Hello,
Has anyone every had any experience using a Mac Mini as a time machine?
We have 3 Macbooks and a Mac Mini and wonder if it is possible to back up the Macbooks to the Mac Mini via the network?
All devices are 2017 or later and running on macOS mojave.
Thanks in advance!
Mac mini 2018 or later
Yes, you can use your Mac mini as a Time Machine backup server.
I have a 2014 Mac mini with High Sierra. I enabled File Sharing, created a Backups folder on a USB external drive, selected it to share, right clicked it in File Sharing and set it as a Time Machine backup destination. I backup my MBP over my LAN using Time Machine and the backup folder on the Mac mini. Backups and restores work perfectly.
You can do the same as above with Mojave. At one time my Mac mini server was running Mojave and had the same setup as above without any issue from client Macs backing up to it.
I have not yet done that, but a couple things to consider.
Any Time Machine backup requires very large amounts of disk space
to be of any use. You may want to consider one drive for each device
that is 3-4 times larger than each devices internal storage or the amount
of space you typically consume on each. I suggest multiple because
backing up all on one massive drive and it fails, you lose all your backups.
The second is that the Time Machine backups will be via network. Unless
you have the latest and greatest of super speed WiFi, that first backup will
take a long time for each device, even if you go hardwired Ethernet. Simple
file recovery or small "wind backs" won't be a problem but if there is ever
a need for a full system restore, it will be quite slow.
Also, since all this would be done over a network, traffic on your
local network will have an impact.
There is also one other item to consider. When your devices are away
from your network, unless Time Machine is turned off on the device,
it will do period snapshots on the machines drive until you return
it to your "server's" network. If you already use a lot of disk space
on the devices it may be an issue.
Hi!
I never tried using a mac mini as a time machine backup drive but
I found this article that might help: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/330288/how-to-set-up-your-mac-to-act-as-a-networked-time-machine-drive/amp/
Using Mac Mini as a time machine server
