Lion prevents Airport disk Time Machine back up

Me too. Recently, however, I've started backing up to my Mac Pro running Lion Server through the APE's WiFi.

I wonder how the theoretical problems with APE-powered backups apply to my Mac Pro. Certainly, the Mac Pro supports AFP ... but how is having the Mac Pro control the harddrive different from having the APE control the harddrive?

Engender wrote:

Me too. Recently, however, I've started backing up to my Mac Pro running Lion Server through the APE's WiFi.

That's a whole different animal, and is supported.

What's not supported, and is usually unreliable, is backing-up to a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme.

I have two MacBooks and a Mac Pro, all of which use TM for their backups. The Mac Pro currently uses one of its internal hard disks, while the MacBooks use FireWire external disk drives. Wanting to provide an additional layer of protection against hard drive failures, I purchased three Drobo disk arrays (USB-connected) and three AirPort Extreme base stations (to use purely for their AirPort disk facilities) but never got around to hooking them all up. Since upgrading all the computers to Mountain Lion and reading this thread, I'm glad I didn't!

The question is how to proceed from here. I could ditch the old Drobo enclosures and the APEs and replace them all with the just-released Drobo 5N, which does support TM (for now, at least...); but at $600 a pop, that's a bit expensive. There seems to be some doubt whether any single NAS will work with multiple Macs trying to do TM backups simultaneously, so I may need to buy three Drobo 5Ns.

Would a good alternative be to buy a Mac Mini (perhaps an older, refurbished, model that supports Lion/Mountain Lion) with Lion Server installed, plug my old USB Drobos into the Mini's USB ports, set them up as shared drives, then point my three Macs' TMs at them?

I don't know how familiar you are with various backup strategies -- you might start by reviewing Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27. That's pretty general, of course, but might have some new info for you.

There's a chance the Airport Extreme-to-Drobo combination might actually work with Time Machine for you, as long as you regularly update your secondary backups. There are a few people who've been using an Airport with one or more USB drives for years, often to back up 2 or 3 Macs, without problems, but many (perhaps most) do find their backups corrupted periodically.

Using a Mini as a backup destination on your network isn't a bad idea, either. You don't necessarily want the actual Server software -- there are some downsides to it, besides the expense. You can back up with Time Machine to a "shared" drive on another Mac (not running Server), as long as that Mac is running 10.5.6 or later. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #22 for setup instructions.

Since you're on Mountain Lion, you could have multiple Time Machine destinations, local and/or network, for one or more Macs. TM would alternate between available destinations (per FAQ #34). But you'd probably be better off using a "cloning" app, such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, for your secondary backups. For the Mac Pro, you could use a different internal or external HD for that.

For the laptops, connecting an external HD periodically and updating a clone via CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper is common.

You have lots of options, and backups aren't a "one size fits all" sort of thing -- you'll need to figure out what's best for your circumstances, preferences, budget, etc. -- and probably experiment a bit, too.

Thank you for your reply to my specific questions. Thank you, too, for pointing me to your personal TM repository: what a treasure trove of sage advice is contained therein!

I think I'll go for the Mini-with-shared-drives strategy, if only for the reason that its ability to work with OSes back as far as 10.5.6 gives me great confidence that the vast majority of potential glitches have already been found and addressed. Not needing OS X Server also means I could use a Mini running Snow Leopard that I already own and use as a media server (for audio only, so most of its CPU capacity should be available for disk sharing activities).

I'll still take the FireWire drives when away from home, so I can maintain current laptop backups using TM's alternative destination feature. I just wish there was a way to merge the "portable" backup episodes with the "main" backup at home when I return.

derekbrumley wrote:

. . .

I think I'll go for the Mini-with-shared-drives strategy, if only for the reason that its ability to work with OSes back as far as 10.5.6 gives me great confidence that the vast majority of potential glitches have already been found and addressed.

Yes, it does seem to work well for most folks. Since it's over a network, of course, it's a bit slower and more complex than if done directly, but at least there aren't the possible future compatibility issues of a NAS.

Not needing OS X Server also means I could use a Mini running Snow Leopard that I already own and use as a media server (for audio only, so most of its CPU capacity should be available for disk sharing activities).

Yup (although in general, the more up-to-date the Mini is, the better).

I'll still take the FireWire drives when away from home, so I can maintain current laptop backups using TM's alternative destination feature.

Yes, good plan. 🙂

I just wish there was a way to merge the "portable" backup episodes with the "main" backup at home when I return.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? Too bad the structure of the backups just won't allow it.

Of course, they're still accessible at any time via the Browse Other Backup Disks option.

I know this thread got a litle stale but it remains applicable to my situation.

Pondini, I just ran across your website. It is impressive in its comprehensiveness although my discovery of it was a little late for my purposes. Yesterday I put into play a 2TB USB drive attached to my APX. Well, I've been told it's essentially an APX. Technically it's a castrated TC. The drive within died last week. This was the second TC to die on me and I will never waste that money again. (separate topic) Hence the external.

Not knowing about this proscription against such an arrangement I went ahead and bought the thing, set it, and forgot it. This morning however--and now I can't even remember how it was I happened upon your site--I am faced with a potentially faulty setup. But still have questions:

--all this talk surrounds the use of APX with an external USB drive. But I never see any mention of any other sort of router. I mean, were I to take the APX out of the mix and insert, say, a Netgear router, would the external USB STILL be a no-no with TM?

--The main reason I want the backup network-based is that aside from my iMac we are backing up my wife's Air. Now, I could certainly just hardwire a drive to my iMac and back myself no problem. But what of my mobile wife who's not constantly connected. I'm wondering, if i were to hardwire the drive to my machine could she then backup to it, through me, via out network? And if so would that also be inadvisable?

I certainly like the idea of hardwire myself because this initial backup I'm undergoing is on its 14th hour and only half-way through!

Brunettin wrote:

. . .

Technically it's a castrated TC.

Then it is in fact a Time Capsule, not an Airport Extreme, and backing-up to a USB drive connected to it is supported and should work reliably as long as the other hardware and connections are intact. (Some folks just replace the faulty drive inside the TC.)

We're not entirely sure why that's supported and works well on a TC, but not an Airport Extreme (many think it's related to the different hardware innards), but that's the situation.

were I to take the APX out of the mix and insert, say, a Netgear router, would the external USB STILL be a no-no with TM?

Almost certainly, because even if the router has a USB port, it almost certainly doesn't support the requirements of Time Machine.

The software in some NASs (network drives) do, some don't. Some work better than others, and some were never updated to work on recent versions of OSX. But you don't have one of those -- you just have a disk.

See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #2 for details on what TM can back up to.

I could certainly just hardwire a drive to my iMac and back myself no problem. But what of my mobile wife who's not constantly connected. I'm wondering, if i were to hardwire the drive to my machine could she then backup to it, through me, via out network?

Yes, that is supported and usually works well. Plus, the iMac backups will be much faster and more reliable, since they're done directly. You can back up a laptop (or laptops) to the same or a different disk via sharing. If you use the same disk, I'd strongly recommend partitioning the disk, as explained in the setup instructions, in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question#22.