Airport Extreme – Time Machine – Ext HD

[AllergyDoc]

I recently bought and set up a new Airport Extreme. I set up a separate 5GHz channel because my new devices seem to run much faster on it.

I moved my Time Machine hard drive to the Extreme, to clear it off my desk and so my wife could back up her rMBP to the same drive.

I seemed to have mucked something up. When I go to the external drive in Finder, I see Backups.backupdb with the name of my computer and subdirectories for backups that end on 11/14/2014, the date I moved the drive to the Express.

Separate from the Backups..backupdb directory I see the sparse bundles for both our computer, but no subdirectories.

It appears I quit using the former backup and created a new one. If so, I have a couple of questions:

1) Why isn't my new backup displayed on folder format?

2) Can I delete the old backup, which is displayed in folder format? (Assuming I don't need anything from the old backup.)

 

[JTravers]

Time Machine always backs up over the network to a sparse bundle. It only uses folders with a directly attached disk. It does this because Time Machine can't verify the file system of a disk being used over a network.

 

[AllergyDoc]

Time Machine always backs up over the network to a sparse bundle. It only uses folders with a directly attached disk. It does this because Time Machine can't verify the file system of a disk being used over a network.

Gottcha. So it's always going to be an "image." When I enter Time Machine it does display backups in chronological order, as it should.

So I can just delete the old backup, then?

 

[Bruno09]

AFAIK, unless it changed recently, Airport Express + hard drive is not supported.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2421

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1397959/

 

[GGJstudios]

I recently bought and set up a new Airport Express. I set up a separate 5GHz channel because my new devices seem to run much faster on it.

I moved my Time Machine hard drive to the Express, to clear it off my desk and so my wife could back up her rMBP to the same drive.

I believe you mean the AirPort Extreme. The USB port in the AirPort Express is only for a printer, and does not support connection of an external drive.

Uses for the USB port of AirPort Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express

 

[AllergyDoc]

You're both correct. I meant Extreme and have modified my initial post. I always get those two mixed up.

 

[Weaselboy]

Gottcha. So it's always going to be an "image." When I enter Time Machine it does display backups in chronological order, as it should.

So I can just delete the old backup, then?

Assuming you don't need any old, versioned documents or anything from those old backups... yes you can just delete them.