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March'08:Airport Extreme+USB HDD+TimeMachine- Hardware that WORKS.

D

DanBUK

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 9, 2007
132
0
Great news as of 20th March!

But people are having variable success with getting TimeMachine working with Airport Extreme Base Station plus USB HDD.

Can we start a thread with people who have got it working listing the setup they have including hardware (especially USB drives) and maybe setup tricks that they have used.

Thanks.
 
Thank you so much for starting this thread! I read all the posts on the previous topic but couldn't find how to actually get it working on my computer yet! So hopefully someone will post exactly how to get it working! THANKS in advance!
 
nerdeus said:
Thank you so much for starting this thread! I read all the posts on the previous topic but couldn't find how to actually get it working on my computer yet! So hopefully someone will post exactly how to get it working! THANKS in advance!
Click to expand...

No problem. I have put a link on the news thread directing folks here.

I for my part haev had lots of trouble with a couple of cheap HDDs with Tiger and Leopard- I haven't even dared to use TimeMachine yet! I am looking for some new hardware for backup so maybe this thread can help a range of people.
 
Okay, here goes. I literally had just bought my EHD the day before yesterday, and had resigned myself to manually plugging it in and getting my Time Machine on. I still didn't have a firm grasp on Time Machine, and then came yesterday's updates. Having no life is fun. Wheeeeee!

MacBook Pro (new, but not a Penryn.) AEBS. 1 TB My Book Home Edition.

The initial direct to USB backup is unusable when the drive is shared.

I tried doing an initial backup over Ethernet and ran out of patience. (My AEBS is, like, under the stairs in Harry Potter's old bedroom.)

The initial backup over wireless takes forever. Everything is probably fine if you do the original over Ethernet, but crouching on my hands and knees and messing with wires and hard to see ports is kind of not why I bought a wireless router.

You do have to mount the AirDisk manually (at least I do, but I'm drunk) but once the disk is mounted, the backup initiates automatically.

How's everyone else doing?
 
So I need to manually plug it into my computer that's using Time Machine FIRST.. and then it will recognize it using airport?

Another question.. say I have 80GB of stuff on my Macbook.. is Time Machine going to need MORE than 80GB on the external HD?

I need to buy another external HD... cuz I need to backup my MAcBook AND my MacMini.
 
I have it working with a Macbook C2D and an iMac G5 rev B. and a Maxtor OneTouch USB hard drive

iMac had previously been connected directly to use TM on USB disk. Macbook had never used TM.

Connected hard drive to AEBS. Double clicked 'AEBS' in sidebar of Finder on Macbook and double clicked folder to mount drive. Went to Time Machine and selected to use the disk for backups. Started a backup. Once finished preparing and had started backing up files, clicked 'stop backup' and unmounted disk and reconnected direct with USB to do initial backup at slightly better speed! Unmounted, reconnected to AEBS, all working nicely (direct connection had written into the same sparseimage thing that the network connection had initially created).

Connecting to the AEBS-mounted disk with the iMac and doing a backup doens't write into the same folder structure as the previous backup was in (as we knew anyway). Am doing the same thing with the iMac that I've already done with the Macbook; no reason to believe it won't work just as well.

I've not tried restoring anything yet.

I've not tried putting the disk back on the AEBS and running TM from both computers again to check things update as expected.

I hope I don't have to manually mount the AEBS-disk each time I turn the computers on!
 
nerdeus said:
So I need to manually plug it into my computer that's using Time Machine FIRST.. and then it will recognize it using airport?
Click to expand...
No, you don't need to do that. Just plug straight into the AEBS.

nerdeus said:
Another question.. say I have 80GB of stuff on my Macbook.. is Time Machine going to need MORE than 80GB on the external HD?
Click to expand...
It won't need more than 80GB but you'll only have the most recent 80GB backed up, which won't be much help if you need to restore a file from a few days ago for example.
 
New firmware works with Western Digital Premium Edition (with USB and Firewire capabilities) 320 GB. Time Machine and putting Macbook to sleep functions beautifully.
 
I have a Macbook, a USB/Firewire drive from One World Computing, and the "older" Airport Extreme that does not have gigabit ethernet.

I had been using Time Machine before, by just periodically plugging my Macbook into the external hard drive by Firewire whenever I had to charge the Macbook. I installed all the updates, plugged the hard drive into my AEBS, browsed to the network disk, indicate that I wanted to use that disk for for Time Machine, and start backing up. So things are working fine for me. If anyone needs any more specifics about my setup, let me know.

However, I think I'm about to go back to my old way of just plugging the drive directly into the computer periodically -- this new method doesn't seem to offer much benefit for me.

