Time Machine backup FROM Airdisk?

[Busters]

I'm a recent switcher and am fairly happy so far in no small part thinks to this forum!

My setup:
Mac mini with 4GB ram (self upgrade) and 120 GB internal HD
Attached 1TB HD for Time Machine
Airport Extreme
Attached 500GB HD (to Airport Extreme) for Airdisk

I've put all of my media onto the Airdisk networked drive (music, photos etc.) so I can access them from my Mini, my fiancee's Macbook when she's connected to my home network, and plan to access remotely using iDisk when I sign up for MobileMe.

Now the problem I'm having is that Time Machine doesn't seem to be backing up FROM the Airdisk to the external HD I am using for Time Machine nor does the Time Machine app give me the option of selecting this Airdisk networked HD.

Is there a way to do this that I am missing?

I hope that I am missing something here (which is possible and probable) for the most important files that I have that I would not want to loose are on my Airdisk.
I want to keep these files on the Airdisk for i don't want to loose the easy network and remote access to these files for this was the chief selling point for me of the Airport Extreme vs far less expensive routers, but I want to backup these files without spending the time or money for a backup solution outside of Time machine.

Any help for this newbie switcher would be vastly appreciated.

 

[-tWv-]

Time machine is only supposed to back up the contents of your boot drive, the on running Mac OS X. So it will not let you back up other external drives into that time machine backup.

What you could do is you could partition your external 1TB drive in half and use on half for time machine and the other for backing up your 500GB HD.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the airdisk to the empty partition. This will create an exact copy of the contents of that drive and if it ever fails you can use CCC to clone it back from the 1TB HD and have no data loss.

You can create a schedule when to do these backups (like daily or weekly) or you could just manually do it when you add new files. After the initial clone, only new files will be added in further clones, so it doesn't take forever each time you do it. This would be the best way so that you don't lose data from your airdisk if it ever fails

 

[Busters]

Time machine is only supposed to back up the contents of your boot drive, the on running Mac OS X. So it will not let you back up other external drives into that time machine backup.

I understand what you're saying but in a broader sense Time Machine is supposed to give me incremental backups of my data in a Apple sort of way (i.e. user friendly, no muss-no fuss). Since Apple sold me on the Airport Extreme due in large part to its ability to create an easy networked and remotely accessible AirDisk drive, I think Time Machine should be able to back up that data (especially frustrating because it can "see" the AirDisk and offer to backup too it, but not from it )... but enough of my righteous indignation.

What you could do is you could partition your external 1TB drive in half and use on half for time machine and the other for backing up your 500GB HD.

Thanks! That's what I was thinking about doing.

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the airdisk to the empty partition. This will create an exact copy of the contents of that drive and if it ever fails you can use CCC to clone it back from the 1TB HD and have no data loss.

You can create a schedule when to do these backups (like daily or weekly) or you could just manually do it when you add new files. After the initial clone, only new files will be added in further clones, so it doesn't take forever each time you do it. This would be the best way so that you don't lose data from your airdisk if it ever fails

Sounds like the sort of program I'm looking for here until Apple makes Time Capsule more useful for me.
To clarify, can I automatically schedule these backups automatically through CCC or is there something else I have to know.

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it!

 

[-tWv-]

I understand what you're saying but in a broader sense Time Machine is supposed to give me incremental backups of my data in a Apple sort of way (i.e. user friendly, no muss-no fuss). Since Apple sold me on the Airport Extreme due in large part to its ability to create an easy networked and remotely accessible AirDisk drive, I think Time Machine should be able to back up that data (especially frustrating because it can "see" the AirDisk and offer to backup too it, but not from it )... but enough of my righteous indignation.


Thanks! That's what I was thinking about doing.


Sounds like the sort of program I'm looking for here until Apple makes Time Capsule more useful for me.
To clarify, can I automatically schedule these backups automatically through CCC or is there something else I have to know.

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it!

Yes you can automatically schedule through CCC. You just set up what you want and click "save action" and then you can set it up to when you want it to happen. and if you are not connected to the drives when it is scheduled to do it you can click "defer" and it will perform the operation the next time you are connected to both drives.

 

[Busters]

Yes you can automatically schedule through CCC. You just set up what you want and click "save action" and then you can set it up to when you want it to happen. and if you are not connected to the drives when it is scheduled to do it you can click "defer" and it will perform the operation the next time you are connected to both drives.

In the Apple support forums someone else is recommending Silverkeeper.
Any thoughts one CCC vs. Silverkeeper?

Again, I don't need anything that can create a bootable image. Just incremental backups of my media files on my Airdisk, and preferably one that is smart enough that it only updates the backups for files that have changed to save time and resources.

I'll give up on multiple, incremental backups until Time Machine catches up with my needs.

 

[-tWv-]

Most people on this forum either use CCC or SuperDuper (Shareware). I have never seen Silverkeeper recommended on this forum but I think CCC and Silverkeeper do the same thing so just use whichever one you think gives better features.

 

[Busters]

Most people on this forum either use CCC or SuperDuper (Shareware). I have never seen Silverkeeper recommended on this forum but I think CCC and Silverkeeper do the same thing so just use whichever one you think gives better features.

Thanks again!

To clarify my partition job, I should do a 500GB partition so I have a 1:1 ratio for my Airdisk to cover one complete copy should it fill to capacity and leave the rest (500GB) for Time Machine to play with.

Right?

 

[-tWv-]

I'll give up on multiple, incremental backups until Time Machine catches up with my needs.

I would not do this. Time machine is a great utility for backing up your boot drive. This is what it is supposed to do and it is not meant to backup external media also.

It is great to use if you ever have to an OS re-install and especially since Snow Leopard is coming out in the coming months. If you use a time machine backup of your system with the migration assistant when you re-install it leaves your computer looking just as it did before you did the re-install. Everything stays intact.

