Time Machine and FTP?

The only supported destinations for Time Machine are:

1. A directly attached internal or external drive/partition.
2. A drive directly connected to another mac running 10.5 on the same local network.
3. A Time Capsule
4. A drive connected to an Airport Extreme base station should work, but is not supported officially.

Anything else is unsupported by Apple, although there are some "hacks" that claim to make NAS drives work:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137&query=time%2Bmach ine%2BNAS

Also, HP recently introduced a piece of hardware that can be used (starts at about $700, I think)
http://mefeedia.com/entry/macmost-now-186-hp-mediasmart-server/13439036

I purchased and received a HP Mediaserver and I setup my Powermac which is hardwired, then my MacBook Pro 15" (1st), then my son's new MacBook. Today I picked up a replacement for my MacBook Pro (unibody). While I am am to see the HP Mediasmart server on my network in the finder the mapped drive is not showing up. I thought if I used a hardwired connection instead of a wireless one this would fix the problem but no. By the way this hardwire solution is a problem I found out about while setting up the first couple of MAC's. Once you see the drive you have to drag the drive to your login items so it to show up after rebooting on a wireless connection.

I'm going to try and call HP tomorrow but I thought I would see if anybody else is having this issue.

Yes, there is a way. But I tried it, and it is unbelievably slow. If you want to try it for yourself, here are the steps:
1. Install MacFUSE and configure it.
2. Install MacFusion and configure it with your FTP server.
3. Run MacFusion and mount your FTP server.
4. Open terminal and run this command:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

You should now be able to open time machine and select your FTP server.

I just got mine working, it takes 2 hours to finish "Preparing Backup". Then several more hours to actually complete the backup.

Message was edited by: Tycho Vhargon

Thanks Tycho for the instructions; I'm looking to do the same thing.

I did everything you listed and got as far as attempting to setup my mounted FTP backup disk in Time Machine. However, after I click "choose backup disk..." and choose my FTP drive, nothing happens -- I just get taken back to the standard Time Machine prefs pane, and nothing has changed.

Any suggestions? Thanks!