help setting up time machine with external on airport extreme

[ravikc]

hey guys..okay is this possible without the time capsule..im sure its been posted

i was using my external on my desktop with time machine..wanted to switch it to the usb port on the extreme so that my macbook pro can share the drive on time machine ....can someone help me with this?

when i connect the drive to the extreme..it shows up in the airport utility ..and shows the capacity but I am unable to get time machine to see that drive or even mount the airport disk onto my desktop

any help would be appreciated

thanks

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

I think with the new release of Airport it should be.

Have you all the latest Airport Utility updates? It should be at 5.3.1
You were saying that Disk Utility had found it, but does the Extreme report it in the Airport Manual Setup?

 

[DarkHeraldMage]

Input the following in terminal:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then open Time Machine and it will see the drive.

 

[Grimace]

Can't get Hard Drive to show up

I am having a similar problem -- when I set up the hard drive, it shows up in the AirPort Utility under Disks (attached), but I can't see the drives anywhere else like AirPort Disk Utility or as an option in Time Machine. File Sharing is turned on too.

Any ideas?

 

[dhowse]

Newappleboy: You are my hero! Spent a bunch of time fiddling around with this. One command and all is well.

 

[mfreund]

Seems to have worked for me too! It's backing up now -- I'll amend this if I have problems later...

 

[Craftypenguin]

Thank you so so much

I bought an AirPort Extreme because I wanted it to do just this. I have been fiddling around the internets for the past 2 weeks, (since the update came out,) trying to figure out how to do it, and here you've solved my problems with one tiny command.

Also, I am super pumped because I now have 2 externals hooked up to the back of my AirPort; one for file storage and another for backups...my dream setup!

Thanks again!

 

[00bolt]

i was having the exact same problem. I have airport extreme with an external hooked to it. I can however access my hard drive for files, etc. But cannot get it to work with Time Machine.

I see your post on that command, but where do I type that at?

 

[mfreund]

i was having the exact same problem. I have airport extreme with an external hooked to it. I can however access my hard drive for files, etc. But cannot get it to work with Time Machine.

I see your post on that command, but where do I type that at?

In the Finder, pull down the "Go" menu and select Utilities.
Launch Terminal
Type/paste into it: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then quit Terminal.

That should do the trick!

 

[Archiblog]

How to set up time machine using airport

In the Finder, pull down the "Go" menu and select Utilities.
Launch Terminal
Type/paste into it: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then quit Terminal.

That should do the trick!

It does!

 

[goncept]

the command didt work so well for me,,, im still time machineless

 

[Hal Itosis]

the command didt work so well for me,,, im still time machineless

>> Broadcast Message from root . . . (no tty)
>> . . .
>> Unable to load Info.plist exceptions . . .

Looks like you got some strange error in Terminal.
I doubt the plist was properly updated.

Can you read it back to see what's there?

[COLOR="Blue"]defaults read com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes[/COLOR]
1

If you don't get that "1" for an answer, then try the write command again.

 

[michael gavriel]

i tried running the terminal fix and though i don't get an error in terminal (first time ever running terminal, hehe), the external hd does not appear in my finder.

finder preferences seem to have everything relevant checked.

no clue what to do next.

buy a time capsule? or will they be refreshing it soon... don't think there's any new wireless standards coming out and 500gb - 1tb probably still enough for most people ...

any help appreciated.

 

[richac2]

Setting up time machine with Airport Extreme and External Hard drive

Had the same problem with my macbook pro, airport extreme and an iomega 2tb external hard drive. Time machine would not recognize it UNTIL i used the firewire and connected directly to the macbook pro, partioned the hd with the journal option, connected the HD to the airport extreme, made a change on the airport extreme to cause it to reboot. Then and only then did time machine recognize the partition. The first time it took about 3 hours to backup the macbook (500gb). After the first backup, it takes seconds....

 

[matznentosh]

Had the same problem with my macbook pro, airport extreme and an iomega 2tb external hard drive. Time machine would not recognize it UNTIL i used the firewire and connected directly to the macbook pro, partioned the hd with the journal option, connected the HD to the airport extreme, made a change on the airport extreme to cause it to reboot. Then and only then did time machine recognize the partition. The first time it took about 3 hours to backup the macbook (500gb). After the first backup, it takes seconds....

If anyone is still around checking this thread, could you advise how to format a hard disk for this setup, external usb to airport extreme? MAC OSX journaled I presume but what about GUID? What't that, and should it be chosen?

 

[Z400Racer37]

Hey guys,

I'm still having a lot of trouble getting this set up to work. I have a MacBook Pro, that is running 10.6.7. I've attached all the other information about my external hard drive, and AirPort Extreme in this post.

So, here's exactly what I did:
1. I plugged in the hard drive (Western Digital elements 2 TB) directly to the Mac and opened up disk utility.
2. I formatted the disk into two partitions (one 1.25 TB for filesharing, and one .75 TB for Time Machine) in Mac OS X extended journaled format.
3. I plugged in the hard drive to the AirPort Extreme, and copy pasted "defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1" into terminal.
4. I opened Time Machine preferences, clicked select disk, and it does not show, but it does show in finder.