And time machine is great for just restoring one file that you accidentally deleted, especially if its like an application that you really need. I would suggest staying using time machine because of the ability to use it with migration assistant and for restoring individual files easily.

CCC makes a bootable backup and then only backs up the files after that are changed after the bootable backup is made. And if you are going to go with another backup solution besides time machine, I would use a bootable backup solution. If your internal hard drive ever fails, you can still boot from this external hard drive until you get the problem resolved or get a new hard drive. Then you aren't without Mac OS X or your files for a long period of time until you can get a new internal HD.

 

[-tWv-]

Thanks again!

To clarify my partition job, I should do a 500GB partition so I have a 1:1 ratio for my Airdisk to cover one complete copy should it fill to capacity and leave the rest (500GB) for Time Machine to play with.

Right?

Yes, If you have 500GB of total space then make it a 500GB partition for the clone, A 1:1 ratio. And then the rest can be used for time machine backups. Time machine does a good job of utilizing the space available. Partition the disk with disk utility. If you need help on this just ask, you don't want to screw up your disk.

 

[Busters]

I would not do this. Time machine is a great utility for backing up your boot drive. This is what it is supposed to do and it is not meant to backup external media also.

Agreed.

I meant to say that I was now (begrudgingly) satisfied to find another solution to backing up my Airdisk that would not have multiple, incremental copies not that that I wasn't going to use Time Machine to backup my primary HD.

 

[Busters]

Yes, If you have 500GB of total space then make it a 500GB partition for the clone, A 1:1 ratio. And then the rest can be used for time machine backups. Time machine does a good job of utilizing the space available. Partition the disk with disk utility. If you need help on this just ask, you don't want to screw up your disk.

Thanks!

When I open disk utility and select the HD I have Time Machine save to partition isn't an option. When I select other HDs (internal/primary and Airdisk HD partition is an option.)

Am I doing something wrong?

Edit to add: I think I figured it out. I was selecting its alias rather then the actual HD itself.

 

[-tWv-]

Thanks!

When I open disk utility and select the HD I have Time Machine save to partition isn't an option. When I select other HDs (internal/primary and Airdisk HD partition is an option.)

Am I doing something wrong?

Edit to add: I think I figured it out. I was selecting its alias rather then the actual HD itself.

Yeah you have to select the actual hd itself to partition.

 

[Busters]

Roadblock.

Have the backup HD partitioned and Time Machine running on 1 partition.

I've downloaded Carbon Copy Cloner and on my first try it's not able to "see" the networked drive (AirDisk) I want to backup.

Any suggestions?

 

[-tWv-]

Is it showing up in the finder? You might have to take it off your airport extreme and hook both up to your mac. This will be much faster anyway because transferring data over a network is much slower than direct connection.

 

[Busters]

Is it showing up in the finder? You might have to take it off your airport extreme and hook both up to your mac. This will be much faster anyway because transferring data over a network is much slower than direct connection.

It shows up in my finder just fine.

Looking back at the thread on Apple forums, it appears that others have had problems with Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper seeing Airdisks while SilverKeeper and ChronSync seem not to have the problem recognizing the drive.

Although I appreciate the suggestion, I'm reluctant to plug and unplug my drive every time I want to do a backup. It may seem lazy, but it just seems like too much work and, well, wrong.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[-tWv-]

Alright well I think silverkeeper or chronosync will do the job just fine. I just have never used it so I couldn't recommend it. Good luck

 

[yesno]

Time machine is only supposed to back up the contents of your boot drive, the on running Mac OS X. So it will not let you back up other external drives into that time machine backup.

Someone is wrong on the Internet!

Time Machine does back up any hard drives attached to your computer. It doesn't care if it's a "boot drive" or anything.

You can use Time Machine to back up any USB, Firewire, or second internal hard drives. No problem.

External hard drives *are* added to the exclude list by default, however. Just go and remove it.

On the other hand, Time Machine cannot back up from Airdisks, or any other shared network resources. These are not really "part of your computer" in the way that external drives are.

 

[yesno]

Oh, and the correct way to back up an NAS like an Airdisk is through rsync. Add a custom rsync command to launchd. Find an expert to help you with this.

 

[-tWv-]

Someone is wrong on the Internet!

Sorry, that was just what I thought it did. My mistake. I had tried to figure it out before and never got it to work. I just thought that a clone would be easier anyways so you could just use time machine to back up the osx part and have a separate backup of the external.

 

[madog]

Someone is wrong on the Internet!

That is just absurd. Go browse YouTube's comments on any video and you will know that everybody is always right and we all deserve everything for nothing.

 

[punkbrain]

solution

Hey Buster,
I'm looking for a solution to backup FROM my airdisk to another airdisk. Did you find a way that worked?
Thanks!

 

[Jericho7]

Hey Buster,
I'm looking for a solution to backup FROM my airdisk to another airdisk. Did you find a way that worked?
Thanks!

Hi there.

I have the exact same situation: Airdisk attached to Airport Extreme and another disk called AirBackup attached to Airport Extreme as well. I am searching for a solution from yesterday how to backup my Airdisk over Airport Extreme and only program that seems to work is File Synchronization. I am just doing an backup now, though will take some time since there's arround 700GB to back it up

here's the link to this program: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16975

(I am using demo version though, since it's a shareware, but 15 $ is not much I guess, if it will work good)..

Time Machine should be able to do this, DOH !!!

 

[punkbrain]

I'm STILL searching for a solution to this. I have File Synchronization set up, but it's not working. It takes forever, then says there are 11,000 errors and the files are not backed up. Anone succesfully backing up an airdisk to another airdisk? Any tips on getting FS to work?
thanks!