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Yes..it works! I updated the firmware and then ejected the disk from the Base Station. Since I'm an old Windows user I thought I'd throw in a restart....old habits die hard! I then reconnected to the disk and opened the Time Machine disk I wanted to use in the Finder. I opened Time Machine and selected the disk and now it's backing up wirelessly. Of course the first backup will take a few hours, but after that it's plain sailing if you ask me!

That's good to hear, however I've been fiddiling around and can't seem to get it to work. Oh well.
 
Hacks? An external disk connected to another Mac is an Apple-supported configuration for remote Time Machine backups. There are no hacks.

Judging from your earlier posts you're quite down on the AEBS+USB solution for remote TM backups, and very much in favor of TC. As if there's much difference that you or any of us are aware of. Aside from the issue that Apple hasn't endorsed this configuration for TM backups (which may really be based on their desire to promote TC sales), your list of concerns is full of inference and light on evidence. For example: Of course a remote backup creates a sparsebundle and can't append to a pre-existing directory hierarchy--we all knew this. But there's no reason that a sparsebundle is any less reliable. It's just different.

The issue is not the sparse tree, the issue is the location of the sparse tree and the fact that Apple has not come out yet to support this setup. They could get a lot of positive publicity for "fixing" the use of Airdisk and TM. Yet they have chosen not to say a single word one way or the other.

Judging from your post, you prefer to think that Apple is out to sell TC and that is why they have not yet promoted the AirDisk / TM combination. Accoding to you they are just out to get you and milk your pocket, Another Microsoft, GOT IT.

You ask for proof? What proof do you offer of your paranoid point? People are always looking for some kind of paranoid agenda or ulterior motive instead of allowing the possibility that they know nothing about what goes on behind the door and that Apple maybe running into some technical problem.

To tell you the truth, you could be right, then again I could be. Neither of us know for real what happens at Steve Monday meetings, so asking for evidence is flat out a way for you to try to inflate your point by demeaning mine. This is childish.

If you do not want to believe that the current FIX is not complete or simply accidental, that is fine, believe as you will. I do not get pay to make you believe anything so believe what you will. It makes zero difference to me.

I am interested in a 1TB WD MyBook world edition with an ethernet connection and my Airport Extreme. I am wondering if TM will back up to that since it's ethernet only. Also if I use another backup program like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner, will I be able to boot off the WD ethernet drive, or only USB or Firewire drives?

To my knowledge TM does not support any pure Ethernet connected Disk. You can use that setup to store/retrieve files but not for TM.

However in a setup like that you can still use superduper to make backups, just not TM backups.

Hope this helps.
 
The updates certainly don't work for everyone, and in particular they haven't helped me in any way.

I have the same old total nonfunctionality of my external drive plugged into my Airport Extreme now that I had before the upgrade. Exactly the same configuration worked perfectly under Tiger, but ever since upgrading to Leopard the air disk functionality has been gone. The updates have made NO difference for me in trying to get it back.

Yes, I have both the firmware update and the airport utility update installed and...nada. ABsolutely the same problem I have always had with Leopard.

When I check the Disk tab of the airport utility the external disk is clearly shown as connected and functioning, however my external drive does not appear on my desktop and it isn't seen by Time Machine. Still, it does appears in the finder and the finder says it is connected. When I click on the disk in the finder in order to access its contents,I hear it spin up, there is a slight pause, then I get the same old error message every time: "The operation cannot be completed because the original item for [name of disk] cannot be found."

No one has ever been able to tell me what that means, but I'm getting used to it regardless.

Hope your luck is better. But, hey, since when did getting Mac software to work reliably become a matter of luck?

If your AE is behaving like my TC you will not see your external harddrive on the desk top... only in finder.
 
But, hey, since when did getting Mac software to work reliably become a matter of luck?


Since people started using undocumented, unsupported features as though they were documented supported features.
 
Is there a particular format it needs to be?

Yep, Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Does the current Apple Extreme have a USB 2.0 port or 1.0?

USB 2. Here is the Airport Extreme's tech specs and it's hard drive sharing feature.

I think most people who are using Time Machine for the first time will get frustrated with the initial backup. Trust me. It gets much better after that. I have been using Time Capsule and Time Machine for a while now and find it the most unobtrusive way for me to back up my files. I used to forget about backing up, but now I don't even think about it. Maybe I'll get another HD to connect to Time Capsule, but right now I don't see the need.

I made the decision to do me first Time Machine backup wired to the Time Machine disk then putting it on the wireless. It has worked perfectly.
 
If your AE is behaving like my TC you will not see your external harddrive on the desk top... only in finder.

Doesn't this depend on the setting of Finder where you can define which disks that shall be shown on the desktop in the Finder Preferences?

