How to enable Time Machine on unsupported volumes

Although we've been mostly happy with Leopard, one of the features we were most looking forward to was the ability to set Time Machine to use a NAS volume like Airport Disk, thus making laptop backups wireless and sexy (well, sort of sexy) instead of wired and cumbersome. Sadly, Apple cut the feature at the last minute, but as with all things OS X, nirvana is usually just a defaults write command away, and Volker Weber has got it sorted for us. Just pop open a terminal window and enter:



defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

and you should be able to select NAS volumes in the Time Machine prefs. Of course, you should only re-enable this for giggles -- we don't know why Apple turned it off to begin with, and it could very well be full of bugs and hose your data. Considering some of the other glitches that have cropped up in Time Machine, we'd actually recommend staying well away from this one, but if you're desperate, by all means -- go for it and let us know how it works in comments!

[Brandon h @ Nov 10th 2007 5:37AM]

Could you guys mention that you can't use the time machine interface to go back in time? I have tried this and while it will backup to the AEBS and allow restore using the Leopard install DVD, clicking the TM icon will only let you see your current time and no previous versions of your data (which is kind of the whole point in my book) over the network.

I'll wait until it is officially supported, including the full interface. Until then, a time machine partition works nicely to keep track of previous versions, along with .Mac backup (or super duper if you prefer) which is happy to backup incrementally to the AEBS (best of both worlds). Just be sure to use an external backup solution (periodic backups to USB HD or NAS), or you'll be sorry if you lappie explodes or something.

[JR @ Nov 10th 2007 8:14AM]

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but the Time Machine UI works fine when using unsupported network drives.

I've been running this method for about a week now without any hitches. In fact, when you backup to a non-supported drive, because of the way Time Machine relies of hard-linked directories, it will create a Mac OS sparse disk image (which supports this feature inside of it). Sure, with a sparse disk image, you'll always run the risk of if the image gets corrupt, there goes your data - but then again, there's always a risk that it'll snow at the equator too!

I've even used this method to RESTORE from a Time Machine disk on a NAS via the Leopard DVD.

All-in-all, sure, it may not be for the faint of heart, but in the week I've been running it, all my backups have completed, it has auto-mounted the network share if (at the time of the hourly backup) the share wasn't mounted (and even unmounted the share once complete).

Thumbs Up here, works fine.

[william @ Nov 11th 2007 11:10AM]

yeah, it works great for me too. I have a 500 GB FAT formatted USB drive hooked up to my PC and shared on my network. I am able to back up to this volume and restore without hitch!

Great Hack and thanks to whoever posted it. This is what I needed!!!!

[brandon h @ Nov 11th 2007 5:49PM]

never mind, it works. I was thinking this wascthe same as pluging the drive in directly via USB first, but its not. Sorry.

[nikster @ Nov 10th 2007 5:54AM]

If there was a Darwin award for IT, a sure way to win it would be to use a hack to unlock a totally unsupported feature to... do backups!

What a brilliant idea! ;)

[John @ Nov 10th 2007 12:01PM]

In reality, Time Machine is just a really nice toy to have around for if something messes up.

Everyone serious about backing up knows that burning DVDs is really the only sure-fire way to make sure your data is still around.

[John @ Nov 10th 2007 4:04PM]

Sounds like 'Worse than Failure' to me...

[Michael Long @ Nov 10th 2007 6:52AM]

Yeah, you can do that to allow TM to access AirPort disks... as long as you don't mind potentially losing some or all of your data.

See: http://www.iSights.org/2007/11/more-airport-ex.html

[Jared Harley @ Nov 10th 2007 10:11AM]

From your link:
"According to information on Roughly Drafted, 'The problem is that integrity cannot be guaranteed — the AirPort acknowledges receipt of the data before it’s actually written, and if power is interrupted, the disk disconnected, yadayadayada in the window between the Airport acknowledging receipt and the data actually getting written out to disk, [then] it’s gone forever with no way to recover it or even realize it’s gone missing.'"

