Time Machine

[Asu]

Will Readynas servers work with Time machine in OSX 10.5?

[tome]

Will Readynas servers work with Time machine in OSX 10.5?

I am curious about this as well.
-Tom

[yoh-dah]

It does work, at least when I tried it briefly awhile back. What you need to do is create a file on a ReadyNAS share, put one of the OS X filesystem on it, and specify that for TM.

[Asu]

It does work, at least when I tried it briefly awhile back. What you need to do is create a file on a ReadyNAS share, put one of the OS X filesystem on it, and specify that for TM.

I read this many times but I don't think I understand it.

[Flash]

Granted I have never used 10.5, but my understanding from what I have read is that users will be able to specify any locally connected drive (internal, USB, Firewire) or any mounted server sharepoint (such as a share on the ReadyNAS) as the location for their Time Machine backup. This would be done through the System Preference.

Screen shots here (not the most recent build):
http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/leo ... es019.html
http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/leo ... es020.html
http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/leo ... es025.html

Like I said, no direct experience but I don't see any reason why you couldn't select a share on the NAS as your backup location.

.

[Flash]

Here is AppleInsider's report on Time Machine:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07 ... chine.html

Here is a quote from page 4:
"Time Machine works with any standard external Firewire or USB drive, and is also designed to work with shared network drives, such as Apple's shared disks served up by the new Airport Extreme base station. Multiple Leopard users can backup to the same drive, as Time Machine stores each systems' backups separately by name. Time Machine is also designed to back up to an encrypted image for extra file security, allowing it to dump its backups on any file server."

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[schalliol]

It seems that Apple's information suggests you need HFS+ on a hard drive directly connected or a Leopard-driven file server, but that's in conflict with what's listed here. Thoughts?

[steffi]

Yes there will be a backlash if they tie this to either local drives or network drives that must be formatted HFS+... As that would be limiting it to their server platform. I seriously hope they don't go this route because any fool can see it's unnecessary.

[schalliol]

Can anyone confirm who's on recent builds? In any case, it looks like I'll find out a week from tomorrow.

[schalliol]

Ok, looking at the AppleInsider Look at Time Machine, it seems that HFS+ is necessary (if I read correctly).

Apple actually designed the multi-links in HFS+ primarily to support Time Machine. Unlike other Unix or Linux distros, Mac OS X's multi-links support hard linking to both files and directories. Creating multiple hard links to directories is outlined in the official POSIX specification for Unix, but is rarely supported because the use of multiple hard links for directories is dangerously powerful. If a child directory linked to its own parent, it would create a directory cycle that could cause unbridled looping and file system corruption. File system utilities are also typically unprepared to handle multi-linked files. In Time Machine, multi-links are used in a specific, controlled context to avoid these types of problems.

Am I making the same assessment others have?

[Flash]

It would be a real disappointment if Time Machine required an HFS+ formatted disk. Like you said, we'll know for sure in a little over a week.

.

[yoh-dah]

It really doesn't matter if HFS+ is required because the time machine image is essentially a file residing on a network share and the filesystem is made on that file.

[Flash]

OK, good point yoh-dah, that makes sense in the context of this quote from AppleInsider:
"Time Machine is also designed to back up to an encrypted image for extra file security, allowing it to dump its backups on any file server."

From what I've read, it seems like the default option when using an HFS+ volume is to just copy the files onto the drive. In this way they are easily browse-able via the Finder because the hard-linked files are simply sorted into folders.

The option to have backups created in an encrypted disk image also provides a nice work-around for non HFS+ volumes as yoh-dah pointed out.

[schalliol]

Good points. It sure would be ideal if it were browseable too.

[ericdano]

Good points. It sure would be ideal if it were browseable too.

Um, no. That would be a BAD idea. What if you change something while browsing it? Then Time Machine would get all screwed up.