Can Time Machine work with LaCie NAS?

the only officially supported NAS for TM backups is a Time Capsule. it also works with drives connected to an Airport Extreme Bases Station. all other NASes are unsupported. there are hacks to make TM work with them but you'd be using them at your own risk.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137&query=time%2Bmach ine%2BNAS

As V.K. says, this is unsupported.

Here's the official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1733

You may find some "hacks" that might make it work, in some cases, to a degree. But use them at your own risk.

First, since this is *unsupported by Apple,* there's nowhere to go when there's trouble.

Second, you're risking a future update preventing it from working, and perhaps rendering your backups useless.

If you still think this is a good idea, do yourself a favor before you bet your backups on it: be sure it really works, at least for now:

1. Get a copy of CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! or the like, and make a full bootable clone of your internal HD, on an external disk. Test it by booting from it. Then reboot from your internal HD.

2. Let TM do it's first, full, initial backup.

3. Attempt a full system restore (like you'll need when, not if, your internal HD fails), via the instructions in item 14 of the of the Frequently Asked Questions post at the top of this forum.

Again, even if it works today, tomorrow is another day . . .

I'm facing exactly the same issue myself. There are several Macs on my home network and the only sensible backup solution is a big network drive. For one thing, I don't want to buy one extra disk per Mac but, most of all, a secure backup needs to be in a different place to the computer it's supporting. In the event of a fire, you don't want the Mac and its backup getting burnt away together. I plan to put the backup drive in my basement. I could also put it in an outbuilding.

I also don't want to buy a Time Capsule as I already have an Airport Extreme in my network and it makes no sense at all to have a second wireless device. It seems to me that Apple are being extremely churlish in not recognizing that there are valid reasons to want to use a third party network drive and not to properly support it. Has anyone used any of the published hacks and can they vouch for them? At a technical level, is there any way that Apple could accidentally or maliciously wreck such a set-up?

Brian Smale

Brian Smale wrote:

I also don't want to buy a Time Capsule as I already have an Airport Extreme in my network and it makes no sense at all to have a second wireless device.

You don't need one. As V.K. pointed out, you can use a USB drive attached to the Airport Extreme.

Thanks, Pondini, you make a good point about using a USB drive with my Airport Extreme. The snag is, the Airport Extreme is in the same room as my computer, so it doesn't get over the co-location/fire problem. I suppose I could plug the Airport Extreme into my ethernet in another room, but this might compromise its coverage.

Frankly, looking back 20 pages through this thread, I am astonished by the number of problems that people seem to be having with Time Machine. It rather looks like a flakey piece of software that's best avoided. Maybe I should go for CarbonCopy Cloner instead?

Brian Smale

Brian Smale wrote:
Thanks, Pondini, you make a good point about using a USB drive with my Airport Extreme. The snag is, the Airport Extreme is in the same room as my computer, so it doesn't get over the co-location/fire problem. I suppose I could plug the Airport Extreme into my ethernet in another room, but this might compromise its coverage.

To protect yourself against fire, flood, theft, and direct lightning strike on your power lines, you need secondary, off-site backups. Get a portable external drive (or a pair, to alternate). Periodically do separate backups to it, and take it to your safe deposit box, workplace, relative's house, etc. CarbonCopyCloner (which I use in addition to TM), SuperDuper!, or the like would be fine for this, although you could use TM by just doing a +Change Disk+ each time.

Frankly, looking back 20 pages through this thread, I am astonished by the number of problems that people seem to be having with Time Machine. It rather looks like a flakey piece of software that's best avoided.

Don't be misled by what you see here. TM works just fine for most people. They only post here when there's a question or problem. Many of the questions wouldn't be necessary if Apple's documentation was better, and most of the problems are either things people did without knowing they shouldn't, or hardware problems. You'll find similar threads on the CCC and SD forums, too.

Hi Podini,

I tried plugging a USB drive into my Airport Extreme as advised in this thread, but in fact it doesn't work. The drive mounts OK (visible in Finder, or PathFinder in my case) but cannot be selected as a backup volume in Time Machine. Scanning Apple's technical literature it turns out that the airport device must have a maximum name length of 27 characters (mine was 28). I fixed that, but it made no difference. Burrowing more into Apple bumph I found the real reason why it doesn't work:

+Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can be used to back up to many kinds of Mac OS Extended-formatted drives, but you cannot choose AirPort Extreme's AirPort Disk as a Time Machine backup volume.+

+However, you can choose Time Capsule AirPort Disks or internal disks as a Time Machine backup volume.+

Any comments?

