[snickers46]

Have been patiently (ha, ha) waiting for this. Using fast Ethernet Airport with 1TB hard drive attached. Mounted HD on desktop and can copy files to it from my iMac. Problem is that Time Machine does not ?see? the hard drive during setup (nothing in list of hard drives). Hard drive has been tested and formatted. Phoned Apple support and I was told that what I am trying to do cannot be done with any version of Airport Extreme, I need to buy Time Capsule. My reply started with "what about Apples promise" and ended in a hang up on the poor tech. Any ideas?

[akira34]

They NEED to enable time machine to work with standard network share volumes. Ones you mount through any standard protocol. That includes SMB and CIFS (global standards, not just ones that apple creates)... Until such a time as we can have it work with our enterprise class storage solution, time machine is completely disabled on any, and ALL, systems running 10.5.x where I am.

[dfs]

Thanks, I'm glad to have somebody back me up on this (no pun intended). I take this issue very seriously, and I hope that sooner or later Apple will too. By experimentation I've figured out a recipe for getting Time Machine to work with a shared network server (I did this using AirPort Express, which I use as a router for a hard-wired ethernet LAN, I have no idea whether it works with wireless connectivity, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't). You can't directly create a sparse bundle from a Mac to a networked server with Time Machine, it simply chugs a while and then puts up a message telling you it can't be done. Nor can you create a sparse bundle, which you need for a server, using a hard disk attached to your Mac by USB or Firewire,since it will create files rather than a sparse bundle. But you can create a bundle by backing up to a hard disk attached to another Mac on your network, and once you've created it you can copy it to your server (you need administrator privilege to do this copying, you'll be asked for a password), and after you've done that Time Machine will see the bundle parked on your server and back up to it. You can do this for multiple networked Macs and then use your server as a shared backup device for them all. NOTE: Although I have discovered this is possible, I have no idea how stable or reliable this setup is, SO TRY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK AND DON'T BLAME ME IF THINGS SOONER OR LATER GO WRONG FOR YOU!!!!

[Scott716]

Cool, but when my laptop wakes it no longer recognizes a USB drive attached to the Airport Extreme. It says "Connection Failed."
The only time the laptop recognizes a USB drive on the Airport Extreme is when I've freshly rebooted. After that, every time my laptop wakes, it's "Connection Failed."
Three geniuses at an Apple Store said that this is a glitch in connecting USB drives to an Airport Extreme.
If anyone knows a solution, please post here!

[idris33]

I had the same problem where I kept getting "Connection Failed". I read somewhere that it had to do with the WPA lease times. To fix it I had to tell the AEBS to give my laptop the same IP adddress and that fixed it for me. Under the DHCP section I created a DHCP reservation for my laptops and I haven't gotten a "connection failed" since.

[chrislaf]

Nice to see this functionality added to the AEBSn but on my set up I am having some problems.

I have the AEBSn fast ethernet version. Time machine recognizes my USB drive - a WD My Book 500GB disk (combo usb/firewire) that was previously connected to my 17" imac intel via firewire. When TM starts a backup it begins a brand new one as others have reported and doesn't seem to be able to find the previous backups. In addition it creates a sparseimage file to backup to which mounts a disk image on my imac. When I access the USB drive from my macbook which does not use it as a TM backup, it seems to hang the AEBSn and I have to unplug and re-plug to get the AEBSn to get it to work properly again. I have the USB drive connected to the AEBSn through a powered usb hub so I am wondering if that is causing the problems. The hub also has a laser printer and an epson inkjet attached. Is anyone else having problems with their AEBSn and TM when they have multiple usb devices connected to it through a usb hub? I should note that I had no problems with the AEBSn, the two printers and the usb hub before I connected the TM drive. Problems started when I tried to use a TM drive. Also, if I connect a different usb drive to the hub and only use it for file sharing and not for TM, I have no problems.

I have returned to my original setup - TM drive directly connected to imac.

chris

[jmtighe]

Don't forget to manually update your Airport thru Airport utility to 7.3.1 found on the summary page. As soon as I did that everything worked.

Found the solution on Macfixit.

[rojobo1963]

This works as a breeze, installed the updates on both airport extreme and imac and macbook and moved my 400 gig drive from the imac to the Airport and pointed Time Machine to use this disk. Even after shutting down and powering up or standby (both macbook and Imac) connect to the disk automatically to make backups. The only downside is that I had to make the initial backup again and lost the old backups but what the hack, this is great, no more moving around with the drive to back things up.
Thanx Apple you made my day !!!!!!!!!!!

[chrislaf]

Still haven't got my setup working. Has anyone got this working with the USB drive connected to the AEBSn through a USB 2.0 hub? I'm wondering if this is where my problem lies.

Tried again today and although I could begin a TM backup from my iMac and from my wife's MacBook it caused the AEBSn to become unresponsive. I could not even tell it to restart (grayed out) using the AirPort utitility on my MacBook. Had to unplug and re-plug to get it to restart.

My AEBSn has a D-Link usb 2 hub connected which in-turn has an Epson C68, a Brother HL 2040 laser connected and the WD My Book 500GB drive I'm trying to backup to using TM.

When I connect an 80GB 2.5 inch bus powered drive to the hub to use for file sharing I have zero problems with it.

TM backups work fine from my wife's MacBook to the WD drive when it is directly connected to the iMac.

Any ideas?

Chris

[louielu12]

Now that I back up wirelessly with Time Machine via a HDD attached to my AEBS (Gigabit), is restoring any different? If my hard drive were to crash, would I be able to restore my system via attaching my HDD to my MacBook's USB port, or would I have to use ethernet (wireless is way to slow) attached to the AEBS?

The only reason I think it would be different is because of the different format TM uses with a wireless backup.

[louielu12]

Why do you want to use the AEBS with TM? I could be wrong but didn't one of the reviews on Macworld say that backing up to an AFP disk on another Leopard Mac with TM was faster than using the AEBS/TC?

[chrislaf]

If I can get the AEBSn/TM working then I don't have to leave my iMac on all the time. There is more flexibility this way and less use of power.

Thanks for your input.

Chris

[louielu12]

Ok I see.

When you attached the 80GB HDD using the hub, did TM work with it? If so, then your problem is probably with the 500GB HDD. If it didn't work there is probably a problem with TM, your AEBS, or the hub. In this case, maybe try TM without the hub and just the 500GB drive attached to the AEBS, and see if TM works. If it does then it is probably the hub that has the issue.

Hope that was helpful,
Louie

[chrislaf]

louielu,

Thanks for your great suggestions. Haven't tried TM with the 80GB HD as I don't plan on using it as a backup drive. I thought of trying it with the 500GB HD directly connected to the AEBSn but if that worked I wouldn't use it that way because I need the 2 printers to be attached to the AEBSn via the hub so they are available to all of my computers on the network. Before I try the 500GB HD directly connected, I'd like to hear if anyone else is experiencing problems with TM HD's connected via usb hubs.

One other problem is that when I pull the 500GB off the imac and connect it directly to the AEBSn, the imac wants to do a completely new backup and so does my wife's macbook so this makes for a long and laborious process just to find out if it doesn't work.

I may have to live with my current situation - TM backups to 500GB HD connected to imac.

Chris