Apple OSX 10.5 Leopard: Time Machine support?

[remmelt]

There's a lot of talk but not so much info on the internet about Leopard's new Time Machine feature and how it will handle NAS disks. Some say it will work, some say only with Apple hardware, some say it was in the earlier betas but was pulled before the actual release.
It may only work with HFS+ formatted partitions, or perhaps with a .dmg disk image.

I very much hope that my brand new DS107+ will support this feature. I know it's possible to use rsync and it will do (about) the same as TM, but I'm sure you've all seen the introduction videos and it has a slick UI.

Any word on support for this?

Links:
http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php? ... &p=454272&

Ooops: didn't read the other forum:
http://synology.com/enu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5302

[kalbow_666]

Hi remmelt

I'm new here and know absolutely little about networking and connections.

At this stage I'm not even thinking about getting Time Machine working as I can't get past first base!

I'm stumped on the connection between my DS207+ and the AEBS (802.11n). I would like to view the Synology drive as an Airport Drive and utilise all the funky Mac sharing etc.

I have managed to view the Shared Folder on the DS207+ if I connect using Ethernet - so I figured my AEBS is setup ok.

How do you view your connection to your drive? Are you using USB? Do I need to set AFP - and is this a configuration in the Synology drive?

Hope you can help.
Cheers

[mattes]

There's a lot of talk but not so much info on the internet about Leopard's new Time Machine feature and how it will handle NAS disks.

Hi!

One major advance of TimeMachine is its "always incremental" backup: While the first backup copies all files, every later one will only copy modified files and use hard links to all unchanged files. So the target medium of TimeMachine needs to support hard links, nothing a "normal" NAS device accessed via SMB / CIFS or AFP can handle. Nevertheless TimeMachine is able to use NAS devices as it creates a sparse disk image on the NAS and this can be accessed with a HFS+ file system.

For some reason Apple withdraws the NAS support in the last minute before releasing Leopard, but it can be activated (at own risk) with the terminal command:

Code: Select all

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

(as posted on MacRumors).

Unfortunately I haven't received my Leopard, yet, but I will check this the next days with my DS-106j.

HTH, Mattes (I'll copy this posting to the second thread as well)

[remmelt]

Hi!

It would be best to open up a topic of your own for stuff like this, or other people won't be able to help you because they can't find your question.

Anyway, the DS cannot connect to your computer/AE through USB. The USB ports are for extra, external harddiscs only! The only thing the DS can do is connect via an ethernet cable. (And it's very good at that )
I've set my DS to share a couple of network drives, and enabled AFP (it's under Network Services in the first tab: Enable Apple Network) so I can connect over AFP. (AFP is good because it remembers your network connections even after you put your computer to sleep.)

It won't work as an AE drive because it doesn't have a direct connection to the AE (except for ethernet, which doesn't count in this way.)

Mattes: danke! I've read that as well, still hope that Apple is going to allow us to really make use of a NAS like this. Too bad they dropped it from the final release.

[mattes]

Mattes: danke!

:-D

[Franklin]

FYI:

Our engineering team has begun to study TimeMachine (we've received our copy of Leopard last week) and so far, it would appear that none of our products will support TM; though we are continuing to study this dilemma...

[succus]

thanks Franklin for the reply

I've been following this and other threads re: Time Machine. I think the fix needs to be on the Apple's software side -- it be made to 'officially' support non-HFS networked disks. My backup solution (Data Backup 3) as well as many others work on network disks/shares without a problem. If Apple notes file corruption with non-HFS disks as insinuated on other forums, they should fix it, or plainly state that Time Machine is not a hearty feature filled backup solution, but merely a quick and easy option for some users.

As there has been a lot of problems with this, I'm sure there'll be a new version in the not too distant future -- let's hope its a more robust product.

[teo]

For some reason Apple withdraws the NAS support in the last minute before releasing Leopard, but it can be activated (at own risk) with the terminal command:

Code: Select all

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

(as posted on MacRumors).

The misterious reason seems to be an issue on the AirPort as described here.
So, using this hack to enable AFP or SAMBA shares may work without problems.
However I’ll wait for Leopard 10.5.1.

[remmelt]

Oh, that's very interesting. Thanks for that link.