--jarl
 
Firstly why would Apple intro TC and then make a statement saying they are working on the Airdisk issue? Hmm, can't think of a worse way to crap on TC sales that way before it even hits the market. Hardly anyone would order it with this bit of knowledge.

"IF" Apple's intention was to sell TC then keeping secrets is a smart thing for the company to do. Where is your logic? :rollseyes:


First of all, Apple actually ANNOUNCED Time machine over "Airdisk" functionality as a FEATURE of Leopard, something they later quietly retracted. Many users were upset that this all but disappeared from any product literature AFTER their orders had been placed. It was entirely in Apple's interest to make public the fact that they were having problems with this concept. The silent retraction of the feature, the fact that patches were made available which enabled the feature in the community, along with the later introduction of Time capsule obviously put a bad taste in the mouth of many of their customers.
Holding back a key announcement like this just to make a few extra bucks from TC through what amounts to product deception and thus annoyingf members of your core customer base is DEFINITELY not a "smart thing" to do. By that comment, I can assume you have zero experience running any sort of successful business entity.

And as far as my ability to reason, It must be seriously impaired, or I wouldn't be spending so much time responding to nonsense. I'd better get that checked out!

@mod,
1) Why did you remove comments that the other poster made TOWARDS me in MY OWN post? I feel it's important for others to see what the other member wrote to me in order to have a context for my response.
2) When you removed his comments, and added a reason for it, you did it on MY username account and made no mention that it was a mod who had edited the post
 
Holding back a key announcement like this just to make a few extra bucks from TC through what amounts to product deception and thus pissing off members of your core customer base is DEFINITELY not a "smart thing" to do.

It still doesn't work for most people. Consider Apple has STILL made no announcement that the feature exists and is supported, it seems to me that it was likely a bug in the patch that is "allowing" it to sort of work for some people.

I agree that it is a black eye on Apple to dangle the feature and then take it away. But it seems obvious that the reason it was taken away is that IT DOESN'T WORK RIGHT.
 
So....for those that might be interested....it backed up 34Gigs in just over 2 hours using a wireless connection. Personally I think that's pretty respectable.

I own a MacBook with a relatively small hard drive so I only really use it to keep a back up of my videos, pictures and documents. For my purpose this is absolutely fantastic. It's backed up every hour so far in a matter of seconds/minutes and I'm very pleased with how it's working out! :D
 
My AEBS has a 500GB Western Digital hanging off of it. Formatted HFS+, 2 partitions; one for Time Machine and one just for Data. Each show up on my desktop when mounted.

I'm so glad its finally working...
 
It still doesn't work for most people. Consider Apple has STILL made no announcement that the feature exists and is supported, it seems to me that it was likely a bug in the patch that is "allowing" it to sort of work for some people.

I agree that it is a black eye on Apple to dangle the feature and then take it away. But it seems obvious that the reason it was taken away is that IT DOESN'T WORK RIGHT.

I agree. I might have jumped the gun a little bit by just reading all the headlines all over the internet that "Time machine over Airdisk now working". I figured it was legit now and working for everyone, although I was unsure if Apple was yet to release info on it in the errata list of a software update.
Again, I totally understand that the most probable reason the feature was pulled had to do with stability and reliability... my argument is that Apple should have let people know what was going on so when they silently pulled the feature and later introduced Time capsule, they didn't frustrate a large percentage of Airport EX owners.
I think Apple should be less secretive of that type of information.
 
I agree. I might have jumped the gun a little bit by just reading all the headlines all over the internet that "Time machine over Airdisk now working". I figured it was legit now and working for everyone, although I was unsure if Apple was yet to release info on it in the errata list of a software update.
Again, I totally understand that the most probable reason the feature was pulled had to do with stability and reliability... my argument is that Apple should have let people know what was going on so when they silently pulled the feature and later introduced Time capsule, they didn't frustrate a large percentage of Airport EX owners.
I think Apple should be less secretive of that type of information.

No argument.
 
I've had it with AEBS and Time Machine...this update has done nothing but waste my weekend. Trying to get TM to work with my 500GB LaCie drive has proven futile. Yeah sure it detects my drive no problem but its unacceptably slow even after the initial backup was completed. Its slow slow slow and then slows my internet browsing to a crawl with and occasional dropout and/or server interuption. And then the subsequent backups just hang. Why should it take so long when I haven't added anything for it to backup in the first place. Then when I try to access time machine i get a freakin server interruption. This is truly pathetic apple.

Grrrrrrrrrrr I not once had a server interruption in the last 5 months but since this update has fubar'd something and given me a false sense of hope that TM and Airdisk support will be a reality. Total BS. :mad:
 
I've had it with AEBS and Time Machine...this update has done nothing but waste my weekend. Trying to get TM to work with my 500GB LaCie drive has proven futile. Yeah sure it detects my drive no problem but its unacceptably slow even after the initial backup was completed. Its slow slow slow and then slows my internet browsing to a crawl with and occasional dropout and/or server interuption. And then the subsequent backups just hang. Why should it take so long when I haven't added anything for it to backup in the first place. Then when I try to access time machine i get a freakin server interruption. This is truly pathetic apple.

