Time Machine backup from laptop to network shared drive

[sandman42]

I would like to use Time Machine to back up my MacBook to an external drive connected to my desktop (a Mac Mini) over my wireless network, so I don't have to keep plugging an external drive into the laptop. This should work ok for the incremental back-ups (they're usually <20Mb at a time), but the initial backup will take days over my 'g' network.

I hoped I could do the initial backup by connecting the external directly to the laptop (firewire) then do subsequent backups over the network, but when I tried this and re-connected to the drive as a network drive, Time Machine didn't see the it as the same drive, ignored my previous backup, and started doing a new initial backup.

Any ideas how I might be able to do the inital backup via firewire, then re-connect to the drive via the network and have Time Machine understand that it's the same drive?

 

[himansk]

use Ethernet instead of wireless for the initial transfer

 

[sandman42]

use Ethernet instead of wireless for the initial transfer

Thanks for the reply. I'm not trying to use wireless for the initial transfer -- I connected the external drive directly to the laptop via firewire.

Can I connect the laptop directly to the desktop computer via ethernet, and access the desktop's external drive as a shared network drive? If so it seem like this would solve the problem, as long as the laptop sees it as the same drive when I later connect via wireless.