Konfiguration mit einem AirPort Extreme wird berichtet unzuverlässig zu sein:
Hinweis: ... Time Machine kann keine Backups auf eine an AirPort Extreme angeschlossene externe Festplatte, Time Capsule oder eine für Microsoft Windows formatierte Festplatte ...
Mac-Grundkurs: Time Machine

How to setup Time Capsule for wireless backup only

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How do I set up the time capsule to use it for wireless backup only? When I start the Airport utility setup, the first thing it asks is do I want to 1) set up new network, 2) replace existing router, or 3) join existing network.

Thanks. That got me the green light and a message that everything was set up properly. It started it's first Time Machine backup and everything looked good for a while. But now I have a new problem.
The backup failed twice. The first time it had a message that it could no longer find the time capsule, so I had to reset it and go thru the setup procedures again. Started backup again overnight, and this morning it tells me that it failed again. But this time I still have my green light, and the message is "a network problem may have interfered with the backup.
I don't know what else to do with the setup to get it to work. Right now it has started backing up again on its own, so I'll leave it going one more time. (I should tell you that all of this is occurring on my Mac. I have not even started setting it up on the Vista machine. I want to make sure it works on the Mac first). Any advice from anyone who had the same problems with setup would be appreciated.

Use Time Capsule as extern HDD and time machine?

Hi, I own a Time Cap. 1 Gb and use it for Time Machine, but I also want to use it as en extra Harddisk.. But I don' t get a harddisk icon on my desktop.. Så how do I get acess to it?
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open Airport Utility (assuming you run a Mac not Windows)
two scenarios; select Finder preferences under General and check box "show connected servers on desktop"
1) your local network use GO function, found top file menu then select "connect to server" you'll see a blank window type afp://your router ip address should be number such as 10.0.1.1
2) using the internet because you are not near your local network, open Airport Utility write down your internet tab ip address example such as 68.43.46.123
Also using Airport Utility under Disks/File Sharing check box "enable file sharing" and "share disk over wan port." When using afp command such as first scenario use your internet ip address
Personally I have used this afp internet connection when I was in Pittsburgh, Pa over the past holidays to get a few of my files off my TC network in Detroit, Mi.

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While renting/buying films on itunes is all well and good, my wireless capacity is poor, if i buy airport extreme, without connecting it to the internet, will it stream my films on itunes from the PC to apple TV?

...if i buy airport extreme, without connecting it to the internet, will it stream my films on itunes from the PC to apple TV?
Yes. An Internet connection is not required. However, of course, the AirPort or your Apple TV will not be able to stream content from the Internet.

AirPort Extreme not seeing USB HD, time machine failure

I can't see my USB HD that I have connected to my base station. It works fine if I connect the HD directly to my computer. I have the drive sectioned into 2 partitions. One is formatted as MacOSX Extended (Journaled) for backing up my MacBook Pro via Time Machine, and the other is formatted at MS-DOS FAT32 so I can use it to transfer files between my Macs and my Windows machine. Everything was working fine for a while. Then my MacBook Pro couldn't find the HD connected to the base station. The only drive that would come up was the MS-DOS partition. I get a blinking amber light on my base station now with an alert that the disk needs repair and to connect it directly to the computer to repair it. If I disconnect the HD the light turn back to green. I re-partitioned the external hard drive and re-connected it to my base station. Now my Airport icon doesn't appear at all in the left sidebar. I re-formatted and re-connected the drive a couple different times. I tried formatting the drives differently, not partitioning the drive, etc. and nothing seems to work. I can't get the HD to show up again if it's connected to the base station, although if I connect it directly to my computer everything is fine. Therefore, I'm guessing it's not actually a problem with the HD, it's a problem with the base station reading the HD. I really want to set this up with 2 partitions so I can use part of it to back up my laptop via time machine. That was actually the whole point of purchasing the 500GB HD. The HD is a 500GB SimpleTech. Does anyone out there have any help or suggestions????? :-S

Oh cool. That's interesting. I'm going to reformat my entire external HD as MacOS Extended and use it all as extra storage then.
One more question. If I got a time capsule, then I actually wouldn't need my Airport Extreme base station right? So I could set up a time capsule in place of the Extreme and still attach my 500GB external to the Capsule as a network storage device. Correct? So it's another thing to buy, but I would gain a lot of extra storage space and I would have something I could rely on for backup.

External hd and time machine...

I got a new external hd both usb and ethernet..
what if i use it for time machine and just get it conmnected sometimes and not keep it always connected to the mac?
thanks

Sounds like instead of reaching around and plugging and unplugging your External HD, iPods, iPhone, flash drive and what not, you could use a 4 port or maybe even a 7 port powered USB hub.
See this Google Search > [4 port self powered usb hubs for mac|http://www.google.com/custom?q=4+port%20self%20powered%20usb%20hubs%20for%2 0mac&sa=Search&client=pub-6263300333013957&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&c of=GALT:%23008000;GL:1;DIV:%23336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699 ;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;&hl=en]
Example this > [Belkin 4 port hub|http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=198333] is nice, you can leave your HD, iPhone & iPod cables connected to it and use the handy port on top for flash drives.

External HD and Time Machine - reformat required

Have just plugged in a new WD Elements 320g external hd.
In Time Machine i have clicked: "Select Backup Disc"
I have selected the "Elements" icon and under that it says: reformat required (incomplete file system).
Do i click on "Use for Backup" or do i have to "reformat" somehow myself?
Thanks for any assistance.

Hello annaonputer,
And welcome to Apple Discussions!
If you Time Machine is telling you that the drive needs to be reformatted then you should probably do so. For instructions on how to set up a drive for Time Machine, see #5 of Pondini's FAQ on Time Machine below.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1964018
B-rock

External drive and time machine

Dear all,
Quick question. I am planning to finally get an external HDD for time machine.
1) Does the external HDD have to be on all the time when the mac is on? (some external HDD's are rather noisy...)
2) Does it back up continuously every hour?
3) Does it (TM) use a lot of RAM or slow down normal functioning at all?
4) Can I restore another mac from TM? For example, if I back-up my imac and then my macbook "crashes"... Can I simply restore the imac content from the external HDD onto my macbook?
5) Any recommendations for a decent 500GB HDD?
Thanks.
Message was edited by: Fireball Dragon

1. No the external drive doesn't have to be on all the time however if you buy a higher quality HD such as a OWC Mercury or Lacie Quadra D2 these are very quiet and can barely be heard.
2. Yes TM does back up hourly however you can get a free utility such as Time Machine Editor (Google it) so you can customize how frequently it backs up.
3. No TM does not use much RAM and does not slow down your machine.
4. As far as I know machine TM will only restore to is the machine that did the back up. I would suggest getting a separate TM drive for you Macbook if that is a concern.
5. As mentioned Lacie Quadra D2 or OWC Mercury's are both popular and I believe most would agree recommended.
Regards,
Roger

Using airport extreme, an external HD and time machine for wireless backups

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