External hard drive on Mac Mini as Time Capsule?

danielwerner · Apr 15, 2013

Hi,

I'm looking to use my external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini as a Time Capsule? I want to backup both the Mac Mini AND my Macbook Pro (via Wifi) to this external drive.

How do I make it work? What do I enable on the Mac mini for the Macbook to find the external drive over the wifi? All guides are so confusing. Do I need to have an Airport router for this, or will it work over wifi on any router?

Thanks!

justperry · Apr 15, 2013

danielwerner said:
Hi,

I'm looking to use my external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini as a Time Capsule? I want to backup both the Mac Mini AND my Macbook Pro (via Wifi) to this external drive.

How do I make it work? What do I enable on the Mac mini for the Macbook to find the external drive over the wifi? All guides are so confusing. Do I need to have an Airport router for this, or will it work over wifi on any router?

Thanks!

Open Sharing in System Preferences on the Mini, then check the File Sharing box, n the right pane add the external to Shared Folders and Add the User on the MBP as Read/Write.
That's it, you should be able to see the Shared drive on the MBP and use it as a backup drive.

danielwerner · Apr 15, 2013

justperry said:
Open Sharing in System Preferences on the Mini, then check the File Sharing box, n the right pane add the external to Shared Folders and Add the User on the MBP as Read/Write.
That's it, you should be able to see the Shared drive on the MBP and use it as a backup drive.

Ooh, that sounds great.

Weither I have an Airport or another router shouldn't matter, right?

Also, there shouldn't be a higher incidence in corrupted data and such with this solution? I've heard that the only thing guaranteed to work safely is a Time Capsule, but perhaps that's just propaganda?

dimme · Apr 15, 2013

I am doing the same thing, but to make the time machine reliable and bulletproof. I installed server on the mini, before server the back up would fail or take for ever to finish. No problem what so ever after installing server.

justperry · Apr 15, 2013

danielwerner said:
Ooh, that sounds great. Weither I have an Airport or another router shouldn't matter, right?

Also, there shouldn't be a higher incidence in corrupted data and such with this solution? I've heard that the only thing guaranteed to work safely is a Time Capsule, but perhaps that's just propaganda?

Nothing will be failsafe, the best solution is physically connected but even then it is never 100% but better than wireless.

lamerica80 · Apr 16, 2013

Im doing the same thing too. Are there any potential problems in using the same external hard drive for time machining two macs?

dimme · Apr 16, 2013

No issues here

lamerica80 said:
Im doing the same thing too. Are there any potential problems in using the same external hard drive for time machining two macs?

I have a external 2gb drive currently backing up two MacBook pros and the mini server. Running 9 months with out issue.

DJLC · Apr 17, 2013

lamerica80 said:
Im doing the same thing too. Are there any potential problems in using the same external hard drive for time machining two macs?

Aside from having all your eggs in one basket, no. Time Machine will keep backups from different Macs separated on the drive.

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External hard drive on Mac Mini as Time Capsule?

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