Time Machine with AirPort Extreme?

Aceydozz wrote:

. . .

Despite hearing horror stories about the length of time it takes for the first backup to "cloud-based" services (an employee at a local computer store said he had a computer running one for two weeks that still hadn't finished!)

Yes, that's not unusual. Upload speeds tend to be about 10% of download speeds, so a full backup can take many hours, days, or even longer, depending on your connection and the amount of data. Some of the services actually ship you an external HD -- you do a full backup, then ship it back so they can load it onto their servers!

Much better, IMO, is to have one or two full backups locally, and also back up smaller things to the cloud. If you have a MobileMe subscription, you can use Apple's Backup app to your iDisk at no extra cost. It's pretty basic, but for 2nd- or 3rd-level backups, it's fine. I do that with my Address Book, settings & preferences, some emails, selected documents, the source for my website, etc. And once set up, it's automatic.

I took a look at CarbonCopyCloner's website - lots of variables to consider!

Yes, but the good thing about CCC is, it's donationware. You can try it before sending them some $$ so they can keep it up to date. It can't back up well over a network, but for regular use is much faster than Disk Utility (once the initial backup is done). Nothing to lose by trying it!

I've decided to move away from backing up our Macs via a drive attached to our Airport Extreme and migrate to hard drives attached to each computer via firewire. It appears to work except on my iMac, the one used to set up the Airport Extreme and the previously connected hard drive.

My problem now is the iMac will not allow me to set up the drive I want to have directly connect to my iMac, instead it wants me to use the set up for the Airport Extreme.

I can mount the external drive and was able to do an initial back up to the drive. All subsequent back ups have failed because the iMac can not locate the drive on our Airport Express. Probably because its no longer connected 😁

I am unable to figure out how to force the the Time Machine preference to forget about the Time Capsule link to the Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme option appears in the list and the "use Backup Disk" is greyed out. All attempts at changing the set up using the AirPort Utility have also failed.

Hopefully I've explained this well enough, will certainly appreciate your help.

Radio Flyer wrote:

I've decided to move away from backing up our Macs via a drive attached to our Airport Extreme and migrate to hard drives attached to each computer via firewire.

Good plan! 🙂

I am unable to figure out how to force the the Time Machine preference to forget about the Time Capsule link to the Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme option appears in the list and the "use Backup Disk" is greyed out. All attempts at changing the set up using the AirPort Utility have also failed.

Airport utility isn't involved; the external disk should appear in the list when you click Select Disk on the Time Machine Preferences window.

If it does, select it; then the Use Backup Disk should be enabled.

If it doesn't appear, check the connections, cables, etc. If that doesn't help, eject and power it off for a few minutes. Restart your Mac and try again.

If it still doesn't appear, try repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Restart worked. Thanks for the tip. I might have got there eventually but the Mac is so stable it could have taken weeks before I restarted.

Again, thanks for the help.

Ok, this is dissapointing to learn. I was JUST about to get a "Stardom Safe Capsule" (offering RAID 1) to plug into my Airport Extreme....so I could back up my new 17" MacBook Pro to it wirelessly using Time Machine when home. I don't want to have to keep plugging in hard drives to my MacBook to back up! Or carry a backup drive with me (putting my data at risk if something happens to my MacBook and portable hard drive).

The older "Stardom Safe Capsule" hard drive enclosure is now on sale an I thought would be fine for this task. But, as I am just learning, trying to use Time Machine and a Airport Extreme with an attached hard drive is just going to be a mess.......eeeeeeeeee. I really thought this would be so cool.....

PLAN B: Ok, can someone tell me if this will work: Can I buy an older used Mac Mini on ebay and connect that to my local network, then plug in the "Stardom Safe Capsule" hard drive enclosure to THAT and be able to then do reliable wireless back ups to THAT using Time Machine??

I should also be able to use/control this Mac Mini remotely using Back To My Mac screen sharing and File Sharing.....meaning I might even be able to do Time Machine backup from my MacBook to this Mac Mini from anywhere over the internet??? [and long as both MacBook and Mac Mini have Lion and I have an iCloud account]

Since Apple also seems to have disabled remote access to hard dives connected to an Airport Extreme, as could be easily done with a MobileMe account (but now not currently supported with iCloud) this setup (using a Mac Mini + big connected RAID drive) would also let me remotely access this Mac Mini "file server" from anywhere over the internet using my iCloud account and Back To My Mac, correct?