I wonder how the DS works? Does it send back an acknowledgment after receiving data or after writing data? Or is that part of the SMB/AFP protocol? Which is better? Does it matter that it's being written to a HFS+ image?

Interesting questions, I hope Synology can sort it out!

[mattes]

So, using this hack to enable AFP or SAMBA shares may work without problems.

Hi!

My Leopard arrived some days ago and I played a little with its TimeMachine and my Synology DS-106j (FW 458). Here are my experiences (messages are translated from German). Please be aware that this post uses an unsupported feature in Max OS X 10.5.1 and of course your mileage may vary ...

• First I backuped my system via TimeMachine to a direct attached USB drive: no problem.
• For some reason Apple withdraws the NAS support in the last minute before releasing Leopard, so I activated it (at own risk) with the terminal command:
  

  Code: Select all

  defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

  
  (as posted on MacRumors).
• I prepared a share on my DS and created a dedicated user with quotas as TimeMachine is designed to fill up all available disk space and I'd like to use the DS for other purposes as well.
• Than I mounted the share via SMB, my preferred protocol for backups: There are no file name limitations possible because of archives / disk image files, the performance is reported to be slightly better and under Mac OS X several mounts under different accounts are possible (I couldn't achive this with AFP).
• After changing TimeMachine to use the new backup destination, the normal 120 secs delay and some activity "preparing ..." I received an error message "unable to create image file". Normally TM would create a sparse image on a NAS and mount this image file for writing the backup. No go for SMB, here.
• Now I unmounted the share and remounted it using AFP.
• Again I changed the TM settings to use the new mount, entered the credentials and (after again 120 secs) TM started some preparations. This time a sparse image was created, but stayed at approx. 125 MB size. The progress bar of TM was spinning for hours, heavy traffic on the network, but no changes at the DS. I was able to browse the files inside the image, but no changes were made. After 12 hour I aborted the procedure. So "no go" for AFP, too.
• Somehow frustrated I attached an USB drive to my Apple Airport Extrem Base Station (aka AEBS), mounted the AFP share and again changed TM to use this one. The sparse image was created, currently the backup is running (20 from 37 GB).

To make a long story short:

Currently it is not possible to use a Synology Diskstation with Apple's TimeMachine. I'm not sure if it's because of an AFP modification the DS doesn't support and why SMB was affected as well (there are reports about successful backups using SMB shares in the net).

The AEBS solution seems to work, although I am aware of its (current) limitations and therefore wouldn't call it reliable. There are also reports about corrupted image files, e. g. in Apple discussions.

But beneath all issues about file protocols: When backing up all your data to a NAS, one thing should be taken into consideration: How to restore it as a bare metal restore ... ?

With TM and a NAS you have to boot your Mac using the install DVD, mount the sparse image and restore. If the image file is only accessable via the network, time may become a limiting factor. With the AEBS I'm able to connect the HFS+ formated disk directly to the Mac, so I think, I would prefer this solution if it's supported some time.

Any comments are welcome ...

Bye, Mattes

[RL]

At the time of writing this, I am having Time Machine backed up 2GB of 135GB of my hard drive to a DS106 connected via AFP.

It's 1:15am now, and i am going to sleep and let the machine run.

I used the hack given by turning on Tm to show unsupported drive.

Will update you all after I wake up.

[RL]

13 hours passed.


Status Image 1

The last 9GB that had been copied to the Synology took over 7 hours.

This is the file size reported in Finder on the backup:


Status Image 2


2.1TERRABYTE file size, on a 320GB harddisk.... interesting..

I'd stopped the backup using time machine.

trying other backup solution now.

[teo]

2.1TERRABYTE file size, on a 320GB harddisk.... interesting..

WOW, it can be that you have mistaken to read the label on your HD and it is a 320TB disk payed as a 320GB

I made a test booting Leopard from an external disk and making a backup with Time Machine using AFP like you, but for the only user folder, the size was right.
I don’t use Leopard for production yet, but I’ll do it soon.

[RL]

Ahaha... How I wish it's a 320TB drive. I can sell the patent to Seagate or Maxtor or WD as they are still struggling to deliver drive > 2TB ......

Had decided to plug in a dedicated harddisk to TimeMachine instead of using the Synology. Too bad...

[permanenceinfo]

The 1TB capacity is the theoretical capacity of the sparse image used for the backup, not the capacity of the disk that store this sparse image.