Mac mini: Network time machine to external drive + some quetions.

[ShizumiAoki]

Hello everyone,

I have a couple of quetions:

I’m using a Mac Mini (2010) for my home network (running macOS 10.13 (no never edition)

1) External backup over network

I WD 3TB element hard drive plugged up to the Mac Mini, it shows up on the file sharing along with a option to use with Time Machine on my iMac.

However when I go to select disk, click on the external drive to use with Time Machine, log into the Mac mini, I then get a error:

“This selected network backup disk dose not support the required capability”

In order to use a external drive as a backup with the Mac mini network, do I need a hard drive that supports said task or am I missing a step?

2) Backup a external drive to another external drive

Time Machine backup, are you to back up an external drive to the external backup drive?

E.g. The Mac mini haves two hard drive attached, the first being the “backup drive” and a second being a “storage folder” with past client working files.

Are you able to back up a mac to the Mac mini external “backup drive” + the second external drive to the same “back up drive”?

3) macOS sever edition?

Apple also sells sever edition of macOS, I will be using the Mac mini as a network to hold iTunes media, time machine backups and hard drive for some file storage (for use with older client project storage and some work assets I don’t use often but can acsess over the network.)

For the reasons above should I switch to the sever version of macOS or is it fine to just use the normal OS but my use case?

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your time.

Andrew

 

[satcomer]

Directly connected hard Drives need the Standard Mac OS Extend format! So check that setting!

 

[ShizumiAoki]

Directly connected hard Drives need the Standard Mac OS Extend format! So check that setting!

Thanks the drive was formatted for both macOS and Windows (ExFAT)

 

[satcomer]

Thanks the drive was formatted for both macOS and Windows (ExFAT)

That’s your problem, if it set up as a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) then Time Machine needs a HFS+ Mac formatted ONLY!

 

[HDFan]

Be sure to follow a 3-3-3 or 3-2-3 backup strategy. 3 backups in 3 different formats in 3 locations, one off-site like in a bank safe deposit box. Time Machine can be one of them. Don't depend on TM as your only backup as TM backups can get corrupted. Backup to a cloud backup service (such as Crashplan or Backblaze) and to a local hard disk with Carboncopy Cloner or similar.