This sounds like the very same issue with the move vs. copy issue that people noticed in Leopard (though it apparently existed prior). To me, it sounds like Apple needs to work on how data is transfered between volumes.

[Michael Long @ Nov 10th 2007 4:20PM]

Actually... no. The TM problem lies in the COPY of the data potentially being corrupted when communicating with another computer (the AirPort is a computer). While the move problem exists between multiple drives on the same computer, since in a move the original is supposed to be deleted (just not if the move failed). They're related conceptually, but entirely different processes.

[Esat @ Nov 10th 2007 7:09AM]

And there was me thinking that this was finally a hack to go back in time....

I would have purchased so many domain names at the beginning of the interweb.. google.com.. microsoft.com, not to mention lottery numbers and such, as well as investing in a new fangled, crazy named company called google.

Oh, and I would have warned everyone well in advance about Sunny D. *shudders*

Sigh.

[blue @ Nov 10th 2007 3:15PM]

So, what's the deal with Sunny D? I definitely missed the alert on that one!

[Mac Dub @ Nov 10th 2007 10:07AM]

According to some ( http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/11/08/why-leopards-time-machine-doesnt-support-airport-disks/ ), this was nixed because if there is a power failure or any other sort of break in connection while performing a backup there may be major loss of data. Something to do with verifying the data after receiving it instead of just receiving and accepting that as job done... 10.5.1 and an Airport firmware update will hopefully give us all the sexy backuping we've ever wanted.

[stevesreed @ Nov 10th 2007 6:47PM]

Since I use a ReadyNas system with a UPS, the chances of power failure disrupting a back are fairly small

[Sander de Regt @ Nov 10th 2007 11:00AM]

But the big question is: how do you get your Mac up to 88 miles/hour to activate the timemachine?

[Timothy @ Nov 10th 2007 12:00PM]

Easy! I bought the same S-Class that Jobs has. It's like an implied minimum systems requirement.

[cyberrawn @ Nov 10th 2007 12:00PM]

lol. Not to mention where are you going to get the 1.21 gigawatts!

[Jack Storm @ Nov 10th 2007 12:12PM]

When they get the flex capacitor on there.

[AndrewNeo @ Nov 10th 2007 5:51PM]

I think the Flux Capacitor only fits in the Mac Pros. But, Apple being Apple..

[Vito @ Nov 10th 2007 11:00AM]

Is there anyway to make this kind of fix for NTFS drives? I have a Windows formatted external hard drive and want to use it for TM.

[JP @ Nov 10th 2007 11:21AM]

The problem with NTFS is that the way MS has things set up, no OS other than XP/Vista/etc. is vary good at playing nice with it. Most can read it but writing is dicy at best.

[Jamar @ Nov 10th 2007 11:37AM]

There's a solution for that involving MacFUSE (Filesystem in User Space) and NTFS-3G (NTFS read-write driver for MacFUSE). Get those two items and install. Your NTFS drive will then be read/write but it will appear as a network share (that's how MacFUSE works). Apply this hack and you're good to go.

It works for me (my HDD has 2 partitions- 1 HFS+ containing OSx86 10.4.10 and 1 NTFS containing Windows XP- MacDrive and MacFUSE+NTFS-3G allow me to write to both partitions from either OS).

[Vito @ Nov 10th 2007 11:42AM]

I can write to my drive in Leopard, but I cannot choose the drive in TM.

[Ian Sinke @ Nov 10th 2007 12:06PM]

@JP: Writing to NTFS volumes works great in Ubuntu 7.10.

[Doctadjones @ Nov 10th 2007 11:00AM]

Shouldn't the verification process eliminate any worries of data loss?

ANY backups that are done should verify that the data is written correctly regardless of how the backup device is connected. What happens if the power to my external USB drive fails, or I kick the cable out, or the tape in my tape drive has a scratch on it?

I guess I don't see why I can't mount a remote dive on a server in Singapore over my 28.8 modem and still use Time Machine for a nice slow off site backup.
Maybe the problem they are having with Airport is performance related, and the backups are taking way to long to be practical.

