Apple OSX 10.5 Leopard: Time Machine support?

[MacHound]

Hewidemmel wrote on 10/16/2008 (page 4): "Which FileSystem should i use, AFP or SMB? (I don't mind backup speed, but my mac system should work without "breaks" like mentioned above)."

Apple says you should use AFP for Time Machine backup over a network.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html ... 15139.html

[Disclaimer: I am not a Synology owner nor an Apple rep. It's just what Apple says in their Help files.]

[MacHound]

Here's another useful article on Time Machine backups, especially the warnings about NAS TM volumes:

http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/2.html

The more I read, the more trepidation I feel about Time Machine backups to NAS. A directly connected external enclosure will always be the most reliable solution. Even when all the hardware is optimal, Time Machine can still be finicky -- at least it used to be in the past. (I haven't done a TM restore in a long while, so maybe the "finicky" remark no longer applies as much under recent OS 10.6 version.)

[thierry37]

Any mac user has some experience, lately, on retrieving data from a Time Machine (from the DS) ??
It would be interesting.

(I still use external disk for my TM, but soon I'll get my DS, and it sounds much easier to leave it to the DS.. instead of plugging/unplugging the external TM drive, every few days.)

[larsalex]

Working fine here, no problems.
Only stopped working after I had replaced my harddisk.
I made a 1-on-1 copy from old to new disk, but trying to use the existing
timemachine file did not work. After deleting the timemachine
file on the NAS and made a timemachine backup from scratch all was good.
I didn't mind loosing the history though. If you do then you need to find another solution.

So far no problems. Running pretty smoothly. I haven't even seen the problem
where timestation fails because it cannot open the timemachine share.
But if that does occur, you can select the timemachine share again via timemachine settings.
You log in again using the synology account you've created for timemachine (well I did) and your set. Can be a bit annoying.
Might as well keep the timemachine share connected all the time. Wouldn't bother me.

[frankacano]

Note that you need to use a fixed Volume size when you create the Volume for TM. If you allow the Volume to expand after a added disk or a swap for a larger disk, then TM will report the database as corrupted and start from scratch.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=35147


-Frank

[thierry37]

Thanks Franck and Alex.
At least, it seems to work for some of us.
I'll wait my DS with impatience, to try all these new things.

[Riptide360]

[quote="MacHound"]Here's another useful article on Time Machine backups, especially the warnings about NAS TM volumes:

MacHound,

Thanks for the URL link - http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/2.html

The whole site is very useful, and whoever site owner "James Pond" is deserves a lot of credit for posting Time Machine's details! Synology should contract with this guy to help them on their TIme Machine support (at least get him a unit and let him report bugs if nothing else).

I still use a drive off my Airport Extreme for backups, but maybe next time I setup a new Mac I'll run Synology's Time Machine Backup support thru a full test of backing up and doing a restore to see if all is well. Anyone else done this (my apologies in advance for not reading thru all 4 years of posting on this thread!)?

Stephen Inoue
http://macsynology.wordpress.com

[thierry37]

After enabling the Time Machine on network drive, and creating the shared folder with quota and user... I launched the back up.
No problem at all. 5 hours laters, my iMac was "time machined" onto my DS110j.

Hopefully, it will stay like this for a while, and I won't have any problem.

After the back up, the iMac went on sleep mode and so the DS drive.

During the back up, I did not notice any warm up of the hard drive. Constant 37-38°C.
Speed was "very slow". Some peaks at only 10MB/s (I thought it would go higher, with at 10/100MB/s network. I have to check my network, if any device is slowing the rest...)

[ibid]

Is it possible to set up my DS710+ as a TimeMachine backup location for multiple Macs? I'd like both my wife and I to be able to use it.

[The answer to this, which I received from Synology Support when I submitted a ticket, is easy. Just create one TimeMachine share and separate usernames for each user. Point all Macs at this share. Time Machine will create a top-level directory inside the share for its files, so there will be no collisions between users.]

[thierry37]

I hope you allowed enough space, on the quota of your share. Because it needs double space, for your double computers.

[gmoniey]

I'm having trouble getting my macbook (OS X 10.5) to find the Time Machine share. When I open Time Machine, and look for disks, nothing shows up. However, I can access the shares using smb.

Here is what I have done so far:

1. Created a new Volume just for Time Machine
2. Created a backups share on Volume 2
3. Enabled Mac File Service in DSM and selected the backups share.

One thing to note, I cannot afp into the drive: afp://192.168.1.5

I just bought a DSJ211j and have upgraded to the latest firmware.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[Ziggy]

Is it possible to set up my DS710+ as a TimeMachine backup location for multiple Macs? I'd like both my wife and I to be able to use it.

[The answer to this, which I received from Synology Support when I submitted a ticket, is easy. Just create one TimeMachine share and separate usernames for each user. Point all Macs at this share. Time Machine will create a top-level directory inside the share for its files, so there will be no collisions between users.]

Did it work ? I've trying several things to back up 4 macs onto my DS209-II. I've tried with 4 "time machine" user accounts each with a Quota assigned. Didn't work.

Our macs are OS X 10.6.8 and DSM 3.1-1748.

Currently I'm considering creating separate diskunits (in a diskgroup), but how should I make Mac-fileservice to point to more than one disk (one for each user) ?

regards

[soulrain]

I have a DS211j and have two mac laptops that I back up off of it with TimeCapsule.

The weird thing is that I cannot do this over wifi only ethernet. Is this normal or am I missing something?

The back up over ethernet seems to go fine with the two mac laptops and the NAS just curious if there is a setting or something stupid I am overlooking to be able to do this over wifi.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[artform]

The weird thing is that I cannot do this over wifi only ethernet. Is this normal or am I missing something?

This might be an issue relating to your router. Are you able to see the Time Capsule over WiFi or does it not appear at all? Also, can you access shares on other computers (if available).

I would not backup of WiFi too often since it usually takes much longer (depending on your network equipment). It is convenient if you don't work near any Ethernet cables...

[Evil_Eb]

The weird thing is that I cannot do this over wifi only ethernet. Is this normal or am I missing something?

Just started with a 212J fresh out of the box, using it as Time Machine drive. I have a MacMini connecting over Ethernet and my trusty old iBook over Wifi, both running under 10.5. Setup is one shared folder for TimeMachine and two separate users for the respective machines. Backing up works in principle, meaning I can see the TM drive, backup runs through etc. so the approach works in principle.

My funny glitch is that while the users have a decent enough size contingent (double disk size), the file station reports an erroneous folder size of only 100GB which throws Time Machine off its path as it appears to be taken as the disk size. Funnily, I do see the correct user allowance in Time Machine.

If anybody has a tip how to sort that glitch out this would be much appreciated.