[spim]

the guy above Steve Jobs ... oh, that's easy

his name is Fnord Fnord.

[mumblefrutz]

There is a trick to get it to work with a USB hub. In order to select the hard disk as the backup drive in Time Machine Preferences, you must first connect the hard disk directly to the Airport Extreme Base Station USB port.

Connect to the shared Airport disk with your password (I use a disk password). I have heard that account passwords do not work with Time Machine.

Now open Preferences, select Time Machine, and select the hard disk for use as backup.

Before the first backup starts (you have 120 seconds), disconnect the shared hard disk, unplug the USB from the Airport Extreme Base Station, connect your USB hub to the Airport Extreme Base Station, and connect the hard disk to the USB hub.

Connect to the shared Airport disk with your password, open Time Machine Preferences and make sure that a back up is scheduled to occur.

To save time on the first backup you may want to be connected via Ethernet.

[zeroblizzard]

I would say that based on all evidence before me (which is basically nothing), that the answer is no.



The Time Machine wireless backups, just like MAC OSX itself, only works on "registered" Apple hardware.



Search "hackintosh" for some guy who made a mac from a pc.

[alexrest]

Will this work with my existing Time Machine Backup disk or do i have to start from scratch? what about the new AirPort Express?
Alex

[louielu12]

Jerame said:

Has anyone besides me noticed that the restore functionality doesn't work? I've run the updates, Time Machine sees my drive and backs up to it, but when I enter the Time Machine interface, I get bupkis. I cannot scroll through the days of data, nothing. All I get is Today.

Now, it's still great that I can backup, but what good is it if I can't restore the stuff without digging through folder after folder of the same thing on a disk image?

That is probably because it's not your original backup. I have my MacBook's stock 80GB HD in an external enclosure (because I just updated to a 250GB internal) and I was using the 80GB with Time Machine for about a week. I had about 16GB left on the drive. When I installed the new software and plugged in the HD into my AEBS (gigabit), TM recognized it, but when i tried to back up, an error always occurred. I think TM wanted to make a whole new backup, and not use the old one (and there wasn't enough room for a new one in my case).

So I bet in your case, TM made a whole new backup, and there is nothing to restore there are no changes on the new backup. I had to delete my whole TM drive, and make a new backup while it was connected to the AEBS, and I used Ethernet. I just left it overnight to backup for the first time.

I'm just happy Apple made this possible after such a long wait.

[louielu12]

alexrest said:

Will this work with my existing Time Machine Backup disk or do i have to start from scratch? what about the new AirPort Express?

Alex

As I just posted above in response to Jerame, I wasn't able to. I think TM sees the drive as a different one and will just leave the old backup and make a new one (but in my case, there wasn't enough space). I would hope it is possible, but last night I couldn't get it to work so I just started from scratch.

[slapppy]

I guess I missed the write up somewhere. Does it only work with AEBS "N" and not AEBS "G" types?

[jughead]

I saw this update as it was downloading and it said "Time capsule" on it. That made me curious.

I've been running backups locally so far. I wonder if I just move the disk to the Airport will it reformat the drive or just pick up where I left off.

I have the Fast Ethernet version. Even at 90Mb or so it still should be fast enough for incremental backups.

[Gryhound]

Rastarman,

I looked up the specs on your Netgear router. I'm glad its working for you and that it was dirt cheap but as the old adage goes, "you get what you pay for".

I'll compare and contrast for other readers who may just want to know why the Apple Airport Express is more expensive than other wireless base stations.


Netgear WGR614 (List Price 50.00) Apple Airport Extreme (List Price 180.00)
Netgear WGR614 802.11 a/b/g Apple Airport Extreme 802 11 a/b/g/n (key difference is the N. N = 300 mbps G = 54 mbps) This is huge for internal file sharing or streaming video on your wireless network. It will not make the internet faster since most internet connections top out at 10 mbps. Also N has a much further range than g which is only about 50 feet from the base station.)
Netgear WGR614 has 4 10/100 ethernet ports Apple Airport Extreme has 3 10/100/1000 ethernet ports Airport has Gigabit Ethernet the Netgear has one extra ethernet port.
Netgear has a firewall, Apple Airport Extreme has a firewall
Netgear is administered via a webpage, Apple Airport Extreme is administrated with the Airport admin software on Mac or PC (The apple software is in my opinion is more user friendly.)
Netgear runs at 2.4GHz Apple Airport Express runs at 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz (dual band for decreased interference)

In addition the Apple Airport Express has a USB 2.0 port on the back which can be used either alone or in conjunction with a hub to attach printers and hard drives. The ability to attach printers is know as a print server (wireless in this case) and the ability to attach hard drives has generally been reserved to a few hard drives on the market with networking added to them.