Any guideance here appreciated...

Thanks,

Jeff

BTW I am planning to also buy a brand new Mac Mini (to replace my 9 year old MDD DP G4 Mac desktop) in a few months. I would also like to have this new Mac Mini be able to do Time Machine backups to my "Mac Mini file server".......if all this would work, how old of a Mac Mini should I get to use as my file server? I know it would at least need to be able to run Lion.....??

Just to follow on to my last post;

If I had this Mac Mini running OS X Lion Server at my house, could I set up an account for my dad, mom and sister (maybe using their iCloud Apple ID's?) so they could also *securly* backup their iMacs and MacBooks to this server over the internet from their house? Using either Time Machine or something else like Retrospect or ChronoSync?

Thanks,

Jeff

JeffNY wrote:

. . .

PLAN B: Ok, can someone tell me if this will work: Can I buy an older used Mac Mini on ebay and connect that to my local network, then plug in the "Stardom Safe Capsule" hard drive enclosure to THAT and be able to then do reliable wireless back ups to THAT using Time Machine??

As long as the Mini is running at least 10.5.6, yes. 🙂

However . . . using a RAID drive for backups isn't necessarily the best idea. It does protect against one of the RAID drives failing, but not against a problem with the controller or backup app. Generally, the best way to protect your backups is to have two separate backups, on two completely separate pieces of hardware, via two different backup apps. See #27 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for some suggestions.

I might even be able to do Time Machine backup from my MacBook to this Mac Mini from anywhere over the internet???

That's been done, often with some difficulty, but backing-up anything sizeable over the internet will be quite slow and relatively unreliable. Another option would be to use something like DropBox or SugarSync to back up selected critical (and relatively small) files to a server on the web.

this setup . . . would also let me remotely access this Mac Mini "file server" from anywhere over the internet using my iCloud account and Back To My Mac, correct?

That's my understanding, but I'm not up on iCloud. It's stil fairly new, and folks are having some mix of trouble or misunderstandings with it.

how old of a Mac Mini should I get to use as my file server? I know it would at least need to be able to run Lion.....??

Without iCloud in the mix, it only needs to run 10.5.6 to back up over your local network, although the more up-to-date, the better. I see some threads here claiming iCloud will work with Snow Leopard, but I don't think it's officially supported.

If I had this Mac Mini running OS X Lion Server at my house, could I set up an account for my dad, mom and sister (maybe using their iCloud Apple ID's?) so they could also *securly* backup their iMacs and MacBooks to this server over the internet from their house?

In theory, perhaps, but in practice it's extremely slow. I see posts here about it taking days. Some of the 3rd-party online backup systems actually ship you a portable HD for you to do the initial backup and return to them to load onto their server. Then you "catch up" over the internet.

I'm not sure what you mean by "securely," but Time Machine on Lion won't do encrypted backups over a network.

Another possible option is the Time Capsule. It's fairly pricey, as it includes both a wireless router and HD, but it was designed specifically to do wireless backups of multiple Macs on the same local network. If you've already got a good wireless router, though, it may not make much sense.

Thanks for the reply.

>>Generally, the best way to protect your backups is to have two separate backups, on two completely separate pieces of hardware, via two different backup apps.<<

Yes, my general idea was to have a local network server at my house that all the Macs on my home network could backup to using Time Machine, or Time Machine and another backup program like Retrospect or ChronoSync both running. So Time Machine keeps very current back ups and the second backup app would run maybe every 4 or 7 days. THEN if I can get a way to also backup to a remote machine at my dads or sisters (maybe weekly using Retrospect or ChronoSync) I would indeed have two sets of backups (maybe 3), using two different backup apps and in two different physical locations.

I have a decent internet connect. Last time I tested it I was getting almost 10Mbps (9.7 or 9.8 I think it was), and my dad has a similar speed. So that might mean a 2nd "Mac Mini server" at his house that I can do remote backups too. I also discovered "ChronoSync Agent" last night:

http://econtechnologies.com/pages/ca/agent_overview.html

….I need to research this more. But this app MIGHT just let me say to my dad "Hey dad, let me plug in an external USB hard drive to your iMac and install this app on it so I can do remote backups to here from my house. It should just run in the background and you won't even know it's there. And if you want, I can put ChronoSync Agent on my Mac Mini server at my house and you can also then backup your iMac to a hard drive at my house."