For one thing, it seems like Time Machine backups won't happen automatically unless the Macbook is plugged in. What's the point in that? I guess manually forcing a backup periodically is better than nothing, but I'm not on my computer every minute of the day. So why not just attach the drive by firewire when I have to leave the Macbook anyway? Isn't Firewire faster than wireless backup?
 
I thought i would chime in with my Time Machine/Airport Extreme/AirDisk experience. First off, i had never used Time Machine before the new firmware arrived. Currently my equipment is as follows: 15 Penryn MBP, White Penryn MB, Airport Extreme Gigabit (purchased Nov 07) and a 250 gig CompUSA Brand (WD inside) Silver Case USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.

To begin this testing session i made sure that my Airport Extreme and computer had the newest Firmware and Software installed. I then formatted the 250 gig hard drive as OS X Extended with journaling using a GUID partition map. I gave it a very simple name of TM. I setup the drive to share with the Disk password and im not using Bonjour.

With both computer i have the newest airport software but i also installed the airport disk utility that i ripped out of the last Airport release DMG so i could have auto mounting of AirDisk's when they become available. Once performing this little addition i tested and everything worked great on both computers. They were able to both see the disk and mount it. I even tested going to sleep and coming back. It kept the disk mounted and i experienced none of the dropouts i used to experience when having an AirDisk plugged in.

On both of the computers, with the disks mounted, i fired up Time Machine for the first time and clicked on the change drive. Both computers saw the AirDisk and allowed me to use it as a Time Machine Backup Volume. They both then proceeded to begin backing up. I know this isnt a precise measure but i timed the transfer (55 gig for one, 22 gig for the other) and it was transfering a 100MB ever 5 seconds or about 20MB a second. Like i said, it was exact, just used finders transfer status. It seemed to be doing fine and i left them both up and running when i went to bed. When i woke up, both of them had finished the first backup.

So far i havent experienced any drop outs, both computers can see the drive and the sparse bundles they created on there. I am still able to access the drive and write other files to it as well. My next test will be to add another hard drive via a hub and see if i can share two disks, one for backup, the other for file storage. If this works successfully i will update everyone on the progress. So far though...everything has worked great....how i wished it would have worked back in November when i purchased it.
 
That's good news dhartung02. I would prefer an AE/AirDisk solution instead of TimeCapsule, however, I have 3 Macs that I want to backup. There is very little information to date if this works. Can I infer from your post that your two Mac's are backing up transparently with AE/AD just like they would if you had a TimeCapsule?
 
dhartung02 said:
I thought i would chime in with my Time Machine/Airport Extreme/AirDisk experience. First off, i had never used Time Machine before the new firmware arrived. Currently my equipment is as follows: 15 Penryn MBP, White Penryn MB, Airport Extreme Gigabit (purchased Nov 07) and a 250 gig CompUSA Brand (WD inside) Silver Case USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.

To begin this testing session i made sure that my Airport Extreme and computer had the newest Firmware and Software installed. I then formatted the 250 gig hard drive as OS X Extended with journaling using a GUID partition map. I gave it a very simple name of TM. I setup the drive to share with the Disk password and im not using Bonjour.

With both computer i have the newest airport software but i also installed the airport disk utility that i ripped out of the last Airport release DMG so i could have auto mounting of AirDisk's when they become available. Once performing this little addition i tested and everything worked great on both computers. They were able to both see the disk and mount it. I even tested going to sleep and coming back. It kept the disk mounted and i experienced none of the dropouts i used to experience when having an AirDisk plugged in.

On both of the computers, with the disks mounted, i fired up Time Machine for the first time and clicked on the change drive. Both computers saw the AirDisk and allowed me to use it as a Time Machine Backup Volume. They both then proceeded to begin backing up. I know this isnt a precise measure but i timed the transfer (55 gig for one, 22 gig for the other) and it was transfering a 100MB ever 5 seconds or about 20MB a second. Like i said, it was exact, just used finders transfer status. It seemed to be doing fine and i left them both up and running when i went to bed. When i woke up, both of them had finished the first backup.

So far i havent experienced any drop outs, both computers can see the drive and the sparse bundles they created on there. I am still able to access the drive and write other files to it as well. My next test will be to add another hard drive via a hub and see if i can share two disks, one for backup, the other for file storage. If this works successfully i will update everyone on the progress. So far though...everything has worked great....how i wished it would have worked back in November when i purchased it.
Click to expand...


Thanks Dhartung! let us know how you get on with the 2nd HDD.

I am glad to hear that Airdisks remain mounted after waking from sleep.

Time to take the plunge with some new hardware I think! I think this combo is much more flexible than the Time Capsule solution.
 
