Seagate Personal Cloud NAS and time machine

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Level 1

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Seagate Personal Cloud NAS and time machine

Does anyone use Seagate Personal Cloud NAS drive and time machine? I have the 4Tb version and want to use it with time machine.

I currently use it for storing files etc, and as a Plex server for Apple TV. How does time machine work with it? Can you limit the size it uses for TM? I don't want to use it just for TM but also what I currently use it for.

I know it may be slow initially to back up, but afterwards would only be small changes. I know you can use an external USB, but for convenience I don't want to, I'd rather it WiFi backup, maybe initially I'd do it wired though.

Thanks

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Aug 10, 2019 7:24 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,610 points

Aug 10, 2019 4:49 PM in response to QwertyMan11

If it says it supports "Time Machine over SMB," then it should work.

If it doesn't say it does that, then it will be unreliable.

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Answer 2

QwertyMan11 Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 11, 2019 9:15 AM in response to Barney-15E

Not sure, the manual just says to choose the personal cloud. How do I find out?

What's the difference? What is it if it's not SMB, and why do you say unreliable?

How will I limit the space it uses on the personal cloud?

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

123,610 points

Aug 11, 2019 7:23 PM in response to QwertyMan11

Not sure, the manual just says to choose the personal cloud. How do I find out?

No idea. That is something that has to do with the NAS itself. Check with their help system.

What's the difference? What is it if it's not SMB, and why do you say unreliable?

Previous to Mojave, all Time Machine backups over the network had to use the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). Apple has never licensed AFP, so NAS manufacturers used a hack to emulate AFP on their devices. It was never AFP so it was an unreliable connection. It would generally work well enough to create the backup, but it would generally fail if you needed to restore. Other times you would just get an error stating that the backup could not be verified and it would start a new backup.

As of Mojave, the default networking protocol is SMB. Apple created a specification that must be supported to conduct network backups over the SMB protocol. If the NAS does not support that specification, you are just getting the old, crappy hack that didn't really work well at all.

How will I limit the space it uses on the personal cloud?

Ask the manufacturer of your NAS.

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Answer 4

QwertyMan11 Author

Level 1

53 points

Aug 12, 2019 12:59 AM in response to Barney-15E

Hi

I am.askimg my NAS manufacturer, Seagate, but the answers they are giving me are poor and not very informative. That's why I thought I'd ask on here.

Was hoping someone had a Seagate personal cloud NAS and could answer direct.

All these specific on SMB protocols I'll never get the answer from Seagte I suspect.

They've just replied and said to partition the drive and use that for TM. Is this possible? What format should I use? What space is the "norm" 2x the size of theac to backup?

Thanks

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Seagate Personal Cloud NAS and time machine

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