Time Capsule's data folder mounted as /Volumes/Data-1

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Time Capsule's data folder mounted as /Volumes/Data-1

Mountain Lion sometimes mounts Time Capsule's data folder to /Volumes/Data-1. I suspect that is only the case when /Volumes/Data wasn't unmounted properly (leaving it with only root/wheel access). Restarting my MacBook Air resloves the problem. So it might have something to do when my macbook goes into sleeping mode (and losing the WiFi connection).

This can be very irritating, when iTunes can't find my files on /Volumes/Data anymore (or at least not directly, because iTunes will resolve it eventually).

(Note that I have never mounted some other external drive/stick that could).

Does anyone encountered the same problem?

Time Capsule 802.11n (4th Gen), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 28, 2012 9:33 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 2, 2012 7:58 PM in response to E.O.M.

I'm not sure this is a complete description of what's causing your problem, but the next time you see this problem, invoke the Finder's "Go" menu, select "Go to Folder", and enter "/Volumes" (without the quotes), and click the "Go" button. Do you see a "Data" volume and a "Data-1" volume? If so, you may have the problem described in this TidBITS article.

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Answer 2

E.O.M. Author

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Oct 24, 2012 8:57 AM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

My reaction is a little late (thanks for your response!), but I found out what is going on: when the Time Machine start a backup it will mount de the capsule's Data disk as /Volumes/Data. Only root/wheel users will have access. After the backup is complete this mount will be removed. But, when I manually mount the data disk through Finder (or by starting iTunes) before a backup is completed, then it will be mounted as /Volumes/Data-1 (because a /Volumes/Data still exists - that makes sense).

Maybe I shouldn't share the disk appointed for backups with other personal stuff that I have also stored in that folder, and better create a seperate disk/folder on the Time Capsule for those purposes.

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Answer 3

Oct 25, 2012 2:41 PM in response to E.O.M.

E.O.M. wrote:

when the Time Machine start a backup it will mount de the capsule's Data disk as /Volumes/Data. Only root/wheel users will have access.

That's not the case for me. How do you have the Time Capsule's disk configured? Have you enabled file sharing and declared a disk password?

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Answer 4

Nov 29, 2012 3:20 PM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

I also have this problem. I have my time capsule on File Sharing with Password. I have set Volumes/Data as a destination for files to be placed from a program I am using and this constantly breaks because Time Capsule keeps changing Data to Data-1, Data-2, Data-3 and so on. I have to manually change the config of the program to keep up (which is annoying).

Is there any solution from stopping this?

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Answer 5

E.O.M. Author

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Nov 29, 2012 3:49 PM in response to tommy0178

Hi Tommy,

I suspect that when you manually mount the data disk (e.g. through Finder) as the logged in user before Time Machine starts a new backup, you will be safe: /Volumes/Data will be present and accessible to the user under which your programs run.

As far as I can tell (or have been experiencing), the problem only arrises when Time Machine is the first to mount the data disk. It will then be mounted as /Volumes/Data granting only access to root/wheel. Your programs will almost certainly be running under another user. As a result they will conclude that /Volumes/Data is not accessible and mount it under another (non-existing) name, e.g. /Volumes/Data-1, /Volumes/Data-2, ...

I do not know the command to mount the disk by heart, but I will look into it and maybe create a shell script for it that is automatically executed as soon as I log into the system.

Haven't had this problem under OS X Lion and hope that Apple will address it.

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Answer 6

E.O.M. Author

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Nov 29, 2012 5:12 PM in response to E.O.M.

...in reflection to my own reply: maybe it was a little bit too technically ;-). Bottom line is: try to access the data disk as soon as possible before a backup is started.

Thinking about my last sentence, it may have something to do with the "Power Nap" functionality that was introduced in Mountain Lion. When sleeping (napping) and still making Time Machine backups (which I actually haven't seen in practice), a "normal" user might not be available and forcing Time Machine to mount the Capsule's disk as the root superuser in order to proceed creating the backup. This could have been made the standard strategy in Mountain Lion.

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Answer 7

krisgo

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Jan 17, 2013 6:27 AM in response to E.O.M.

I had the same issue as well and could resolve it by creating user accounts on the TC and keeping my TM backup in the data folder. This way when TM starts backing up it remounts the data folder and keeps the folder with my username untouched so all my apps can access the data always at the same path.

I hope it helps you too.

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