Tom J said:
That's good news dhartung02. I would prefer an AE/AirDisk solution instead of TimeCapsule, however, I have 3 Macs that I want to backup. There is very little information to date if this works. Can I infer from your post that your two Mac's are backing up transparently with AE/AD just like they would if you had a TimeCapsule?
Click to expand...

That is correct, it works with the AE/AD just like it would if you had a time capsule. I have been running it for a few days now and it has been going without any hickups. Both the macbook and the mbp are both backing up normally. I am still working on the 2nd drive. I am organizing all of my stuff and plan on using this second disk hooked up to the AE to house both itunes and iphoto information shared between the computers.
 
A couple of questions;
dhartung02 said:
...so i could have auto mounting of AirDisk's when they become available.
Click to expand...
Not quite following what you mean here. Available?


dhartung02 said:
They both then proceeded to begin backing up. ...i left them both up and running when i went to bed. When i woke up, both of them had finished the first backup.
Click to expand...
They both started backing up simultaneously? An interesting difference from TimeCapsule.

I gleaned this from Engadget on their brief TC review: "We tried to back up a second machine while the first was in progress, and not much happened -- it created the disk image and got to "Preparing..." and then did nothing. We're assuming these can only happen one at a time."

GOOD WORK. Can't wait to hear how you progress with this.
 
Tom J said:
A couple of questions;

Not quite following what you mean here. Available?
Click to expand...

When I am on my network the AirDisk Utility picks them up and automatically mounts them for use. If I am not, there are no error messages or problems.

Tom J said:
They both started backing up simultaneously? An interesting difference from TimeCapsule.

I gleaned this from Engadget on their brief TC review: "We tried to back up a second machine while the first was in progress, and not much happened -- it created the disk image and got to "Preparing..." and then did nothing. We're assuming these can only happen one at a time."

GOOD WORK. Can't wait to hear how you progress with this.
Click to expand...

Yes, i double checked this after i saw your post. I initiated a backup now on both laptops (after bringing them both out of sleep none the less) and they both proceeded to initiate backs and run. I couldnt be happier right now. Its working just as i had hoped it would when i got this setup.
 
This is indeed really good news for those of us that have more than one Mac to back up.

Any chance you could rewrite your experience into step-by-step procedures?
 
jdavtz said:
I hope I don't have to manually mount the AEBS-disk each time I turn the computers on!
Click to expand...

You don't have to do this. Time Machine will automatically mount the drive before the backup and unmount it when it is done.


For what it's worth, I am one of those folks for which this mostly just worked. I installed the updates, grabbed an old USB disk and plugged it into my MacBook. I formatted it (for Intel, HFS+) and then plugged it into the AEBS. Once I had the AEBS configured to share the disk (using a disk password), I browsed to the AEBS from my MacBook and mounted the disk. The disk showed up in Time Machine and was good to go. I configured my Mac Mini likewise and it also worked the first time.

Neither of these machines had ever run Time Machine before.

A.
 
Not quite working for me.

I have a fast ethernet AEBS with all the latest firmware and updates. I can't quite get it working; hope you guys can help.

I already had a 250GB USB drive plugged in serving up photos to my family. I added a USB hub and a 1TB LaCie harddrive. Both show in finder and can be mounted on the desktop. Both work to read and write files onto. But when I try to select the new drive in TIme Machine on any of my macs, I can only see the older 250GB drive. If I remove the smaller drive, nothing changes. I can see, mount, read and wite to the 1TB drive, but not select for TN backups.

Any ideas what to try next?
 
I'm rather curious to see a report of a successful restore, more than the successful backups with Airdisk/AEBS wireless. It would be nasty if these backups did not gracefully restore a failed machine.
 
I was able to go "back in time" and restore a document that I had deleted, while wirelessly connected to the airdisk Time Machine backup. I didn't try to do this with an entire system.
 
I have a MBP and an IOMEGA 500 gb external hard drive attaches to my AEBS. I installed the update (firmware and airport software) and it will not recognize the iomega disk. Why????

I mount it manually. I have it mounted on my G4 Tower also. Any suggestions?
 
I can't get this to work with an external that's not mounting successfully on the desktop but when I launch Time Machine the window shows zip available to choose from as a drive. AEBS>My book external. Any ideas? Do I need to reformat the drive? Currently it's 500GB with about 200GB of music.
 
So I did what others have done before me and mounted my external manually to my macbook and ran time machine the first time. I then plugged the external back into the AEBS and it said the next update was in an hour. It did that update of 45GBs and it took many hours to complete but after that it's running like a champ and updates time machine within a couple minutes tops when it runs.
 
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