Time Machine to a network drive

Casper-cdn wrote:
does anyone know if a time machine backup can be saved to a network drive instead of an external drive? Is there a 3rd party program that will do that?

Hi, and welcome to the forums.

Time Machine will back up to a Time Capsule, or a USB drive attached to a Time Capsule.

It will also back-up to a shared drive attached to another Mac running Leopard or Snow Leopard on the same local network.

It's not officially supported, but it will often back-up to a USB drive attached to a recent Airport Extreme.

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

You may find some hardware or "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.

I just installed a Western Digital World Edition NAS myself and have been exploring backup possibilities. It appears that Intego Backup Manager Pro can back up to or from network drives and even USB drives attached to network drives. I had been using Intego Backup Assistant, which is provided by LaCie only for use with LaCie drives, and found it quite easy to use and flexible. So I downloaded a 30-day evaluation copy of the Pro version. My first small experiments with backup schemes to or from the network drive have worked.

I'm also trying ChronoSync. The interface is a little more complicated than Intego Backup Manager but still clean, and it provides a little more control. So far, with small trials, it's been solid with network drives and USB's connected to network drives.

just got a WD my book world edition (1 tB network drive). After running into multiple dead ends, finally found a page on WD's website that said specifically " because the drive appears as a shared windows drive, it cannot be used for a time machine backup".
Sounds as if that probably applies to all network drives. (except time capsule, which is $$$$$$$$)
They did have some backup utilities for mac, but if you want to use time machine - looks like it is a time capsule

philshaffer wrote:
just got a WD my book world edition (1 tB network drive). After running into multiple dead ends, finally found a page on WD's website that said specifically " because the drive appears as a shared windows drive, it cannot be used for a time machine backup".

Did you download their update that claims to make it compatible with Time Machine?: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=587

and format it properly for Time Machine?: per #5 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

It still may not work, but since you've already spent the $$, it's worth a try.

Sounds as if that probably applies to all network drives. (except time capsule, which is $$$$$$$$)
They did have some backup utilities for mac, but if you want to use time machine - looks like it is a time capsule

Not necessarily. If you have another Mac (running Leopard or Snow Leopard) on the same local network, you can back up to a shared drive on it.