Time machine and Airport: anybody get it to work??

Macaholic · Nov 11th, 2007, 08:15 PM

In this very informative look a Time Machine, it states:

"Time Machine works with any standard external Firewire or USB drive, and is also designed to work with shared network drives, such as Apple's shared disks served up by the new Airport Extreme base station. Multiple Leopard users can backup to the same drive, as Time Machine stores each systems' backups separately by name. Time Machine is also designed to back up to an encrypted image for extra file security, allowing it to dump its backups on any file server."

Apparently, Apple pulled the ability to do Time Machine over WiFi at the last minute and can now only backup to a Leopard Server drive. There is rumour that Apple is still working on it, and given how their sales of laptops are, wireless backup is a MUST-HAVE.

There are a few workarounds posted on the web (see last link's comments thread), but I actually wonder if they WORK?

So, has anybody HERE at ehMac got TM working over a WiFi network??

agentorange · Nov 12th, 2007, 03:49 AM

I'm using Time Machine with a Macbook and Macbook Pro, both using an irport disk as the target. All you have to do is set set your external as the Time Machine drive while it's directly connected to the computer (ie. USB), then attach it back up to the airport.

It does work, but it's not 100% reliable. sometimes it stalls when "preparing" backups on the Macbook for instance. I would also not recommend doing the initial backup over the network, as it is far too slow for very large backups.

Macaholic · Nov 12th, 2007, 07:44 AM

Hi. Yes, I've read of this solution. Presumably it is too early to tell, but have you auditioned any back-up'd files to check for accuracy? Like, a Text Edit file that has three changes a day that says "test 1, test 2, test 3" etc. over a period of days? That would be a good test to try -- which I cannot do as I don't have a AEBS yet.

Also, how do the Time Machines on both your computers handle sharing the one drive over WiFI? What do things look like on the backup drive? I have a Mini with about 200GB of drive, my MBP with 120GB and my G4 tower with 320GB. I have a 750GB drive ready to serve as the TM backup for them all.

And finally, why did Apple pull the feature? There could be a crucial reason why...

macsackbut · Nov 12th, 2007, 08:59 AM

Thanks for starting this thread, Maca. I hope it stays near the top for a while. I haven't even started TM yet because it's basically useless to me unless I can us it over WiFi. Like you (presumably) I am holding off on buying an AEBS until this can be solved.

twolf3232 · Nov 12th, 2007, 10:03 AM

Heh. That's funny. I just finished reading this...

Why Leopard’s Time Machine Doesn’t Support AirPort Disks. — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

I just started backing up with SuperDuper and WinClone. I probably won't be getting Leopard until mid-08, when I can get an AirPort Extreme as well. Hopefully by then, they'll have it figured out.

agentorange · Nov 12th, 2007, 06:24 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by Macaholic
	Hi. Yes, I've read of this solution. Presumably it is too early to tell, but have you auditioned any back-up'd files to check for accuracy? Like, a Text Edit file that has three changes a day that says "test 1, test 2, test 3" etc. over a period of days? That would be a good test to try -- which I cannot do as I don't have a AEBS yet. Also, how do the Time Machines on both your computers handle sharing the one drive over WiFI? What do things look like on the backup drive? I have a Mini with about 200GB of drive, my MBP with 120GB and my G4 tower with 320GB. I have a 750GB drive ready to serve as the TM backup for them all. And finally, why did Apple pull the feature? There could be a crucial reason why...

I take my laptop with me everywhere, so it's not exactly consistent with backups. I haven't bothered to test the integrity, but I haven't had any power failures so I doubt there were issues writing the backups.

As far as multiple computers, it just makes a separate sparsebundle file for each computer. That all works the same as directly connecting the drive.

I hope when they release the firmware to fix Time Machine compatibility, they also fix FAT32 Airport disks, because right now they are so unreliable, they're basically useless.

Nov 13th, 2007, 12:07 AM

I'm with you there agentorange. The airport "disk sharing solution" is shaky at best, reminds me of older netatalk packages (wait, maybe it is an old netatalk package -- like a lot of the cheapo "network drive" solutions out there hehe).

The problem here also lies with Leopard as well making assumptions about data transfers. Early adopters blues... let's see what the next couple of dot releases fix up

Until then keep good backups (don't rely on time machine is my best advice).

Macaholic · Nov 13th, 2007, 08:55 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by agentorange
	I take my laptop with me everywhere, so it's not exactly consistent with backups. I haven't bothered to test the integrity, but I haven't had any power failures so I doubt there were issues writing the backups.

Well, my following explanation will be a bit fuzzy, but there's an issue with how Airport confirms file reception from a remote device, essentially confirming to the remote device that the file has been received at THE BEGINNING of the transmission, not at the END. Apple will need to fix this for something as crucial as TM.

darkscot · Nov 13th, 2007, 09:25 AM

from reading that article, it's more likely airport disk confirms file has been received but does not confirm that file has actually been written to connected drive.

Macaholic · Nov 13th, 2007, 10:12 AM

Exactly. YIKES!