Backup Network Drive To Time Machine

To create backups with time machine all you need is an external storage device.

Backup network drive to time machine.

This is great but out of the box time machine only backs up your data to an external physical drive or a local nas system that supports the time machine protocols. Just open time machine add new backup disk on network share do not replace existing backup disk initiate backup manually and don t forget to disable automatic backups. Select back up now from the time machine drop down in your menu bar and if the setup went as planned your machine should successfully make its first time machine backup over your network and to. But with a network drive time machine doesn t just copy files to the drive itself but rather to a sparseimage a kind of disk image that is expandable.

Good data backup practice however follows the golden 3 2 1 rule in which at least three copies of your data are kept to ensure against any form of loss. To actually back up another mac to your time machine server open the time machine interface on another mac on the same local network as your server. You ll see it appear as a backup location in the list of disks just as time capsule devices do. Create a same sized partition on the new time machine drive as your older tm backup drive for the transfer then resize after the transfer completes if the process above isn t working consider cloning your tm backup instead using recovery mode command r at startup and disk utility.

After you connect the device and select it as your backup disk time machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours daily backups for the past month and weekly backups for all previous months the oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full. Make sure that the usb drive is formatted for time machine. Time machine can back up to an external usb drive connected to an airport extreme base station 802 11ac model or airport time capsule. Cancel the backup once time machine will start to show file copying progress.

When you use a network drive for your. You can even choose option to encrypt backups.