Restrict how much on my NAS Time Machine uses

[MrMister111]

I now have a NAS which supports Time Machine backups from my iMac. Is there a way to restrict how much TM uses for the backups though?

I also use the NAS for other backups of folders, from Windows machines etc, so I don't want TM to use all the disk up with TM.

Thanks

 

[keysofanxiety]

I now have a NAS which supports Time Machine backups from my iMac. Is there a way to restrict how much TM uses for the backups though?

I also use the NAS for other backups of folders, from Windows machines etc, so I don't want TM to use all the disk up with TM.

Thanks

The easiest way would probably be to create a partition on your NAS with a size of your discretion and set TM to backup to that volume. As such it wouldn't use the rest of the disk to backup, even when it gets full.

 

[MrMister111]

The easiest way would probably be to create a partition on your NAS with a size of your discretion and set TM to backup to that volume. As such it wouldn't use the rest of the disk to backup, even when it gets full.

Ah, maybe yes, good idea, if I knew how! It's a Seagate personal cloud if makes a difference

 

[keysofanxiety]

Ah, maybe yes, good idea, if I knew how! It's a Seagate personal cloud if makes a difference

You could try format/partition through Disk Utility. However I'm not overly familiar with NASs, so please forgive my ignorance if it doesn't show up like a conventional drive

 

[MrMister111]

Got this reply form Seagate support..

" do apologize for the inconvenience. The device "Personal Cloud" is a network product, and cannot be partitioned into multiple partitions. Also, to restrict the backups of time machine, or for any other time machine settings, you will need to contact Apple directly for any support, since it is their software"

 

[CRaSHeR36]

I don't know if this helps, but I use a Synology system and here's how I've set it up:
1) Create a new user (I used my regular username plus the letters TM
2) Set a quota for this new user. This way, no need to partition... the user is set to not use more than XX GB of your overall space.
3) set your time Machine to point to your NAS, but use the TM user credentials you just created. This effectively restricts Time Machine to only use the space dictated by the quota you set.

Again, not sure if this is is possible via your Seagate NAS, but works beautifully for Synology. Good luck!

 

[MrMister111]

I don't know if this helps, but I use a Synology system and here's how I've set it up:
1) Create a new user (I used my regular username plus the letters TM
2) Set a quota for this new user. This way, no need to partition... the user is set to not use more than XX GB of your overall space.
3) set your time Machine to point to your NAS, but use the TM user credentials you just created. This effectively restricts Time Machine to only use the space dictated by the quota you set.

Again, not sure if this is is possible via your Seagate NAS, but works beautifully for Synology. Good luck!

Thanks for the idea, sounds good in practice, I'll try that.

On the Seagate you can make users, I remember it asking me which to use when I initially set up (currently have a public and private), it then asked me for the log on details for that user.

So will this force TM to "know" what size the user is then and just use this? Have you ever got near the maximum you set and everything worked fine?

What quota did you give the TM user, and what size HDD do you hands on your Mac?

This sounds a great way to do it, I'll try this, thanks again!

 

[CRaSHeR36]

Thanks for the idea, sounds good in practice, I'll try that.

On the Seagate you can make users, I remember it asking me which to use when I initially set up (currently have a public and private), it then asked me for the log on details for that user.

So will this force TM to "know" what size the user is then and just use this? Have you ever got near the maximum you set and everything worked fine?

What quota did you give the TM user, and what size HDD do you hands on your Mac?

This sounds a great way to do it, I'll try this, thanks again!

The way it works for me is when you assign a quota to a user, you essentially tell that user that they only have a hard drive that is XXGB. Time Machine will work the same way as you will point it to your NAS and use the user credentials that have a quota. So essentially TM will use your "drive" (i.e. your quota) as it's total space available... and when it gets to capacity it will begin removing the oldest incremental backups to make room for the newest ones. Again, this is how it's working for me... and hopefully will also work for you

I have a 5-bay NAS, and with the RAID setup I have, there's a total of 12 TB. I've set up a 1TB quota for myself and 1TB quota for my partner.

 

[mildocjr]

You could administratively do it by partitioning as someone else explained, this is a quick and dirty way of doing it and prevents users from later going in and changing their quota options, however, it also prevents you from changing quota options without deleting the existing data.

Using a quota, if possible, would be the way to go as you can expand the amount of space a backup can take up freely.

 

[MrMister111]

Looking on the interface and on manual, Amazon reviews, and web, looks like can't set quota for a user!?!

Grrrrr

 

[grahamperrin]

https://developer.apple.com/legacy/...Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/hdiutil.1.html

… resize … change the virtual size of a sparse image. …

I wonder whether it's possible to set a size for a sparse bundle disk image. If so, then you could experiment with setting a size before what's stored by Time Machine becomes excessive.

It might be simpler to do something with Automator to switch off Time Machine whenever free space, on the volume that includes the .sparsebundle, drops beyond your threshold.

Afterthought: if the Seagate device was a recent purchase and if its software and/or firmware is not fit for purpose (it's reasonable to assume that customers will want to use more than one feature of a multi-featured product) then get a refund, and spend the money on something to run FreeNAS.