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Time Machine and NAS

parish

parish

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 14, 2009
1,082
2
Wilts., UK
From what I remember reading TM doesn't (offically at least) support backing up to a NAS disk, except Time Capsule or a USB disk attached to an Airport Extreme Base Sataion. It won't list NAS devices in the Select Disk dialogue, but there is a hack to a plist file that will allow you to use NAS.

Is this still the case?

I ask because I am lookng to buy a NAS and I've noticed that most, if not all, claim to be TM-compatible or Work With TM. How can this be? Surely the likes of LaCie, Synology etc. aren't relying on a plist hack (they certainly don't document it in their manuals).

So, has TM changed recently, or is Apple "approving" certain NAS devices for use with TM?
 
As long as the NAS drives are mounted on your Mac (i.e. it's connected to the NAS and has access to it), there shouldn't be a problem. Works well with my Synology and I didn't have to do any hacks ;)

Just make sure to do the initial back-up not over wireless. That would take forever.
 
ergdegdeg said:
As long as the NAS drives are mounted on your Mac (i.e. it's connected to the NAS and has access to it), there shouldn't be a problem.
Click to expand...

Can I just clarify what you mean by "mounted"?

Do you mean literally mounted on the local filesystem, or just visible in Shared?

I imagine it behaves a bit like my Linux box which appears under Shared (it exports shares using AFP) and it is accessible from there using Connect, but it isn't mounted on the local filesystem.

Hope you understand what I'm asking, I might not have got the terminology quite right :(
 
I can only tell you what I have to do with my NAS.

In Finder, under Shared, I see my NAS and when I click on it, it shows me the actual shares/folders on it. When I click on one of these, it mounts it on my computer and it looks like a "regular" external HD connected via USB etc.

For Time Machine, though, once set up, I only have to be in the same network as my NAS and it mounts the share automatically when it does a backup.
 
Thanks, that answers my question perfectly.

That is how the USB disk connected to my AEBS works.

What is confusing me is why my Linux box doesn't appear in Select Disk (and doesn't appear in the Create New Disk Image File in Carbon Copy Cloner). I would expect my Linux box should appear no different to a NAS :confused:

Thanks for you help :)
 
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I just tried again and my Linux box now appears in the Select Disk list in TM. Hmmm, don't you just hate it when that happens?

It also appears in CCC but I'd missed it as CCC has a rather odd way of showing the browser in the dialogue.

So, a Linux box will function just like a NAS :)
 
As another option for you, I've been using a 2x2TB Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with 2 Macs (and a couple of PCs) backing up to it without any issues whatsoever. It's been pretty seamless and was really easy to setup w/ Time Machine.

It was also pretty easy to increase the storage as I just did a hot swap drive upgrade (going from 2x1TB drives to the 2x2TB drives) and that went smooth as silk.

On a side note...

After my Macs backup to the NAS, 3 times a week the NAS makes a full backup copy on an attached USB powered portable drive that sits in a firesafe (the firesafe is fireproof/waterproof with a pass-through USB port so no power cords can get into the safe). My only issue now is trying to find a 2tb USB powered drive to do my semi-nightly backup of the NAS. I've been able to find a 1.5TB drive, but no luck with a 2TB USB powered drive. Anyone ever see one of those?

Edit: Addressing Moomba's point below, you allocate how much of the drive you want dedicated to Time Machine, so you don't have to worry about it just continuing to consume the space on the drive.
 
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FreeNAS also has the ability to mimic/announce a share as a Time Machine. It's very simple. Just select the folder or drive to share and tell it to announce itself as a Time Machine, save, and viola!

The only cravat is that Time Machine will eventually eat up the entire drive. I'd recommend setting it up with its own dedicated drive or partition tho.
 
rtkane said:
As another option for you, I've been using a 2x2TB Netgear ReadyNAS Duo
Click to expand...

I was looking at one of these especially as Netgear currently have an offer (at least here in the UK) where you buy one with 1 x 2TB disk and they give you a second 2TB disk free :) The big negative with it is that it doesn't support Wake-on-LAN
 
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parish said:
I was looking at one of these especially as Netgear currently have an offer (at least here in the UK) where you buy one with 1 x 2TB disk and they give you a second 2TB disk free :) The big negative with it is that it doesn't support Wake-on-LAN
Click to expand...

What does wake on lan do? Well, I know what WOL does, I guess what I'm asking is what do you need it for? The ReadyNAS Duo does at least allow disk spin-down and also has a power timer where you can schedule the device to turn on and turn off at pre-determined times of the day (You can set an on and off time for each day of the week). So if you want, you could have it come on at 8am and off at 8pm.

Not sure if that's something that would overcome the WOL need you have, but I figured I'd mention it. With Time Machine backing up every hour, it'd be on most (or a good portion) of the time. Fortunately it only uses 35 or 40 watts of power, so it's not a hog.
 
I use a 7TB "Drobo FS" on my network to back up several desktop Macs and several notebook Macs all using Time Machine. It works great and the Drobo FS maintains 2 separate copies of files on different physical disks, so a single-disk-failure won't lose any data.

It is not a true RAID system, which I also have, but that makes it easier to upgrade the storage capacity as larger disks become available. Simply replace 1 disk at a time with a larger size, let it work for a day, then replace another one, and repeat. You can't do that easily with a true RAID system.

While I have a Time Capsule, the difficulty of backing up the internal backup-disk in case of disk failure caused me to look for a better way. I now use the TC as a simple shared disk for music and photos, all of which come from a backed up system.

Probably overkill for me, but just for fun I also backup the Drobo FS to a HP MediaSmart server box on the network but physically located elsewhere. The HP MediaSmart also backs up my Windows computers, including the Windows Virtual Machines on my Macs. This would presumably protect my data in case of a massive failure of the NAS resulting in the loss of all the internal disks at once. I am, however, still vulnerable to a total loss to a house fire, massive sink-hole, volcano, etc., but I would have bigger worries in that event. :eek:


-howard
 
macdroid said:
What model QNAP do you have? My unit actually has native support for Time Machine, so I am guessing most models do now. There is also an older wiki article on qnap.com showing how to configure this (not sure if this is still relevant with the latest QNAP firmware supporting Time Machine tho).


http://wiki.qnap.com/wiki/How_to_setup_your_QNAP_NAS_with_Apple_Time_Machine
Click to expand...

i have a 419p+


yes, it has TM but a few of us around here do not like the way it is set up. I want to be able to dedicate specific shares for the iMac, MBP17, and so on. the way it does it now is not acceptable. it does not even allow us to do TM back up onto an external usb drive. maybe qnap still very young at this or I could be wrong.
 
The really important point is, can you restore from it?

Try booting off your OS X DVD and see if it can see your NAS backups.
 
I am a neophyte and on the recommendation of the our installer, just got a Drobo (the 4-bay model, with drives installed to give it 2TB total capacity) to use as a network storage device and for Time Machine backups.

I have two issues:

1. I was able to get TM to recognize the Drobo and make initial backups for both my and my wife's computers (I have an older MacBook Pro and she has a new MacBook Air. Both running Snow Leopard). However, when TM attempts to do incremental backups, we get error messages stating that the backup failed because the respective sparsebundles are already in use.

2. Is there a way to limit the size of the sparsebundles for our respective backups so that TM doesn't eventually expand to take up the entire device?

Thanks in advance.
 
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