Mac Mini as a NAS

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Level 1

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Mac Mini as a NAS

Okay, here's the deal. I got a 500g MyBook External Firewire drive, and I wanted to use it as a NAS from my Mac Mini. The idea is to use time machine on my Macbook over the network on the external HD. Is this possible? Because I can't even seem to get the external to show up on the network.

The macbook is running 10.5.3, but the Mini is running 10.4. whatever's latest for Tiger.

Macbook, Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 5, 2008 8:00 PM

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Answer 1

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BobHarris

Level 9

53,117 points

Jun 6, 2008 6:28 AM in response to Lalizig

I use an iBook G4 as my NAS. I have 2TB of external storage attached to my iBook via USB.

My iBook is running Mac OS X 10.5.3.

I have Sharing -> File Sharing enabled.

I connect as the administrator of the iBook, so I have full access to all the volumes on the iBook.

I use this iBook to backup several Macs in my home.

With respect to Time Machine, my MacBook is also Mac OS X 10.5.3 and its Time Machine configuration is setup to use the 2TB external iBook volume as its backup device. The MacBook's TM automatically mounts the external iBook backup volume when I'm at home. When I'm out of the house, TM just waits until I get back home before continuing backups.

This setup works very well for me. Your Mac mini should work just as nicely. And as soon as you get Mac mini upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5.*, you should be able to do the same thing (Time Machine backup over the net between 2 Macs requires that BOTH Macs be running Mac OS X 10.5.*)

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Answer 2

j.v.

Level 5

4,155 points

Jun 6, 2008 8:39 AM in response to Lalizig

If you do like what BobHarris is doing, but don't want other users on your network to connect as an admin-privileged user on your mini in order for them to be able to navigate to the Tiger mini's external firewire drive, look into installing SharePoints. Then you would just declare /Volumes/{volume name of external firewire drive goes here}.

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Answer 3

Lalizig Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 6, 2008 10:47 AM in response to Lalizig

So both machines need to be running leopard for this to work?

And I've had many people recommend sharepoints, but doesn't TM need HFS+, which is unsupported?

Thanks for the responses.

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Answer 4

BobHarris

Level 9

53,117 points

Jun 6, 2008 4:47 PM in response to Lalizig

Time Machine needs the Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) additions to HFS+ which is why BOTH the Time Machine Mac and the file server Mac need to be Leopard.

Of course the alternate network Time Machine backup solution is an Apple Time Capsule or an Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n base station with an attached USB disk (the AEBS 'n' is not officially supported, but many people have reported that it does work).

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