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Helpful answers
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Jul 17, 2016 6:48 PM in response to Duchy777by LaPastenague,Duchy777 wrote:
Thanks for the advice LP. I might just use Cloud Station (that comes with the Synology) ..... but not sure if that keeps copies of accidentally deleted files. I'll look at the others you mentioned.
Even Time Machine does not keep copies of deleted files.. accidentally or otherwise.
Once a file is deleted from the Mac hard disk it will be deleted from the backup.. what you don't know is when.
People often assume TM works as a archive store.. but in actual fact it is far more complicated than that.
Even though Pondini KB is rather out of date it is still relevant.
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
The how TM works is still good for people to understand..
And his discussion of what happens when you delete files in FAQ .. See Q12, Q20
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
CCC can in fact archive deleted files on the source that are on the destination.
See https://bombich.com/kb/ccc3/advanced-settings
Of course you need to understand how it works to get the settings right. But most things work well if you read the warnings and messages.. (like as if??)
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Jul 17, 2016 6:56 PM in response to Csound1by Csound1,I did read this (from Pondini) which seems to disagree.
The Local and Network Drives mentioned above are essentially "dumb receivers" -- they use the File System and other features of OSX on your Mac, at the direction of your Mac.
But a NAS drive (Network Attached Storage, also called a network drive) has its own proprietary operating system (it's actually a small special-purpose computer), and is not under the direct control of your Mac.
You can't format or partition it via Disk Utility on your Mac, and you might not be able to repair your backups that way, either. You must use whatever utilities are provided by the maker of the NAS. And, of course, they're different for each maker, and sometimes for different hardware or software from the same maker. That's why there are no setup instructions for them here; those are specific to the NAS.
These are great for the purposes they were designed for, but that rarely includes working with Time Machine -- it has unique, complex requirements; working with it seems to be an "add-on" feature that some makers may not get quite right. Most NASs use the SMB communications protocol to talk to Windows and Macs. But Time Machine requires a different protocol, AFP file sharing.
Time Machine can back up to some NAS drives, but only those that meet the criteria specified in this Apple article: Disks that can be used with Time Machine. The technical details of one part are documented in Time Machine Network Interface Specification. Especially if the error detection, correction, and notification in those specifications aren't handled exactly right by the NAS, it may work, or seem to work, for a while, but eventually fail or corrupt the backups.
Be very careful here: just because a 3rd-party vendor claims to support Time Machine doesn't necessarily mean that Apple supports that configuration, or that it will work reliably in all circumstances (many won't).Before buying one of these, carefully investigate the following:
- •If you’re planning to use the NAS for other data, in addition to your Time Machine backups, be sure you can partition it (or set up separate "shares" or "accounts" via the NAS, since you can’t with Apple’s Disk Utility), or somehow limit the amount of space the backups can use. Otherwise the backups will, eventually, use all the available empty space, possibly leading to conflicts. See question #3 for details.
- •Look at the setup instructions. If there’s any mention of a Terminal command involving "unsupported devices," or installation of drivers or kernel extensions to fool Time Machine into thinking it’s a locally-connected drive, use caution. These may prevent you from doing a full system restore to a new or replaced internal hard drive. This is because OSX doesn’t do a full system restore; it’s done by booting up from your Recovery HD (Lion and later) or OSX Install disc (Snow Leopard or Leopard) and using the the Installer utility on it. That utility won’t have those additions, and you can't add them to it; thus it may not be able to connect to your backups when you need them the most. (See question #14 for details on doing a full restore.)
- •Consider whether the maker is reputable and likely to continue supporting the NAS for as long as you'll be using it. If Apple changes requirements, will the maker update the NAS so it will work with the new version of OSX? Many that worked on Snow Leopard didn't work on Lion without such updates. A few weren't updated for quite a while, and some never were.
Each NAS maker has its own requirements, limitations, and/or setup procedures. Some require special drivers, passwords, etc. All these things can make recovery, especially a full restore after your Mac's startup drive fails, very difficult. Adding complexity is rarely a good thing.
And when there's trouble, is it your Mac or the NAS? It may be hard to tell, and the support folks will tend to point the finger at each other. Apple can't help much, as they don't have the 3rd-party hardware, or training, or experience, with them. Unless you're technically-proficient, think long and hard about how you'll recover if there's a problem.