I do worry if there is ever a fire here or theft I could lose years of files. I looked at a lot of NAS (Network Attached Storage) hard drives....but they all seem insanely complex to set up and manage. Also looked at a number of external RAID 1 hard drives. But am liking the Safe Capsule for its form factor and simplicity. And to get going I just need the enclosure and one 2TB or 3TB SATA III drive. Later, when I get a few more bucks, I can add a second drive for RAID 1 Mirroring OR to double my capacity to 4TB or 6TB. (hopefully hard drive prices come back down too, I feel sorry for the people in Thailand suffering from the flooding, but this has also sent hard drive prices sky high)

So, since using the Airport Extreme is out as a Time Machine destination, I am thinking my best (and most flexible) bet is to get a used Mac Mini (with at least a Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, so it will be able run Lion either now or later) then plug in my Safe Capsule to it and set it up as a local file server. This would also let me use it as a remote file server too if I desired to do that at some point. That takes care of local back ups….and leaves open the door to more options in the future.

For doing remote backups I guess I can either set up a 2nd Mac Mini file server at my dads house, or looking into simply adding an external hard drive to his iMac and using "ChronoSync Agent" running in the background on his computer.

>>I'm not sure what you mean by "securely," but Time Machine on Lion won't do encrypted backups over a network.<<

By that I mean the connection and network traffic is all encrypted to a high level. It appears Back To My Mac File Sharing between two 10.7 Mac supports this? I may end up encrypting my entire hard drive on my local Macs, as 10.7 now allows you to do, so this should also mean any files being sent over the internet to be backed up remotely should be in encrypted form anyway as they travel over the internet? I like this idea too because it means my data stored in a remote backup is also encrypted….

I also would prefer not to have to have a monitor and keyboard connected to any/all "Mac Mini file servers" I set up. And I believe if I have 10.7 running on the this Mac Mini server(s) I can connect to them using Back To My Mac and screen sharing?

I really thought I was all set to use my Airport Extreme and a Safe Capsule (for local backup anyway)….but then yesterday I saw a note on the Airport Extreme Wiki page about Time Capsule not supporting that! Which sent me off re-thinking everything. But in the end (even if it costs a few more bucks) using a Mac Mini file server (or two) may be the way to go, and a way to keep options open for the future.

Anyone know where I can buy a good used Mac Mini (or two) cheap? (may also need to buy a copy of 10.6 so I can then upgrade them to 10.7 but...)

Jeff

JeffNY wrote:

. . .

I have a decent internet connect. Last time I tested it I was getting almost 10Mbps (9.7 or 9.8 I think it was), and my dad has a similar speed.

That sounds like a download speed (same as I have). Doing a backup means you must upload from the computer being backed-up. Most ISPs' upload speeds are a fraction of the download speed -- in my case, it's just under 1 Mbps. Effectively, that's about 2 hours per GB of data.

I do worry if there is ever a fire here or theft I could lose years of files.

A relatively simple and inexpensive solution is a portable external HD (or, better, a pair of them) for a "bootable clone." Use one for a few days, then take it to a secure off-site location (safe deposit box, workplace, relative's house, etc.) and swap for the other one. That way, there's always a good backup off-site. And you can be up and running quickly when something awful happens.

There are a number of them; one that gets very good reviews is the LaCie "Rugged" series. I have a 2-year old 320 GB USB/FW400/FW800 model, and it's great. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036&adw=Rugged&gclid=CMiA9qGoh60 CFY1W7AodJEgWkw

Simplicity tends to breed reliability, and with backups, reliability is paramount!

>>Doing a backup means you must upload from the computer being backed-up.<<

Ahhh! Excellent point. Forgot about that. I just did a test using speedtest.net (from my MacBook Pro with wireless connection to Airport Extreme). Download speed: 9.77Mbps. Upload Speed: 0.96Mbps.

hum…any 3rd party compression software that could effectively "speed up" the Upload speed by 50% to 100%? Maybe getting "upload" performance to 1.5Mbps? Any chance 10.7 might have this built in for use when connecting to other remote 10.7 Macs over the internet? I know, probably not 😟 Well, FiOS is in my area, if not to my street yet. Maybe is a year or two I can get on FiOS, this (old) page claims FiOS upload speeds of 15Mbps or 20Mbps. Now were talking! 🙂

http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2007/verizon-continues-to.h tml

I am actually on earthink, but the cable and billing is provided by Time Warner. Upload speed has never really been as issue for me until now, as I plan my backup system. But it might be worth me contacting earthlink or TW and saying "Hey, can you crank up my upload speed? If not, I may become a "former" customer who now uses FiOS." Do you know if the upload speed limitation is a limitation of the cable modem, or are the throttling upload speeds at their data center? (ie could they just log into my internet account and make an easy change so now Jeff all of a sudden has 4 or 5Mbps upload speed?)

