How-to: Setup multi-Mac backup shares with quotas. Easy.

[rharse361]

I still can't get this to work. I can connect to the ReadyNAS backup volume using the admin uname and pw but can't connect using the user I set up (keep getting the (OSStatus error 2.). I can see the folder for the user I set up and see the .AppleVolumes and .com.apple.timemachine.supported in there but still can't connect. Any suggestions?

[majayjay]

Hello,

Im a bit confused by User and Share Quotas and how best to setup Time Machine Backups.
I just changed over from Share to User Security Mode. I am trying to create dedicated Time Machine Shares for 2 Machines, as well as allow 2 users to access other shares on the ReadyNAS. Here is a breakdown:

Users and Machines:
2 Users
2 Machines
User 1 has a MBP Retina with 768GB SSD
User 2 has a MBA with 256GB SSD

Desired Shares:
Time Machine Backup for User 1 (MBP Retina) - (1.5TB Quota) (User 1 has access only)
Time Machine Backup for User 2 (MBA) - (384GB Quota) (User 1 & 2 have access)
Videos - (No Quota) (User 1 and 2 have access)
Music - (No Quota) (User 1 and 2 have access)
User 1 Personal - (No Quota) (User 1 has access only)
User 2 Shared - (100GB Quota) (User 1 and 2 have access)

My questions are:
1) I want to confirm that once setup, I can delete the ReadyNAS standard Time Machine Backup Share "Backup" and disable the setting in Frontview?
2) Is the best method to use to setup the 2 new dedicated backup shares the method described in this post? I am wondering if I should be using the old 15 step method instead?
3) I am confused that using this method, you assign a quota to a USER and not a SHARE. Does this mean that I should create 2 User permissions in the ReadyNAS for each physical user. Example: User 1 would have two ReadyNAS User Accounts (1 for the Time Machine access with a 1.5TB quota and another with no quota for accessing the other shares)?
4) How do I assign a (100GB Quota) to the Share: "User 2 Shared"

Thank you for your help!

[Martin4x4]

I now have a new problem. PC's and my iMac are backing up without any apparent problem.

However my for wife's MacBook, Time Machine starts goes through making disc available, preparing items, and the cleaning up - but then an pop up box appears "Time Machine could not complete the backup" (While this is going on my RaedyNAS is active, I can hear the NAS drives working.) Latest Backup: FAILED. If I look at the sparsebundle it's showing that its been updated with today's date & time. The red info tells me The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disc utility to repair your backup disk.

Time Machine should have been making weekly back ups (using TimeMachineEditor) and the last one was made on June 10, and I've just noticed that this failure has been happening

Any suggestions?

[majayjay]

I followed the instruction for this also and setup unique users with home folders for myself and my wife. When I try to backup my machine or her machine, neither will connect and both are given the same message "The operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error 2.)"

I've checked and re-checked to make sure I did everything correctly, yet inevitably I get this message. Please help!

Also, are we supposed to keep time machine support "Enabled" in settings? Mine currently is. I'm afraid to disable it in case I lose all our backups prior to being able to create new ones?

[Martin4x4]

Can anyone help with this problem? Original posted July 3rd!

I now have a new problem. PC's and my iMac are backing up without any apparent problem.

However my for wife's MacBook, Time Machine starts goes through making disc available, preparing items, and the cleaning up - but then an pop up box appears "Time Machine could not complete the backup" (While this is going on my ReadyNAS is active, I can hear the NAS drives working.) Latest Backup: FAILED. If I look at the sparsebundle it's showing that its been updated with today's date & time. The read info tells me The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disc utility to repair your backup disk.

Time Machine should have been making weekly back ups (using TimeMachineEditor) and the last one was made on June 10, and I've just noticed that this failure has been happening

Any suggestions?

[Akabane]

I have to admit I really don't understand the relation between the users created and the ReadyNAS share... :x Anyway, following that method I get OSSTatus error 2 "the Machine Can't access the backup disk "ReadyNAS" " :( Files and users are created though... :x

[mdgm]

What version of Mac OS X?
What version of RAIDiator?

[Martin4x4]

I am running as follows;
OS X 10.7.4
RAIDiator 4.3.4 and Dashboard 1.0.0.224

Thanks

[majayjay]

FYI - Regarding my error "The operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error 2.)" I ended up deleting both users from the ReadyNAS NV+, deleted the keychain passwords for each user account on the macs, then followed the steps outlined above again. It worked correctly after that.

I'm not sure why it didn't work properly the first time... The initial time I tried it, i renamed the user accounts from all lowercase to mixed case & of course, used mixed case in the system files I put in the home folder. When I recreated everything from scratch, I left everything lowercase. I'm not sure if that is the reason it worked the second time?

[Akabane]

OKAY, it is working, thx for the awesome howto. :)

I ended up deleting the users again, deleting my old TM drive from the Mac Pref (I think it was the problem), redoing the whole process and as I type, 2 Mac are TM'ing into the Ultra 6. Joy. ;)

Note : You can just activate Time Machine backup on the NAS and assign 1 or 0 size, it doesn't matter. Only the size for the user will matter. Cool thing is it seems you can change it on the fly.

[bct]

Despite subscribing myself to this topic, I hadn't received any notifications that there were posts. Sorry I wasn't around to help answer any questions. It looks like everyone got their problems solved OK?

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I was curious if anyone is having trouble since OS X 10.8? I've hit my 100% quota that I set, and Time Machine will not clean up the old backups to make room for the next backup. This setup has worked great until now, I'm not sure what's happened. Any suggestions? I keep trying to force the backup, hoping that it will clean old backups, but each time the backup fails and the backup image has 0 bytes free. This is frustrating.

[Martin4x4]

I am still on 10.7.4 but I have not been able to find out how I can set the quote.

Could someone please talk me through this?

Thanks

[bct]

It's under Security > User & Group Accounts, for each user there's a Quota column.


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For some reason, my backups are working again this morning and 40GB were freed from deleting old backups. No explanation.

[Martin4x4]

I guess that's my problem as I don't have a Quota column, only name, email address, UID(?), Primary Group and Password!

Dashboard 1.0.0.224 running under Firefox 15.0

[Martin4x4]

Once again -- Can anyone PLEASE explain why I don't have a quota column? Just updated to RAIDiator 5.3.6 (arm) with Dashboard 1.0.0.224?