I have a small company that uses a drive connected to an Airport extreme that everyone shares. Everyone in the office keeps all their files on this drive. (we have both mac & pc users). We need a way to keep this drive backed up without having to manually move the files to another drive. Is there a way to have time machine or something like it keep a backup of this network drive?
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Network Drive Backup
- Thread starter TayOneThree
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I don't believe this is officially supported with Time Machine, but here's something you can try.
Open Terminal and run the following command.
Open Terminal and run the following command.
Code:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences
TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
How is the drive formatted?
You may be able to attached the drive to a Mac on the network and Share the drive over the network that way, and then hook up the back-up disk to the AirPort (if its the AC version) and Time Machine that way.
You may be able to attached the drive to a Mac on the network and Share the drive over the network that way, and then hook up the back-up disk to the AirPort (if its the AC version) and Time Machine that way.
Long term:
Your setup now is not business grade.
• Consider a NAS that is easy to setup and run, and also easy to backup.
• Consider a cloud sharing service (Dropbox, Box, Google Drive.....there are dozens more)
Unless you can stand to lose data, and/or down time, there is no good, easy way to make this into a robust file share service.
Sorry to be negative, but it is important to start with the right tool for the job. Once you have a business grade file share tool, you still need at least one good, automated backup and restore process. Depending on how important the data is, you may need two or more backup locations.
Your setup now is not business grade.
• Consider a NAS that is easy to setup and run, and also easy to backup.
• Consider a cloud sharing service (Dropbox, Box, Google Drive.....there are dozens more)
Unless you can stand to lose data, and/or down time, there is no good, easy way to make this into a robust file share service.
Sorry to be negative, but it is important to start with the right tool for the job. Once you have a business grade file share tool, you still need at least one good, automated backup and restore process. Depending on how important the data is, you may need two or more backup locations.
Well I know the terminal instruction in the blog post Configure OS X Time Machine to work with CIFS/SMB share still works to at least 10.9.x.
Yes.
If the drive is auto-mounted and therefore available on "some" Mac in your office "most" of the time, you can use Carbon Copy Cloner to run a scheduled backup to "somewhere else". (See pic)
But I have to agree with other posters... you really need to think about setting up a much more robust system. That being said, IF you are a small office and IF you regularly back up to more than one location AND you'd like to save money (who doesn't?), this can be done.
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There are two principal issues to consider with this kind of small office/home backup setup:
1) Integrity/safety of data, &
2) Availability of Settings for a Machine Restore
In a business, both of these will likely be critical - included in your settings would be the ability to send/receive mail, and a copy of client contact details. The core business data obviously has utility in itself, but might typically be accessed from a multitude of devices.
At a very basic level, iCloud may be sufficient to restore the basic usability of a new Mac, and other online services may cover sufficient data storage for your needs. However it would not be wise to rely on these.
I prefer to take responsibility for backing up my own data, and do this with a NAS at home, replicated to another NAS offsite. This gives me redundancy for hardware failure of single/multiple drives and, with offsite, also covers major disaster type incidents.
The brand of NAS that I use can be used for Time Machine of individual Macs, and also backs up iOS photos automatically to avoid using iCloud for that purpose.
I would however recommend that you always have an external HDD backup of your primary partition of your main Mac, and for good measure a bootable (CCC) clone.
1) Integrity/safety of data, &
2) Availability of Settings for a Machine Restore
In a business, both of these will likely be critical - included in your settings would be the ability to send/receive mail, and a copy of client contact details. The core business data obviously has utility in itself, but might typically be accessed from a multitude of devices.
At a very basic level, iCloud may be sufficient to restore the basic usability of a new Mac, and other online services may cover sufficient data storage for your needs. However it would not be wise to rely on these.
I prefer to take responsibility for backing up my own data, and do this with a NAS at home, replicated to another NAS offsite. This gives me redundancy for hardware failure of single/multiple drives and, with offsite, also covers major disaster type incidents.
The brand of NAS that I use can be used for Time Machine of individual Macs, and also backs up iOS photos automatically to avoid using iCloud for that purpose.
I would however recommend that you always have an external HDD backup of your primary partition of your main Mac, and for good measure a bootable (CCC) clone.
Agreed. Solid advice.
I would add that as great and convenient as a bootable clone is, data is the one unique thing that cannot be replaced. Is it a pain to reinstall an OS, all applications, licenses, settings? Yes. But it is possible.
User data should be first priority in almost all cases, followed by a bootable clone as a secondary backup and for disaster recovery.