Grrrrrrrrrrr I not once had a server interruption in the last 5 months but since this update has fubar'd something and given me a false sense of hope that TM and Airdisk support will be a reality. Total BS. :mad:

Maybe you should have waited for Apple to announce and support the feature before investing so much time.
 
Maybe you should have waited for Apple to announce and support the feature before investing so much time.


Did you use the Lacie as a direct connect to your computer before this? I only ask because I had to re-do my direct connect Seagate FreeAgent and forgot to use the GUID partition trick the second time around. It was slow, slow, slow on direct connect. Once formated right it worked fine as a direct connect to my computer. I can only imagine how slow the wrong formatting would be using the Airport Extreme.
 
Well, it took me 28 hours for 97GB over WLAN and AEBS with an external disk.

--jarl

Ouch!

I must say I switched my drive off....and the reconnected it as I sometimes feel it lags if it's been on too long. But of course...I'm a bit late with that snippet of information!

I feel your pain, but rest in the knowledge that it's a one time only event you have to endure!
 
I have been able to get backups work wirelessly with few problems this weekend. Yet, even though I've been successful, I have to agree that something does not seem right with this update. Too many people have been having problems with this for it to match up with Apple's "it just works" mentality.

I just had an issue where, after waking my Macbook up from sleep, it was unable to see the Airdisk anymore. After I turned the external hard drive off and on and restarted my Mac, everything was fine and it's backing up again. But this just shouldn't be this hard, right?

Still, I just don't understand: if the wireless Time Machine backup "feature" is legitimately not ready for prime time...why are so many people like me able to do it (with a few hiccups?) Why not disable the functionality entirely? I've been an Apple user for two decades now, and though I can't claim to be a power user, this just seems unusual.
 
I have been able to get backups work wirelessly with few problems this weekend. Yet, even though I've been successful, I have to agree that something does not seem right with this update. Too many people have been having problems with this for it to match up with Apple's "it just works" mentality.

I just had an issue where, after waking my Macbook up from sleep, it was unable to see the Airdisk anymore. After I turned the external hard drive off and on and restarted my Mac, everything was fine and it's backing up again. But this just shouldn't be this hard, right?

Still, I just don't understand: if the wireless Time Machine backup "feature" is legitimately not ready for prime time...why are so many people like me able to do it (with a few hiccups?) Why not disable the functionality entirely? I've been an Apple user for two decades now, and though I can't claim to be a power user, this just seems unusual.

How does Time Machine respond to wireless problems? Does it alert you, and try to do the latest back-up again? I've had some issues just backing up to my external USB Usually time machine dubs the external HD a "read only". I just got an Extreme last week and several times a day the signal goes from full strength to zip and my connection drops for 30 seconds or more. I know because I'm on Internet radio and that prompts me to try the browser which reports I have no Internet.

I love the concept, but until the bugs get ironed out I'll keep my back-ups hard wired.
 
When something went wrong with the backup, the Time Machine icon on the top of the desktop displayed an exclamation point. When I went into Time Machine preferences, it'll said "backup failed" and then gave the explanation (in my case, it was because Time Machine could no longer see the networked drive.) I couldn't get into the network drived (even though it was still appearing in the Finder) until I turned the drive on and off.

I know that the backups are taking place, because I'm able to go into starfield view and see them. I can bring deleted items forward, just as you're supposed to be able to do with Time Machine. But this all just strikes me as buggier than it should be.

ETA: Yep, I'm giving up. I can get this to work, but the fact that I'm having to fiddle with it all the time is just not worth it to me. I'll just plug my laptop into the external hard drive when it's charging, and leave it at that; thankfully, I really don't have that much that needs backing up.
 
Novice Question

I have no experience with AirDisk.

I've been thinking about it, and I just don't need wireless backups. But, I was thinking it would be really cool if I could access my iTunes library wirelessly, even over the Internet with AirDisk. (I have my iTunes library on the same ext HDD as my TM backups, all in one partition.)

Can I just plug in my HDD to the AEBS to use the AirDisk feature, and then unplug it for Time Machine?

Thanks!
 
About time. Too bad I had to re-backup via wireless for the initial backup. I was going through my Mac Mini for my MacbookPro and it did not see that I already had a TimeMachine backup.

For those that this is not working yet...make sure you have installed the newest firmware for the AEBS....at first it did now work for me because it still said I had the old version firmware. There was a button that I had to push for it to finally install the newest firmware and it worked after that.
 
I am more interested in seeing a report of a successful restore than a successful backup. The fact that Apple has not touted this capability is a bit worrisome.
 
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