>>A relatively simple and inexpensive solution is a portable external HD (or, better, a pair of them) for a "bootable clone." Use one for a few days, then take it to a secure off-site location…<<

That's the rub, the taking it to a "secure off-site location" part 🙂 Actually, we own a secure commercial building and when we had the family business in there I would use Retrospect to backup to DVD's and bring the disks home, so I had data in two locations. And I was there everyday working in the office anyway so it was easy to do. I also could easily bring my home backups to the office. But after we rented out the building I could not do this anymore. I tried getting a bank safe deposit box down the street and bringing my Retrospect DVD backup disks there…..but you know how it goes, I got lazy, it's a pain, the bank isn't open now, bla bla….

I still do have a safe deposit box. And I may get a portable hard drive to backup to every several months, that I can keep in that safe deposit box. That was in the back of my mind. But I really want an automated backup system that keeps all my Macs and data backed up automatically at two different locations (using two different backup methods). And the hardware to that is relatively cheap now, and OS X 10.7 seems to have all the features to get this all set up and maintained without too much hassle, I think. And once I get this setup my sister and dad should be able to do remote backups to my house for almost no cost too.

I kind of put off setting up anything like this before because I had a mix old Macs (I may have been one of the last guys still using OS 9 hehe) that ran OS 9 and 10.4. But I now have a new 17" MacBook Pro and my my old MDD DP G4 (running 10.4) will probably be replaced in a few months with a new Mac Mini running 10.7…..so now all the hardware and software is falling into place to have a nice automated two-location backup system that I could also afford to implement, that will hopefully keep all my data currently backed up so I don't have to worry about it as much as I do 🙂

Jeff

JeffNY wrote:

. . .

hum…any 3rd party compression software that could effectively "speed up" the Upload speed by 50% to 100%?

Probably, but integrating it into another app doesn't sound easy. (You might check with ChronoSync to see if it does compression.)

Any chance 10.7 might have this

Nope.

There has been lots of speculation, since Apple built that monster data center in North Carolina, that Time Machine backups to their servers would be in the future, but of course nobody who knows is talking. Backing-up a whole computer (or lots of data, anyhow) via the internet just sounds slow, cumbersome, and a bit unsafe to me.

Do you know if the upload speed limitation is a limitation of the cable modem, or are the throttling upload speeds at their data center?

I beleive it's throttled -- since most users do mostly downloading. But the modem likely has a max speed, too.

could they just log into my internet account and make an easy change

I dobut they can adjust only the upload speed, but it's worth a call. In my area, they have faster packages with both download and upload faster. I'm sure there would be a charge for it, too.

But after we rented out the building I could not do this anymore. I tried getting a bank safe deposit box down the street

Doesn't necessarily have to be a safe deposit box; is there anyplace you go regularly where you could store a portable HD? (The key is probably to get on a schedule so it's second nature.)

. . . the hardware to that is relatively cheap now, and OS X 10.7 seems to have all the features to get this all set up and maintained without too much hassle, I think. And once I get this setup my sister and dad should be able to do remote backups to my house for almost no cost too.

It's probably do-able, but fairly complex, and you might be generating a lot of traffic.

To me, the main questions would be, how close are they, and if reasonably close, when something awful happens and you need to do a full restore, can you go get the drive the backups are on, connect it directly to your Mac, and boot/restore it? Otherwise, even with a fast pipe, if you have even a moderate size system (say 500 GB), it would take quite a while to upload and download.

My dad and sister are only 4 or 5 miles away. Chatted with Earthlink, they could not offer me any more upload speed and told me to call Time Warner. I looked into FiOS. Apperantly, even though it is not far from me, Verizon has stopped expanding the areas it serves with FiOS last year. Interesting (...maybe because of what I just read about future cables modems, see below).

