Time Machine over the network

Question

Time Machine over the network

Hi.

I have an iMac AL 2.4 and a MBA. My Time Machine drive is connected via USB 2.0 to my iMac. Both my MBA and my iMac connect wirelessly to each other and to my wireless base station. I want to be able to backup via time machine my MBA (to my iMac's Time Machine drive) without having to connect wires manually. Can this be done over the network (i.e. wirelessly)?

iMac AL 2.4 + MBA, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Mar 16, 2008 8:08 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,620 points

Mar 16, 2008 8:23 AM in response to Michael LeBron

Connect to the iMac from the MBA and mount the drive you want to back up to. Then, open TM and set that drive as the backup drive and let it complete the initial backup.

Time Machine will automatically mount the drive when necessary to do the subsequent backups.

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Answer 2

Jun 3, 2008 12:01 AM in response to Michael LeBron

You might find that you first have to set the iMac to use Time Machine with the disk in question (so that it gets recognised as a Time Machine disk). You can turn off backups once you've done this (the disk icon will change colour - green with a time machine symbol).

It's not totally stable when you do things this way, however. I'd say mine has worked 90% of the time, which is sufficient for my needs. To get it it going again you typically have to go through the steps noted once more.

Mine stopped working recently though. Fails to mount the drive for some reason, which I'm having a bit of hassle fixing. I wish Apple would quit trying to push proprietary hardware for things as basic as backups. I would have thought it straightforward to allow Time Machine to use any network attached file store.

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