Selecting location of TimeMachine backups?

RE: tmutil setdesitination ...

Hi davewill2010,

On a networked drive (already shared volume) you will need to use a sparse bundle. In the following, <path-to-sparse-bundle> is the directory path and filename of the sparse bundle you wish to use for your Time Machine backups.

To do so, you can create a sparse bundle via:

Disk Utility -> New Image -> Save As: <filename> -> Mac OS Extended (Journaled) -> Image Format -> Sparse bundle disk image

Then unmount the sparse bundle:

umount <path-to-sparse-bundle>

If you wish, you can resize the sparse bundle to 2000GB (2TB) using hdiutil:

hdiutil resize -size 2000g <path-to-sparse-bundle>

In Finder, double click the sparse bundle image file to mount it, or use the "mount" command.

Now set Time Machine to use this networked sparse bundle:

sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/<path-to-sparse-bundle>

When you start Time Machine, it will create a Backups directory within the sparse bundle for your backups. In your "Login Items" of the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences, you can automatically mount the shared volume containing your TM sparse bundle, and this way whenever you login then Time Machine will make automatic hourly backups for you.

Good luck,
Switon