External Hard Drive Backup With AirPort Extreme Using Time Machine.

[jmann]

So I recently acquired one of the new AEBS and have an external hard drive that I would ideally like to connect to the AEBS to do wireless time machine backups with. I have scoured the internet looking for consistent answers, and I have found a lot of conflicting info. I have seen a lot of possible solutions for pre-Snow Leopard or with older AEBS models. I have also heard others say that is supported out of the box if you have the drive formatted properly. Has anyone here successfully set up a drive to use with time machine throughout the airport? Any help is mucho appreciated.

 

[rgarjr]

Yeah man. Its really easy to connect an external drive to an AEBS to do Time Machine. Just need to make sure the drive is formatted to HFS.

 

[jmann]

So basically I should connect it to my mac and reformat it like that, and just connect it to the AEBS and choose it within the Time Machine preferences? Should I do an initial full/partial backup while physically connected to my mac?

 

[rgarjr]

yeah that's all there is too it. Yeah I guess it would be quicker if you do the initial backup while the drive is connected via USB/FW.

 

[jmann]

yeah that's all there is too it. Yeah I guess it would be quicker if you do the initial backup while the drive is connected via USB/FW.

Well this is what is happening, I have formatted it as Mac OS Extended, and when I go into time machine preferences other disks appear but not the one I just formatted. I must be doing something wrong. I have the disk/file sharing set up in AEBS settings too. See here.

 

[jmann]

Nevermind. After all night of effing with it, all I had to do was click on the folder in finder, and it mounted to the desktop, and time machine saw it no problem. Damn it when the answer is staring you in the face. Thanks tons for the help though!!

 

[jmann]

Spoke too soon. It is all selected and happy in time machine, but every time it tries to do a backup it says "cleaning up" and then it says it fails every time. Any tips?

 

[pprior]

Have you tried to read/write from the disk once mounted to the AEBS?

The only problem I have doing this is ocassionally the disk will unmount, and then time machine pukes all over itself until I get it mounted again.

Typically when I try to use the disk, it will ask me for the disk password. So that's why i'm asking if you're written some files to it.

If you can write to the disk in finder, and you've gone to the TM settings and set it as the disk to use, then I have no idea why it wouldn't work - it does here.

 

[cawesjmu]

You have to do the initial back up with the external drive connected to the AEBS. You can connect the computer to the AEBS via ethernet which will make the backup a little faster and slightly more reliable. If you do the initial back up via USB to the computer, it saves it as a different type of file. I'm not on my computer but i think you want it to be a .sparesbundle. But yes it's possible and should be easy.

EDIT: I just remembered I have kept my AEBS on 7.3.1 (i think). The version prior to the latest. For some reason my set up stops working every time I update to the latest firmware. I haven't heard any body else have this problem though so I thought it was just me and didn't worry about it as long as it works.

 

[jmann]

You have to do the initial back up with the external drive connected to the AEBS. You can connect the computer to the AEBS via ethernet which will make the backup a little faster and slightly more reliable. If you do the initial back up via USB to the computer, it saves it as a different type of file. I'm not on my computer but i think you want it to be a .sparesbundle. But yes it's possible and should be easy.

Thank you for the suggestion, I am going to try it and report back.

 

[NorthWest1620]

5th Generation AEBS on OSX Lion

I just set my AE up and read here the trick of looking up my External HD in the finder...my TimeMachine backup is now wirelessly backing up without any obvious issues...but here is my problem:

I've read all over the web that this is dangerous because the backups can become corrupted and then you have lost your security, the whole purpose of having a backup.

So what gives, is this method safe, if I get it to Sync wirelessly is it good to go, or do I need to do more maintenance. How would I know if something were going wrong, is there anything I could do about it if my files became corrupted? I mean, there is no reason this shouldn't work...