How to get Networked Time Machine drives

[FunFred2007]

Yeah, we all know you can't use it as a backup via Airport Extreme. However, I have my drive being used by my 2 computers.

Here's how I did it:

1. Get it working on one of the computers. This should ideally be a stationary computer that the drive will never disconnect from.

2. Go to System Preferences>Sharing. Turn on File Sharing.

3. Click the + under the Shared Folders area.

4. Go add the external HDD.

5. Edit the settings to the right as necessary (you can determine what you want).

6. On another computer, go to the Finder. Go connect to the computer with the HDD attached to it.
6.5. Depending on what preferences you set, you may want to hit the Connect As button, then input the appropriate user.

7. Find the HDD. It will appear as a folder, not a hard drive symbol.

8. Open it up. You don't need to do anything with it. These steps were simply to make sure this computer can recognize the HDD.

9. Go to System Preferences>Time Machine>Select Disk (or Change Disk, or whatever). That remote disk should show up in the list.

10. Select that disk, then you should be good to go!

I can't guarantee it will work that easily, but that's what I did and it works!

 

[andresrw]

Yeah, we all know you can't use it as a backup via Airport Extreme. However, I have my drive being used by my 2 computers.

Here's how I did it:

1. Get it working on one of the computers. This should ideally be a stationary computer that the drive will never disconnect from.

2. Go to System Preferences>Sharing. Turn on File Sharing.

3. Click the + under the Shared Folders area.

4. Go add the external HDD.

5. Edit the settings to the right as necessary (you can determine what you want).

6. On another computer, go to the Finder. Go connect to the computer with the HDD attached to it.
6.5. Depending on what preferences you set, you may want to hit the Connect As button, then input the appropriate user.

7. Find the HDD. It will appear as a folder, not a hard drive symbol.

8. Open it up. You don't need to do anything with it. These steps were simply to make sure this computer can recognize the HDD.

9. Go to System Preferences>Time Machine>Select Disk (or Change Disk, or whatever). That remote disk should show up in the list.

10. Select that disk, then you should be good to go!

I can't guarantee it will work that easily, but that's what I did and it works!

how fast or slow is it?
do you now if there is a way to backup only files and not the entire system?

 

[nerdeus]

If your stationary computer goes to sleep, then won't that disconnect your connection from your laptop to the HD? I use my External HD for other things like music and movies too.. Will it still work?

 

[nerdeus]

I still really need an answer to this...

Because I just took my external HD off of Airport Extreme Base Station and just diectly connected to my MacMini. However, I need to access my external HD on my MacBook because I store all my music on my external HD. Now I don't have any music to listen to on my MacBook. I just can't seem to get my MacBook to connect to my external HD even when it's connected to my MacMini.

btw, my MacMini is still on Tiger and my MacBook is on Leopard. My MacMini is 1st Gen and not the higher model, so it's kinda slow. I didn't think it could handle Leopard...

PLEASE someone help me!

 

[EagerDragon]

Yeah, we all know you can't use it as a backup via Airport Extreme. However, I have my drive being used by my 2 computers.

Here's how I did it:

1. Get it working on one of the computers. This should ideally be a stationary computer that the drive will never disconnect from.

2. Go to System Preferences>Sharing. Turn on File Sharing.

3. Click the + under the Shared Folders area.

4. Go add the external HDD.

5. Edit the settings to the right as necessary (you can determine what you want).

6. On another computer, go to the Finder. Go connect to the computer with the HDD attached to it.
6.5. Depending on what preferences you set, you may want to hit the Connect As button, then input the appropriate user.

7. Find the HDD. It will appear as a folder, not a hard drive symbol.

8. Open it up. You don't need to do anything with it. These steps were simply to make sure this computer can recognize the HDD.

9. Go to System Preferences>Time Machine>Select Disk (or Change Disk, or whatever). That remote disk should show up in the list.

10. Select that disk, then you should be good to go!

I can't guarantee it will work that easily, but that's what I did and it works!

Did it create a folder for the second computer inside of the backup folder that is at the root of the TM hard disk or did it create a sparse disk image at the root directory of the TM hard disk?
Did you use a GUID partition or not?
Did you use a HFS+ with case sensitive support or not?
Are both machines Intel or a mix of PPC and Intel?

 

[EagerDragon]

I still really need an answer to this...

Because I just took my external HD off of Airport Extreme Base Station and just diectly connected to my MacMini. However, I need to access my external HD on my MacBook because I store all my music on my external HD. Now I don't have any music to listen to on my MacBook. I just can't seem to get my MacBook to connect to my external HD even when it's connected to my MacMini.

btw, my MacMini is still on Tiger and my MacBook is on Leopard. My MacMini is 1st Gen and not the higher model, so it's kinda slow. I didn't think it could handle Leopard...

PLEASE someone help me!

To my knowledge the TM drive has to be connected to a Leopard computer.

However don't run to upgrade, to my knowledge the above instructions do allow you to backup the second computer but in my case it is not in the correct place and it is not in the correct format.

I would wait for 10.5.1 or 2 for fixes and move the drive from computer to computer until the fix is deployed.

Please be careful.