TimeMachine problems with Synology NAS

Question

TimeMachine problems with Synology NAS

Hi.

An office of around 30 computers keeps facing issues with TimeMachine backups.

Backups are taking "ages" to complete.
From time to time, it prompts to delete the old backup and start fresh
Some computers always get stuck at "Looking for backup disk"
Most of the times disk cannot be found automatically but it can be found through Finder -> Network -> NAS -> Connect as.....

or

I set up connection to the server over terminal sudo tmutil setdestination -p "smb://User@IP/home".

I am never having peace with this TimeMachine + Synology combo. Does anyone have any advice ?

Thank you

Mac mini, macOS 14.3

Posted on Jul 5, 2024 2:36 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 5, 2024 5:03 AM in response to azurMujezinovic

1. Backups are taking "ages" to complete.

Depending on the type of network and how much traffic is on the network and if the drives are hard drives and not SSDs and how much data is actually being baked up, it could take a considerable time to back up. Also, "ages" is a bit vague as what may be "ages" to one may be quite normal to another.

2. From time to time, it prompts to delete the old backup and start fresh

How is space being allocated for backups for each machine? At a minimum, you should have at least twice the size of the internal disk for the back up disk.

3. Some computers always get stuck at "Looking for backup disk"

This could have something to do with networking issues or something the users of the computers may have done to disrupt the backup.

4. Most of the times disk cannot be found automatically but it can be found through Finder -> Network -> NAS -> Connect as.....

Again, this could have something to do with network configurations or the users of the computers. As I am not a fan of networked Time Machine solutions perhaps someone else may chime in here with a bit more insight in actual connectivity issues.

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Answer 2

Jul 12, 2024 2:39 AM in response to woodmeister50

Hi @woodmeister50.

Thank you for the reply.

By "ages" I mean I can leave it for 2-3 days and the initial backup won't finish. Right now, it took TimeMachine 3 hours to reach 50% on an incremental backup (430MB)

Drives are indeed HDD and not SSD, but can it be that it affects our experience by that much ?

I have tried applying space limits and also removing them. I was not aware I should always have at least 2x space for each computer backing up. I will give it a try - thank you.

As for network problems, we are not really experiencing issues overall except for this. I did read about apps being in use possibly causing issues to be backed up while in use, do you know if this might be true ?

Thank you,

Azur

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TimeMachine problems with Synology NAS

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