What does all this mean. Basically you paid 50 bucks for a G Router. To bring it up to speed with the Apple base station you would have to get a Netgear WNR854T which is Netgears gigabit wireless N router. The Netgear WNR854T is $130.00 only 50 dollars less than the Airport Extreme. Now we can actually do a fairer comparison. The Netgear WNR854T is only a single band 2.4 GHz router. It doesn't support the 5.0 GHz band like the Airport Extreme. Speed of the two routers is the same with the Netgear having one extra gigabit ethernet port (4 ports vs. 3)

However, for 50 dollars more with the Apple Base Station you get the print server (generally a wireless USB print server will run around 70 to 100 dollars and the ability to plug in a USB 2.0 Hard Drive to use as a file server. There are several hard drives from Western Digital that are network ready but they are usually more expensive than their USB 2.0 only counterparts. Plus most of them are confined to only working on a network meaning you can't plug them directly into your computer.

If you were to add just the print server and the netgear WNR854T price together you would have a range from 200 to 230 dollars and this isn't adding in the cost of a network capable Hard Drive. If we assume that the difference in price between a network capable hard drive and a USB 2.0 hard drive is about 100 dollars and now you can see that the difference is 300 to 330 dollars.

180.00 dollars for the Airport Express is now looking a whole lot cheaper than parting together a system of different components from different manufactures that may or may not play well together.

Of course my whole argument assumes that you will use a hard drive, time machine and possibly a printer on your network.

The last intangible is support. Apple provides support for all the functions of the Airport Extreme base station but going the 3rd party route and you now possibly have 4 companies you have to call for support when your network has problems. (Apple, Netgear, the print server company, the hard drive company). With the Apple Airport Extreme it boils down to just one company Apple.

Apple Airport Extreme, easier support, more features, better value.

[imagineengine]

I'm happy that Apple finally fixed the issue of not being able to back-up over WIFI with Time Machine and the AEBS. Now at least this update increases it's resale value. Anyway I just ordered a 1 Terabyte Time Capsule so at least I can still use the USB hard drive with the Time Capsule so it's not a total loss ;)

[HalanR]

Initial setup:
1. Start off with 3 external disks formatted as a RAID 1 (mirror) array,
2. Do an initial TM backup, and
3. Take two of the disks and store them offsite.

Continuing process:
4. On a regular schedule, bring one off-site disk back on site & plug in,
5. (hopefully automatically) have the RAID mirror be rebuilt, then
6. move the "oldest onsite" external disk move offsite.


Why not just keep an ongoing backup drive using TM, then use these other two drives with a cloner like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner and rotate those drives offsite?

That way, if you have a massive failure, you have a) up-to-date backup with TM, and b) a fully-restoreable clone that can be restored quickly and easily? Just a thought...

TC and TM really wasn't designed to be a high-end backup solution. It was designed to be easy enough for the average user to use and restore lost or missing files. If your data is very valuable, and only you can make that determination, then invest in a RAID solution. In the long run, it will do what you need it to with much less work and time.

[Exponent]

Your solution of using SuperDuper or CCC to clone the constant on-site drive may work, but it has one large significant downside: the need to execute that step. The whole idea behind Time Machine is that there is no work needed to be done by the user, as any such steps cause the backups to typically not take place.

Regarding Time Machine not being intended to be a high-end solution - I realize that. What I am proposing is not an attempt to make it a high-end backup solution, but rather to ensure one simple critical requirement: that data is saved offsite to protect against theft, fire, or disaster.

All I'd like to find out is a) does Time Machine work with a mirrored raid?, and b) when an element of that mirrored raid falls out of "current" status, does it automatically get rebuilt (as with "normal" Mac OS X on your desktop). If both of these are true, then Time Machine picks up a very valuable - and for many of us, a required - feature, for free.

[dfs]

As nearly as I can tell, Time Machine still doesn't work with an ethernet server connected to Air Port Extreme. Or am I wrong?

[EagerDragon]

You should not trust TM over the AirDisk
It is not official yet, Apple is not supporting it. Just because it SEEMS to work it does not mean your data is safe.
Apple likes everything to work the same, this stuff works in two different ways.
1) Apple does not yet have a statement that Time Machine can use an AirDisk
2) The Airport does not have a statement that the AirDisk can be used with TM
3) TM records into the disk differently when connected directly to a USB drive, it creates a series of folders and stores the backup in a folder with the machine name.
4) TM when connected to a drive via AirDisk, skips the creation of the directory structure and instead it writes the backups at the root level of the drive
5) TM is unable to take into consideration the previous backups that were created when the drive was directly connected to the Mac and does not attempt to convert the old backup to the new format (sparse tree).
6) In about this mac, the new build number is rather odd and not similar to the previous
7) The patch screw-up the copyright of OSX by setting it to 2007 instead of 2008
Do not trust it.