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Jul 17, 2016 7:13 PM in response to Csound1by Bob Timmons,Your statement was that Apple did not support Time Machine backups to a NAS.
Can you provide any Apple documentation to support your statement?
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Jul 17, 2016 7:22 PM in response to Bob Timmonsby Csound1,Not that is current, read the excerpt I posted from Pondini, it is old but seems to disagree with the statement that it does support them. Specifically it states that some NAS may be supported but there are some caveats. Maybe you can provide relevant and current Apple docs?
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Jul 17, 2016 7:24 PM in response to Csound1by LaPastenague,Pondini documentation is old now.
I do think the issue of TM backup reliability on third party network devices was poorer in the past.
It still is poor with the cheap end stuff.
But Apple changed dramatically at Mavericks .. when they changed from AFP to SMB as the default network protocol.
Since then and with other more diabolical changes to DNS, TM has become far from reliable on a TC or any other network device.
I did use a Zyxel (cheap end) NAS alongside a TC and it did corrupt the TM backup on a couple of occasions.. I made allowance for it and was still happy overall with its performance.
Since moving to the synology it has so far (20months) given no trouble at all. I won't ever say never.. but my last new TC died in less time than that.. !!
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Jul 17, 2016 7:30 PM in response to LaPastenagueby Csound1,Is SMB now the default protocol.
I use a directly connected RAID5 box and have never had any issues (since 1996) but as I don't rely solely on TM it wouldn't matter much if there were,
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Jul 17, 2016 7:32 PM in response to Csound1by Bob Timmons,You are avoiding the question. What Apple support document do you have that says that Time Machine backups are not supported with a NAS?
Please don't try to change the subject with Pondini. Did you even read the part of the Pondini information where he said that.....Time Machine can back up to some NAS drives, but only those that meet the criteria specified in this Apple article:
The "criteria" is in the Apple support documents about Time Machine.
Please also keep in mind that Pondini passed away 3+ years ago.
Unless you can provide an Apple support document to support your statement, we'll consider this closed.
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Jul 17, 2016 7:46 PM in response to Bob Timmonsby Csound1,I already answered that, no I did not read any Apple support docs, so consider it as you please.
But the one I did read earlier tonight does not mention NAS at all, so if there is one that does could you point me to it.
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Jul 17, 2016 8:01 PM in response to Csound1by Bob Timmons,Please look back a page or two in the discussion. It's there, but you missed it, obviously.
Have a good evening.
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Jul 17, 2016 8:08 PM in response to Csound1by Csound1,And I am confused by LaPasteneques statement that Apple changed the default protocol from AFP to SMB which contradicts both Bob Timmons and Pondini's assertion that it should use AFP.
It's still so unclear as to what works that I will continue to advise people not to use a NAS. And continue not using one myself.
Then maybe I can avoid corrupt backups that as Bob says, "We do not know why this error sometimes occurs"
An unexplainable error is the worst error a backup can have.
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Aug 9, 2016 6:45 PM in response to July7Kiss1995by Dave_K.,Yikes just got this error for the first time. I'm running a 3TB Airport Time Capsule on my late-2013 iMac running Mavericks.
What concerns me- other than deleting all my backup history- is that most of these reports are on 3rd party NAS devices. Are many Time Capsule users seeing this?
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Aug 9, 2016 8:09 PM in response to Dave_K.by j-m-d,I have an Apple Time Capsule - no 3rd party stuff. Apple built, Apple tested, Apple vetted, Apple blessed. So, no pointing fingers at non Apple stuff.
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Aug 9, 2016 10:32 PM in response to Dave_K.by Hanani,were you doing the backup over wifi or hard wired ? I had same problem over wifi with 4TB WD MyCloude
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Aug 10, 2016 5:06 AM in response to Hananiby Dave_K.,Hanani wrote:
were you doing the backup over wifi or hard wired ? I had same problem over wifi with 4TB WD MyCloude
My iMac is connected to my Time Capsule with Ethernet. Got this error for the first time yesterday. Rebuilding backup as we speak.
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Aug 10, 2016 5:21 AM in response to Dave_K.by Hanani,I Wish you luck! I deserted the over network backuo!
doing backup to. WD passport connected with USB to the Macbook As well as using 3rd party cloud base back up service