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BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
497
18
I had a Seagate external drive connected to my Airport Extreme (via USB hub) for my Time Machine backups. I started frequently getting the message that Time Machine had completed verification of my backups and it needed to create new backups, removing the old ones.

I did this a few times and then it started happening constantly so I figured the drive was failing and I bought a new WD drive. It's been working fine for 2 weens now and today I just got the message again.

I wonder what's going on?
 

BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
497
18
Which model Extreme? Tower?

What else is connected to the hub besides this disk?

The Extreme is an older model (2nd Generation).

The only other thing plugged into the hub is another WD hard drive that I use to store all my movies and TV shows.
 

BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
497
18
Time Machine backup to the older Extreme like yours is not supported by Apple and is unreliable like you are finding.

I did not realize that. I'm not sure I want to spend $200 for a new Airport Extreme. Can you recommend another router that works well with Time Machine?

Or, wait, do the newer Airport Express devices support Time Machine? I have one of those too, the one that looks like a white Apple TV.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,496
California
I did not realize that. I'm not sure I want to spend $200 for a new Airport Extreme. Can you recommend another router that works well with Time Machine?

Or, wait, do the newer Airport Express devices support Time Machine? I have one of those too, the one that looks like a white Apple TV.

Nope.. the Express does not work. Gotta be either a Time Capsule or USB drive on the new tower shaped Extreme.

It will work with some third party routers that advertise "Time Machine support", but I don't have any experience with any of them.
 

Gochugogi

macrumors regular
Oct 27, 2013
223
26
Sandwich Isles
I have an older Airport Extreme (802.11N) and the USB port is only reliable for printers. The quickest workaround is to connect your TM backup directly to your Mac or a hub plugged to your Mac.
 

FreakinEurekan

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,428
2,499
I did not realize that. I'm not sure I want to spend $200 for a new Airport Extreme. Can you recommend another router that works well with Time Machine?

There are only 3 supported remote backup destinations for Time Machine - (1) a Time Capsule, (2) the tower style AirPort Extreme with a USB disk, or (3) another Mac running OS X Server.
 

brilliantthings

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2011
819
363
The Extreme model before the tower works fine with Time Machine. Been using it for years. You're unlikely to get enough power to both hard disks unless you have a powered USB hub.
 

BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
497
18
There are only 3 supported remote backup destinations for Time Machine - (1) a Time Capsule, (2) the tower style AirPort Extreme with a USB disk, or (3) another Mac running OS X Server.

I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure I've seen network external hard drives that say they work with Time Machine and Netgear has some routers that say they are Time Machine compatible with an external drive.

Actually I think a couple of years ago Netgear released a router with built-in drive that was compatible with Time Machine.

brilliantthings, I had been using my Extreme off an on as a Time Capsule and it had been working fine up until about 2 months ago. Well, at least I thought it had.

I remember now that when I upgraded my MBP's main drive to an SSD and I tried to restore from the Time Machine backup it wouldn't work.
 

FreakinEurekan

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,428
2,499
I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure I've seen network external hard drives that say they work with Time Machine and Netgear has some routers that say they are Time Machine compatible with an external drive.

I didn't say others would not work - just that they're not supported. Apple doesn't support any of those devices as a valid Time a Machine destination, and if say an OS X update causes the backups to fail, you're stuck relying on the device manufacturer to figure out why and engineer a new hack to fix it.

A non-supported product may seem to work fine, but then when you really need it (say your hard drive dies and you want to restore to your new SSD but the restore fails) then you're stuck with an unsupported solution.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,496
California
The Extreme model before the tower works fine with Time Machine. Been using it for years. You're unlikely to get enough power to both hard disks unless you have a powered USB hub.

You can count yourself lucky then. It is unreliable for most people and you see issues like the OP has here. That setup is not supported and hopefully your data will be there if you ever need to restore.
 

BulkHedd

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 13, 2006
497
18
Well, while I had been using the old AE for a while, and I THOUGHT everything was fine, I now think it wasn't. I just wasn't getting any error messages. When I had actually tried to restore from a backup it did not work.

I definitely do not want my in-house backup system to be unreliable (I also use CrashPlan for offsite backup). I noticed that Best Buy has the new Airport Extreme on sale for $185.00 so I am going to go ahead and get that.

I could get a Netgear router cheaper but, again, I want it to be reliable.

I really prefer to not have an external drive constantly plugged into my MBP. I also just can't justify the extra money for the Time Capsule since I have a few external drives around.

FYI, the hub I use is powered so that shouldn't be a problem having 2 drives on the Airport Extreme.
 

brilliantthings

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2011
819
363
You can count yourself lucky then. It is unreliable for most people and you see issues like the OP has here. That setup is not supported and hopefully your data will be there if you ever need to restore.

I also have a portable time machine drive that I plug in every week or two. But I've never had any trouble restoring from my Extreme hard disk.
 

brilliantthings

macrumors 6502a
Feb 13, 2011
819
363
And is there really a hardware reason the previous Extreme can't be used for Time Machine or did the last firmware update sort that out for the older devices too?
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,073
15,496
California
I also have a portable time machine drive that I plug in every week or two. But I've never had any trouble restoring from my Extreme hard disk.

Like I said... count yourself lucky then. Many other people have had data corruption with this issue. What is odd it people will use it for weeks and weeks, then is starts acting up.

And is there really a hardware reason the previous Extreme can't be used for Time Machine or did the last firmware update sort that out for the older devices too?

I have no idea and this has been debated no end and I have never seen a good explanation of why it does not work properly. My guess is the Extreme did not have proper AFP support.
 
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