Filed under: Hardware, Airport, Leopard
Time Machine works with USB external HDs on Time Capsule
Over at Macworld, Glenn Fleishman has an initial hands-on report about Apple's new Time Capsule combination Airport Base Station and NAS, and he's confirmed something folks were wondering about: "you can also perform Time Machine backups to drives attached to the Time Capsule via USB." This is interesting, because Apple originally said that Time Machine backups would be possible to an AirDisk (that is, an USB external drive on the regular AirPort Extreme Base Station).
Just before Leopard shipped, that feature quietly disappeared, leaving some early-adopters who had counted on that capability in the lurch. The obvious questions now are whether there's any technical reason why Time Machine to AirDisk wouldn't work on the AEBS, and whether Apple is holding the feature back just to promote the Time Capsule. In any case, it's good to know that if you get a Time Capsule you're not limited to the internal storage, perhaps making the smaller 500GB model that much more attractive.
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
trentrenta said 10:07AM on 3-02-2008
can i backup to time capsule...then stream those files to iTV?
Reply
michaelbrown said 10:10AM on 3-02-2008
It sucks that people who have purchased extremes aren't able to do the same (without a hack). I'm still not sure I'd want to, though.
Reply
Glenn Fleishman said 10:40AM on 3-02-2008
It's possible there will be an AxBS update. I'm not holding my breath, but remember that Apple (partly due to previous lawsuits about promised features, like maximum possible RAM) doesn't disclose anything until it's either really ready and they have an approximate shipping date, or it's actually available. In this case, because of the anger, if they have such a firmware update in the lab, you can bet it's not being announced until they're ready to push it out.
Gilbert Tang said 1:07PM on 3-02-2008
It's so frustrating that this functionality isn't available to current AEBS owners. I really do hope it comes out in an update; I really do.
Fritz Laurel said 4:21PM on 3-02-2008
I have mixed emotion on this.
On the one hand, it'd be nice to have this functionality on something I purchased only a month before the TC was announced, but on the other hand if I want to back up with TM (which I don't), I would just plug in the drive locally anyway.
iGO said 10:42AM on 3-02-2008
Is there in fact a hack for the AEBS allowing it this functionality?....If not, does it seem that one is possible and might be coming real soon, as we understand how Time Capsule's USB port works?
Reply
Mo said 11:07AM on 3-02-2008
I would imagine a firmware update for the AEBS will be forthcoming soon, given that the TC is now shipping (my guess is that the firmware will either be identical or extremely similar between the two).
It might not be, of course; personally, I've pretty much already given up on my AEBS for AirDisk: I've got a 2-bay NAS enclosure and a 1TB disk arriving tomorrow at some point, which I'll be using instead. Doesn't help with Time Machine, of course, but given the shocking performance of USB disks and the AEBS, I'm not sure I'd want to subject Time Machine to it anyway…
Reply
Mark 2000 said 11:27AM on 3-02-2008
Since this is just an Airport with a disk could anyone with one of these and an APE try to update the APE with the time capsule sotware and see what happens?
Reply
Olly said 11:35AM on 3-02-2008
Use the Secrets PrefPane (http://secrets.textdriven.com/preferences/list) to enable unsupported NAS in time machine (http://secrets.textdriven.com/preferences/edit/357) and use any disk you have on youre network.
Reply
Sam Katz said 2:09PM on 3-02-2008
The unsupported disk feature isn't safe. When the disk gets full, bad things happen to the data. That's why it's unsupported.
They presumably fixed those issues in the Time Capsule.
--Sam
mcg said 2:48PM on 3-02-2008
Sam is correct... There is no way I would trust unsupported features with *backup* data.
I'm simply not cynical enough to believe that Apple pulled this feature from AxBS because someone in the company decided they'd make more money supporting it only on Time Capsule. On the contrary, Time Capsule's pricing is actually pretty good, and I suspect it would have been cheaper in the long run not to design, engineer, and test a new product---*assuming that was possible*. That is, it would have been a better moneymaker for Apple to sell the existing AxBS plus a USB disk as a "Time Capsule", instead of creating one themselves.
My worry, then, is that Apple discovered a catastrophic problem at the last minute involving AxBS & Time Capsule that *cannot* be fixed with a firmware update. So that leaves three choices:
1. the current AxBS is perfectly safe for use with Time Machine, but Apple has purposefully disabled it to sell Time Capsule
2. the current AxBS requires a firmware update to use with Time Machine that has not yet been delivered; Apple may or may not deliver it in the future.
3. the current AxBS can *never* be made fully fit for use with Time Machine due to hardware issues.
It seems to me that 2 and 3, together at least, are far more likely than 1. Thus it seems unreasonably risky to trust these backdoor Time Machine hacks at this time.
Michael Grant said 2:50PM on 3-02-2008
My worry, then, is that Apple discovered a catastrophic problem at the last minute involving AxBS & Time Capsule
Oops, I meant AxBS & Time Machine. Sorry.
Petre said 12:27PM on 3-02-2008
As soon as I can connect a hard drive t my AEBS I'm getting a Drobo. The Time Capsule just isn't safe enough. Only one drive?!
Reply
Mr Lizard said 1:13PM on 3-02-2008
Yes, only one drive in the Time Capsule. Don't sound so shocked.
So your data is on your PC/Mac's hard drive, and a copy is now on the time capsule. So that's your data on two drives.
If you backup to an external drive using a RAID setup with two or more drives, then you're not the average joe customer that this product is designed for. Time Capsule is designed to make backup silly-easy for those who don't bother.
Steve said 1:53PM on 3-02-2008
One drive is an issue. Remember, this is a shared drive, period. It is not a "Tima Machine" drive and it should not be expected that the sole contents of the drive is duplicate (backup) data. I personally would not use it at all for Time Machine, I would use it for shared files.
Michael Rose said 8:18PM on 3-02-2008
You can connect a Drobo to a Time Capsule and back up to the Drobo.
Skwidspawn said 8:43PM on 3-02-2008
Unfortunately, I already have an AEBS, don't feel like shelling out the money for another one.
roby.army said 1:19PM on 3-02-2008
itimemachine allows you to backup to any network drive.
I have been using it for months now without any issues.
http://www.xiotios.com/itimemachine.html
Reply
Sam Katz said 2:13PM on 3-02-2008
From the site: "Use at your own risk. There are still some bugs when using Time Machine over the network."
I wish I had bookmarked the original thread here saying it was unreliable. A backup solution can't have bugs. It must work all the time. Backup solutions aren't toys. Time machine with one hard drive is safe, so long as you don't turn on Filevault which is incompatible, are running a patched copy of Aperature (if that's something you use). Time machine with multiple hard drives, according to contacts at Rush Limbaugh can be buggy.
--Sam
--Sam
Bill said 3:51PM on 3-02-2008
I just tried iTimeMachine on my 10.5.2 machine. It allows me to select a share on my NAS as a Time Machine destination, but Time Machine is unable to create the sparse image file.