Any ideas on what I should do?

Thanks everyone.

 

[Z400Racer37]

 

[kzb3]

set up web sharing

under system preferences
go to sharing
make sure the web sharing is checked
once you do this that HD will be visible.

good luck!

 

[JSB]

One other point on setting up Time Machine on HD+Extreme

Just wanted to add one other point to this thread that hasn't been explicitly made...

Make sure you've mounted the external HD using Finder/Go/Connect to Server...if you can see the HD in the Finder window itself, clicking on the Recent Servers button (clock face to right of server address window) will show your HD in a list. Selecting the HD mounts it and it will immediately appear in the Time Machine setup window.

Sorry if this is redundant, but I've had a few people assume that seeing the HD in the Finder window means mounting has happened...

 

[Bkord123]

Just wanted to add one other point to this thread that hasn't been explicitly made...

Make sure you've mounted the external HD using Finder/Go/Connect to Server...if you can see the HD in the Finder window itself, clicking on the Recent Servers button (clock face to right of server address window) will show your HD in a list. Selecting the HD mounts it and it will immediately appear in the Time Machine setup window.

Sorry if this is redundant, but I've had a few people assume that seeing the HD in the Finder window means mounting has happened...

This was the missing piece for me!!! A thousand thank yous!!!!

 

[wjgoodman]

I have been trying with a LaCie Drive

I was hoping that I could get Time Machine working through the Extreme's USB port saving me $160 over buying the 2T Time Capsule even though Apple doesn't support using Time Machine through the Extreme's USB port. I'm guessing that they just want to sell you Time Capsule.

I bought a new 2T LaCie Porche drive. It came with USB 3 but they claim it supports USB 2. Last night I connected the drive to my extreme. I could see the drive on my Macs but was getting an error message of files names too long when I tried to upload anything to it. I had set my airport preferences correctly. I was about to send the drive back when I decided to try again. This time when I did everything exactly the same and this time it worked. I could write to it... strange....

I started to backup with time machine and it was working. In the middle of the backup the connection was dropped. I set it up again and now it is almost done the backup, working fine. I have no idea why it didn't work during my first attempt, but as far as the dropped connection...

My best guess is that the connection being dropped has to do with needing to map a dedicated IP of the Mac addresses for each computer I want to use Time Machine for. I will do this in the DHCP tab in the airport settings.

Does anyone know if I am on the correct track.

 

[hokiemon09]

Error 45

Hey guys,

I just found this thread last night and have run through all the steps suggested. I ran a first backup overnight via USB because I figured it would take forever otherwise, and now I want to hook it up to my Airport Extreme for wireless backups. At first I couldn't select my HD in Time Machine because it didn't appear, but connecting to the server as suggested by JSB allowed me to see and select my airport extreme-connected HD in Time Machine. However, every time it tries to back up via Time Machine now, I get the following error:

The backup disk image “/Volumes/TERROR BYTE-1/G-funkalicious.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 45).​

A couple items:

1. I'm curious as to why it lists "TERROR BYTE-1" as my volume, since it's name is "TERROR BYTE" without the "-1" attached to the end.
2. When connected to Airport Extreme, Time Machine does not show an "oldest backup", even though I just did one overnight. It shows an oldest backup when I'm connected via USB, though.
3. Will I have to do the "Connect to Server" thing more than once, or will it be automatic now that I have done it once?

Any ideas?

For what it's worth, I've enabled web sharing in my system preferences as someone suggested previously, and have set up file sharing for the network drive with accounts. Thanks ahead of time.

 

[lapis]

This was the missing piece for me!!! A thousand thank yous!!!!

Ditto. Thanks very much. I did assume it was connected because it was visible in the Finder window.

 

[Rundquist]

This worked for me!

Just wanted to add one other point to this thread that hasn't been explicitly made...

Make sure you've mounted the external HD using Finder/Go/Connect to Server...if you can see the HD in the Finder window itself, clicking on the Recent Servers button (clock face to right of server address window) will show your HD in a list. Selecting the HD mounts it and it will immediately appear in the Time Machine setup window.

Sorry if this is redundant, but I've had a few people assume that seeing the HD in the Finder window means mounting has happened...

I tried so many different suggestions from many different sites, and this is what worked for me. Thank you! I was going nuts!

 

[bstein111]

Easy Steps To Set It Up

First you need to allow your AirPort Extreme to file share over WiFi.
1. Go into the AirPort Utility
2. Click on the Manual Setup in the lower left hand area
3. Click on the Disks icon up at the top
4. Then the file sharing tab
5. Then make sure the Enable File Sharing option is checked.
Next you need to have your computer recognize the drive/drives
1. Go into Finder and click drop-down for the shared tab on the left hand side
2. There you should see the name of your AirPort Extreme, double click on it and if it prompts you to enter a password, enter it in.
3. Then you should see the name of the partition/partitions you have created, double click on the one you want to use and you should be connected.
4. To verify that you are connected either go to the your computer under the Devices tab or just run Time Machine and make sure you can use that drive
Hope this helps!