PowerMac G5 as Time Machine server

[EnriqueG]

Hi,

I still use a Dual G5 with Leopard on a daily basis... so i thought i could use it as a backup server for my MacBook Air. Just plug them to the same LAN and let Time Machine do its magic. I got quite obsessed with backups as one of my colleagues almost lost everything. So Time Machine seems a good fit. The idea is backup every two or three days, apart from the syncing with a Mega folder and monthly backups to an external HDD which I already do.

So, I plugged the G5 to the network (it's usually offline, just gaming or photo editing), enabled a shared folder, connected to it with the MacBook Air... but Time Machine does not recognise it as a valid Time Machine volume.

The G5 runs Leopard, the Air runs last version of Mojave. Maybe it's a huge version gap... but I have a dual G5 with 1TB+500GB drives, so I need to get the most of it.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

 

[eyoungren]

Hi,

I still use a Dual G5 with Leopard on a daily basis... so i thought i could use it as a backup server for my MacBook Air. Just plug them to the same LAN and let Time Machine do its magic. I got quite obsessed with backups as one of my colleagues almost lost everything. So Time Machine seems a good fit. The idea is backup every two or three days, apart from the syncing with a Mega folder and monthly backups to an external HDD which I already do.

So, I plugged the G5 to the network (it's usually offline, just gaming or photo editing), enabled a shared folder, connected to it with the MacBook Air... but Time Machine does not recognise it as a valid Time Machine volume.

The G5 runs Leopard, the Air runs last version of Mojave. Maybe it's a huge version gap... but I have a dual G5 with 1TB+500GB drives, so I need to get the most of it.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

You need to share the drive on the G5 via SMB. AFP for Time Machine won't work. Make sure that using network drives as time machine disk is enabled on the MBA (it's a terminal command). You may also need to move the hidden time machine file to the drive on the G5.

Also, you may need to create the initial sparsebundle on another supported drive and then transfer it over to the G5 before an actual backup will complete.

But yes, differences between versions of OS have made this difficult. It started with Snow Leopard.

Quite honestly, I'd look into using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper as a backup app. My experience with TM has been frustrating and non-productive. So I switched to CCC a long time ago.

All it takes is that one time you need a TM disk image and Finder and Time Machine are not cooperating.

 

[theMarble]

My experience with TM has been frustrating and non-productive. So I switched to CCC a long time ago.

Can vouch for Carbon Copy Cloner and for Time Machine being a PITA.

 

[hobowankenobi]

One does not have to look too hard to find gripes with TM. A complicating factor is that Apple has made tweaks to it over time...but with no branding or versioning, a user could hate TM from 4, 5, or 6 OSes back, and have no experience with the most recent version.

However, the point is moot as your TM server is stuck with a very old OS.

I would tend to agree with the others...it may not be a great solution to run TM on such an old OS. Other tools are out there that can be much more robust.

FWIW, OS X Server used to have TM server built into it, and it was a bit easier and better to run as a TM destination. If you can find a copy of Server for 10.5, I recommend that.

CCC, SuperDuper, and GetBackup are good commercial options.

Other tools to consider:

Chronosync - has an agent remote backup, not cheap, but very good.
Smart Backup - free, no need to run on the server, just mount a share, and backup to it.
Resilio Sync - Interesting syncing possibilities, free for home use.
Syncthing - Another powerful file sync tool built to move data over networks.