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purdueboiler87

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2005
82
2
Clearwater, FL
Using some posts I found here, I was able to configure Time Machine to back up to my 2TB NAS. Problem is, seems like now when I go into Time Machine, it only lists Today and Now on the right side, I can't see other dates where backups have occurred. Can anyone else using a NAS see more dates where backups have occurred or is there another hack I need to do to get this to work across a NAS?
 

cmaier

Suspended
Jul 25, 2007
25,405
33,471
California
Using some posts I found here, I was able to configure Time Machine to back up to my 2TB NAS. Problem is, seems like now when I go into Time Machine, it only lists Today and Now on the right side, I can't see other dates where backups have occurred. Can anyone else using a NAS see more dates where backups have occurred or is there another hack I need to do to get this to work across a NAS?

I'm planning on using a readynas as well, so curious what you find out. I assume you actually have backups prior to today?

Did you try actually browsing the readynas share to see what backups exist? the file structure of the time machine backup directory is very easy to understand - you should be able to see all your backups.

BTW, what file/discovery protocols did you enable for the backup share?
 

purdueboiler87

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2005
82
2
Clearwater, FL
I created a share in Frontview (AFP turned on) and then just connected to it in Finder. I used that share for Time Machine. It seems to create another mapping in Finder called something like "Backup of Bob's MacBook Pro". I can drill down and see the complete directory structure of all the backups. For some reason though, doesn't seem to work correctly when I go into Time Machine, just shows Today and Now.
 

D1G1T4L

macrumors 68000
Jun 26, 2007
1,724
99
Raleigh, NC
Please keep this thread updated with any fixes as I'm waiting to pull the trigger on a ReadyNAS once I know it is compatible with TM.
 

purdueboiler87

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2005
82
2
Clearwater, FL
I got it to work.

There is some good info out on the Mac / OS X forums on the Infrant site. What I have before going into Time Machine is right click on the Time Machine icon and select the mapping that Time Machine creates when it does the backups (I think this is called a sparse image). Anyway, it was the only thing listed and I select it and Time Machine shows all my backups.
 

lenard

macrumors 6502a
Oct 10, 2007
608
429
Raleigh NC
Happen to me. I had to reformat the drive and start all over again. Time Machine likes a newly formated drive. It does not happen all the time, but I have heard from others that had this same problem. Reformatting should fix it.
 

pprior

macrumors 65816
Aug 1, 2007
1,448
9
Unclear - is time machine working with readynas normally or not?

Does it totally kill the network when it's backing up or is it smart enough to slow down when needed - can you throttle bandwidth?

I have a ReadyNAS and haven't been able to use it with my mac pro - I connect under network and then select guest and it shows me my volumes, but then spinning beach ball for about 2 min then it disconnects. This is pre-lepoard install, hoping it will fix it.
 

Mdadm

macrumors newbie
Nov 2, 2007
1
0
Using some posts I found here, I was able to configure Time Machine to back up to my 2TB NAS. Problem is, seems like now when I go into Time Machine, it only lists Today and Now on the right side, I can't see other dates where backups have occurred. Can anyone else using a NAS see more dates where backups have occurred or is there another hack I need to do to get this to work across a NAS?

Had the same issue with my FreeNAS. Right click on the Time Machine icon and select Browse other Time Machine disks. You should be able to select a disk called "Blabla" on "Backup of Blabla". This allows you to browse through your TM backups. Note: your disk should be mounted.
 

wileyc

macrumors newbie
Nov 5, 2007
1
0
Restoring using the Time Machine Browser

I have been using Time Machine to backup multiple machines to an AFP share on a ReadyNAS NV+ RAID now for a week. The way to be able to use the TIme Machine Browser to restore from the backup is as follows.

I assume that you have been able to successfully backup to an AFP shared volume. This is covered in other posts. If you have then you will have a .sparsebundle file in the root of the backup volume.

1. Open the .sparseimage bundle using DiskImageMounter.app. This should be the default app anyway. This will mount the .sparseimage file and you will get a disk icon on the desktop of the form "Backup of MyComputer".
2. Right click on Time Machine icon in the doc and choose "Browse Other TIme Machine Disks". Click on the disk you just mounted.
3. You should now be able to use the Time Machine Browser to restore as if it was a regular external drive.

When you are done, simply unmount the image. Backups will proceeed as normal.
 

pilotError

macrumors 68020
Apr 12, 2006
2,237
4
Long Island
If you double click the sparse image file in the finder, it mounts the drive automagically for you. Time Machine then goes into overtime doing its thang!
 

theBB

macrumors 68020
Jan 3, 2006
2,453
3
I don't think TM officially supports NAS drives. It might have something do with multiple hard links. Anyways, not having access to the old backups might be the end result of this. I would not trust my backups to an unsupported hack.
 

/dev/toaster

macrumors 68020
Feb 23, 2006
2,478
249
San Francisco, CA
I don't think TM officially supports NAS drives. It might have something do with multiple hard links. Anyways, not having access to the old backups might be the end result of this. I would not trust my backups to an unsupported hack.

On other systems, you can't create hard links to directories. That is what they need for Timemachine. "multiple hard links" doesn't make any sense honestly.

Not to mention, when it is using NAS it creates an image ... then uses that image to put the files in and create the links in. It has nothing to do with the under lying file system.

I just don't understand why this feature was pulled right before release, it worked just fine in the seeds.
 
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