Brian Smale

Sorry, my last post should have started 'Hi Pondini'.

It looks as though I shall have to use a directly connected USB or Firewire drive with each computer for Time Machine backups (what a waste of money...) and use something like Super Duper to do secondary backups to the Airport Extreme USB drive. I have an unpleasant feeling that Apple is causing a deliberate limitation here, given that the disk within Time Capsule would work just fine and that an external Airport Extreme USB disk can be used for any other purpose.

Brian Smale

Brian Smale wrote:

+Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can be used to back up to many kinds of Mac OS Extended-formatted drives, but you cannot choose AirPort Extreme's AirPort Disk as a Time Machine backup volume.+

Yes, it's technically unsupported. But there is a workaround:

Open a Terminal session (in your Applications/Utilities folder), copy the following after the prompt (a non-blinking block cursor), and press Return:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

You're quick of the mark, my friend! Is this a 'reliable' workaround, or can/would Apple blow it away? Is the quality of the saved data as good as a 'normal' Time Machine backup and can it be restored without problems? In fact, does the workaround simply remove a trivial (and unnecessary) hiding of such drives, which are technically equivalent to an internal Time Capsule drive?

Brian S

Brian Smale wrote:
You're quick of the mark, my friend! Is this a 'reliable' workaround, or can/would Apple blow it away? Is the quality of the saved data as good as a 'normal' Time Machine backup and can it be restored without problems? In fact, does the workaround simply remove a trivial (and unnecessary) hiding of such drives, which are technically equivalent to an internal Time Capsule drive?

You responded to the original poster, but I assume this is directed to me.

Yes, this is reasonably reliable with an Airport Express. Why it isn't "officially supported" is not clear. Many folks use it with few problems (other than the usual wireless difficulties), and of course, it's far slower than a directly-attached drive.

On the other hand, some folks have used it to make other, 3rd-party, network devices work, but personally I wouldn't take that risk.

Hi Pondini,

I ran the terminal item and it works as advertised; I can see the Airport Extreme USB drive in Time Machine now. I dug down through Finder and found the changed item in preferences and could see that it had been changed. I presume I run a similar Terminal item ending in '0' to undo the the change.

I guess I had better be careful about your speed warning. Already my Time Machine backups to a directly attached Firewire drive take about 8 minutes, so with a slow connection my Mac might be permanently in backup mode with one-hourly backup intervals. But would it be any slower than using Time Capsule, I wonder? I suppose I'll just have to test it.

Very many thanks for your great, responsive help on this issue. There's certainly no way I could have got this from Cupertino.

Brian S.

Brian Smale wrote:
. . .
I guess I had better be careful about your speed warning. Already my Time Machine backups to a directly attached Firewire drive take about 8 minutes

That doesn't sound right, unless you're adding or changing lots of big files very frequently.

How big are your normal hourly backups? Does the size make sense to you, given what you're typically doing? Are you running FileVault, Entourage, Thunderbird, any virtualization software, etc.?

If in doubt, Click here to download the TimeTracker app. It shows most of the files saved by TM for each backup (excluding some hidden/system files, etc.).

And Click here to download the +Time Machine Buddy+ widget.

It shows the messages from your logs for one TM backup run at a time, in a small window.

You can copy these messages by selecting them via dragging your mouse over them (be sure to get them all, as they may overflow the small window), then pressing CMD-C. This copies them to your "clipboard," so you can post them here (via CMD-V). (Occasionally, the widget won't let you copy while a backup is running.)

Hi Pondini,

On the speed issue, my Mac is connected to the Airport Extreme through a hard-wired Ethernet, not via wireless, so the speed might be better than you think. I use the Airport to broadcast iTunes to another room without Ethernet, using an Airport Express unit as a receiver and hi-fi connector. I also use the Extreme to reach bedrooms upstairs for anyone with a laptop and a wooden chalet in the garden.

Brian S.