In a related side note, I think that you are going to start to see users getting pissed at Apple because their backup drive went bad and they can't retrieve the photo they deleted a month ago that Apple said they could get back. Backups should be for disaster recovery only, and Time machine is moving away from that.

[Jamar @ Nov 10th 2007 11:41AM]

Problem is that the way AirPort drives behave is that they confirm/verify reciept of a file before it's been fully transferred. Very dumb.

[Doctadjones @ Nov 10th 2007 11:54AM]

That is very dumb, and the only reason I can see for that is to help performance.
It seems to me that Time Machine should ignore the backup device's verification (the Airport in this case) and do it's own verification. Basically like it's saying "Yes Airport I see that you are telling me that the data has been verified, but you're a lying bastard and I'll check it myself."

Maybe that's exactly what they are "patching".

[Michael Long @ Nov 10th 2007 4:34PM]

More likely they're changing the protocol, sending a stream of blocks, getting back an independent stream of verifications, and resending blocks as needed. Much better performance-wise, since the AirPort is in a much better position to verify the write. (Kind of like how dropped packets work in TCP/IP.)

And as to "users" getting pissed, well, Apple DID disable AirPort drives, remember? If they used this hack to get around the safeguards Apple put in place, then they don't have much to grip about...

[nikster @ Nov 10th 2007 8:54PM]

Not sure how verification can be a performance problem - a CRC is fairly small and very safe, so each transferred block would have to have an ack CRC and there we go.

[Michael Long @ Nov 11th 2007 12:35AM]

Verification is a performance hit if you have to get the data, write it to the disk over a USB link, read it back over a USB link, and THEN send an acknowledgement.

[St. Stephen @ Nov 10th 2007 11:15AM]

1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!

[Sander de Regt @ Nov 10th 2007 6:01PM]

If I come out and tell you it's Jigawatts instead of Gigawatts, would that make me
a) a filmbuff
b) a filmgeek
c) a techgeek
d) a standard-issue nerd?
e) all of the above

On a related note: "Unbelievable, that old Biff could have chosen that particular date. It could mean that, that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence"

[Bla @ Nov 10th 2007 12:40PM]

nope. didn't work as usual

[applefreak @ Nov 10th 2007 1:54PM]

cool now all i need is a mac with 10.5.1 and a 1TB drive
note the 5.1 not 5.0

[applefreak @ Nov 10th 2007 1:55PM]

than again, Apple will most likely block this feature it the next update, along eith all the other hacks......

[JLTate @ Nov 10th 2007 3:15PM]

Must be a slow news day today, because I could have sworn that posts of this nature had their very own blog (ahem-TUAW-ahem).

[CoolCommonSense @ Nov 10th 2007 4:39PM]

Time Machine is not trustworthy.

[joe @ Nov 12th 2007 1:47PM]

So I got my hands on Leopard Server....

In the Sharing section you can add a folder to enable AFP and/or SMB sharing... fair enough.
However, there is also a check box that enables that share as a Time Machine Backup destination!

I enabled it...
Mounted it on another Mac..
Now when I go into the Time Machine prefs it shows up as an available backup drive.

No tweaks needed... just $1,000 worth of Server software. Perhaps this is why Apple left out network drives as backup location?

[Charles Bittner @ Jan 21st 2008 5:02PM]

Dudes I just drove home with a time capsule i bought at my apple store, I was so excited i hit 88 on the highway, i jumped back in time to today. now I have to wait two more weeks for a feature my airport should already have.. bummer drive slowy...

[Andreas @ Jan 27th 2008 12:28PM]

time machine on NAS drives is painfully slow.. and using wireless it is even slower :(

Pity..

can't wait for 802.11n hardware to get cheaper, maybe that way it will speed up time machine.
For now, I have purchased a "classic" firewire harddisk and connect it once in a while.

Andreas

[Shane Moorhead @ Feb 5th 2008 7:11PM]

You're all fools - 5.25" floppies are the way to go