I did email the makers of ChronoSync to see if they could add data compression (in addition to the current encryption) when connecting to remote servers over the internet. Got a computer generated reply saying they will get back to me shortly. I started reading about Retrospect 9 a little last week too. A quick browse of their pages shows no mention of compression being used for internet connections. But I may post that question/suggestion on their forum.

I do see there is sort of a compression standard out there now for ftp servers called "Mode Z". If ChronoSync or Retrospect added this (or Apple added it at the system level when two Macs (or a Mac and Apples data centers, hint hint) talk over the internet, if it's not in there already now) that'd be nice. That might get effective upload speeds for me now to maybe 1.5Mbps? Gee, I think when I got my first cable modem my download speed was "only" around 1.9Mbps? Which at the time, compared to dial-up, seemd insanely fast! I can't exactly recall now, but I know when they replaced my modem two years ago it jumped to almost 10Mbps/download.

But this stuff is all getting faster. And even though I may not be able to get onto FiOS if you Google "future cable modem speeds" you can see cable may even exceed FiOS speeds by upto x6 in coming years, maybe even reaching 300Mbps! In fact, I see Time Warner appears to upgrading all there cable network to DOCSIS 3, and that gives speeds starting at 15Mbps download/5Mbps upload. With some sort of "Mode Z" type compression I might be looking a 7Mbps+ upload speeds availble to me very soon?

So, I think my current 0.96Mbps upload speed might be usable for incremental remote backups (I'll know when I get a remote hard drive at my dads set up that I can backup to and I can try it), but internet speeds for all of us are almost certainly likely to keep climbing as they historically have, probably making it a moot point very shortly. (and actually I did not even get into 4G or WiMAX (upto 1Gbps!)...I have two cell towers in my town, both pretty much line of sight from my house, one only about 1/4th mile away that I can just see the top of amongst the trees from my front office window...it's nice to have choices... hehe)

Sorry if I got this thread a little off topic, but it all does relate back to Time Machine and backups to networked hard drives 🙂

Jeff

Just a couple additional thoughts;

As I think about it, even at 0.96Mbps I am getting about 125,829 Bytes/sec......or about 8 seconds per megabyte, so a weekly incremental backup that was even, say, 50MB would only take about 6.7 minuets...running in the background once a week. That wouldn't be so bad I don't think. But I think I also found a way to add compression to improve that..

I also found these two utilities that let you remotely connect to another Mac (with out 10.7) for file sharing and screen sharing and that support compression between the two machines over the internet, and work nice with ChronoSync:

ShareTool 2: http://www.yazsoft.com/products/sharetool/

Slink: http://slinkware.com/

…both look nice, Slink may have a few more features and is on sale until Dec. 25th for just $12.99. 🙂

I also found a "Late 2009" Mac Mini (2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB, 500GB HD, OS X 10.6) about an hour away from my house for $350. Am going to look at it. He says there is an issue with the Mini DisplayPort (I am reading there were a few issues there) but the Mini DVI port works fine. But for me this will be a "head less" Mac so as long as everything else works Ok I am not so concerned about he Mini DisplayPort. Will probably get it to use as a local backup machine, but also can take it to my dads house to test how well having a remote Mac there to backup there to over the internet would work. Will also probably install 10.7 on it, if not immediately then in short order...

Jeff

JeffNY wrote:

Just a couple additional thoughts;

As I think about it, even at 0.96Mbps I am getting about 125,829 Bytes/sec......or about 8 seconds per megabyte, so a weekly incremental backup that was even, say, 50MB would only take about 6.7 minuets...running in the background once a week.

50 MB a week? I think you'l find that impossibly small, even if you omit nearly everything. My hourly Time Machine backups routinely run at least a hundred MBs, even when all I'm doing is reading and answering things here!

But it's your call.

Yea, next time I plug in my external hard drive I want to see how much Time Machine backs up. It's actually been about a week. But you often back up 100MB an hour? Gee, the first hard drive I had on my Mac SE was "only" 60MB (also has a 20MB Bernoulli drive in the enclosure) and that took me a couple years to fill hehe.

Why are your backups so big? Movies? Well, I should know soon enough how practical it is to back up to a remote computer over the internet at current speeds. But even if a weekly backup of 500MB would take about an hour (maybe 3/4 of that with compression?)...I might as well put all this computing power I have to work doing something for me hehe

If I get this all setup shortly I'll try and report back how well it works.

Jeff