Using Time Machine wirelessly

[dogegg]

Hi,

I am hoping that someone with a bit more networking expertise can help me out.

I back up my MBP on an external hard drive but sometimes leave a long time between back-ups as need dig out the hard drive plug it in and let it back-up generally when I've got the time and don't forget. I would love to be able to do this wirelessly by plugging my hard drive into the hub I use.

I have a BT Home Hub 2 at home and have searched the web but couldn't find any good tutorials on how to do this (if it is indeed possible). I would love to be able to plug the hard drive in and leave it and the whole thing effectively work like the Time Capsule.

Someone will probably say just buy a time capsule but at the minute I haven't got the money.

Thanks for your help in advance,

Chris

 

[balamw]

According to Wikipedia.

The Home Hub includes a USB-A port which has no documented function. It has been found that some devices (such as printers and USB mass storage devices) connected to this port can be shared on that Hub's network. Storage devices (hard disks and thumb drives) must be formatted to FAT32, and hard disk drives must have an external power supply. It can also be used to charge Ipods/phones through a USB cable.

This makes it very difficult to do what you want because of FAT32s 4GB file limitation. (On non-Apple drives you need to wrap the Time Machine image in a sparseimage bundle and I'm not sure it enforces <4GB "chunks")

You would be better off picking up something like the Synology USB Station http://www.synology.com/enu/products/USBStation/index.php and make that work. You could re-use your current drive (after formatting) and it would be a lot cheaper than a Time Capsule.

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/USBStation/index.php

B

 

[walterwhite]

If you mount the drive while it is connected to your BT Home Hub 2 it should work by going to Time machine and choosing that drive.
Does you Hard Drive mount when you plug it into the USB port? (see photo)

 

[balamw]

If you mount the drive while it is connected to your BT Home Hub 2 it should work by going to Time machine and choosing that drive.
Does you Hard Drive mount when you plug it into the USB port? (see photo)

Does that mean that the Home Hub 2 supports HFS+? Do you have personal experience with this?

B

 

[walterwhite]

AH... yes the drive needs to be GUID formatted

According to Wikipedia.



This makes it very difficult to do what you want because of FAT32s 4GB file limitation. (On non-Apple drives you need to wrap the Time Machine image in a sparseimage bundle and I'm not sure it enforces <4GB "chunks")

You would be better off picking up something like the Synology USB Station http://www.synology.com/enu/products/USBStation/index.php and make that work. You could re-use your current drive (after formatting) and it would be a lot cheaper than a Time Capsule.

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/USBStation/index.php

B

 

[balamw]

AH... yes the drive needs to be GUID formatted

GUID Partition Table (GPT) format is the "modern" one used by Macs, Linux and Windows 7 64 bit.

I believe you are thinking MBR (Master Boot Record). The old-school DOS hard drive format.

B