Time Machine Backup Problems

[jason.siegel]

A few months ago I switched from a Time Capsule setup to an Airport Extreme + external hard drive setup, to do Time Machine backups. I completed a fresh backup, and everything has been working fine. Then yesterday, I started having some problems connecting to the Airport Extreme. Airport Utility popped up, though I still had Internet access. I successfully updated to the new firmware after a few tries (the download kept erroring out for some reason) and set a new Airport Extreme base station password. Now today, my computer had trouble connecting to my backups. I reselected the disk and agreed to create a fresh backup, and a short time later I got the error message that is attached. I restarted the backups again, and now it's going (for now).

What is going on with my system?

 

[Weaselboy]

Which version Airport Extreme are you on? TM backup to an external drive is supported on the new tower shaped Extreme, but not on the older pancake shaped ones. Some users get it to work, but it flakey and just stops working sometimes.

 

[jason.siegel]

It's a new one.

 

[Weaselboy]

It's a new one.

That is supported then and it should work. I'm wondering if by selecting a new password for the base station you blocked access to the TM disk. I believe there is a setting in there where you pick how you want to control that access.

I would erase the disk with Disk Util then start over and in that Airport Utility setting make sure you have the password access control to the disk setup correctly.

 

[jason.siegel]

Okay. It seems to be backing up alright now (50GB of 150GB so far), and if there are any problems, I'll do a Disk Utility erase and try again.

I'm mostly wondering why it was giving so much trouble even before the password reset, and why even when I inputted the correct password, it errored out several times. Hopefully it's sorted itself out!

Thank you.

 

[Badrottie]

Which version Airport Extreme are you on? TM backup to an external drive is supported on the new tower shaped Extreme, but not on the older pancake shaped ones. Some users get it to work, but it flakey and just stops working sometimes.

Are you talking about older 3 and 4th ten Airport Extreme?

 

[Weaselboy]

Are you talking about older 3 and 4th ten Airport Extreme?

Yes. None of the older pancake shaped models support Time Machine backups to a USB attached drive.

 

[ColdCase]

Okay. It seems to be backing up alright now (50GB of 150GB so far), and if there are any problems, I'll do a Disk Utility erase and try again.

I'm mostly wondering why it was giving so much trouble even before the password reset, and why even when I inputted the correct password, it errored out several times. Hopefully it's sorted itself out!

Thank you.

How solid is your wireless network? Interference and glitches sometimes play havoc with TimeMachine backups. Otherwise, perhaps the hard drive is having issues, or the USB cable is flakey.

 

[jason.siegel]

Lots of interference around here, but it seem to be working again for now.

 

[blueroom]

Which version Airport Extreme are you on? TM backup to an external drive is supported on the new tower shaped Extreme, but not on the older pancake shaped ones. Some users get it to work, but it flakey and just stops working sometimes.

Officially supported? Link?

Anyway I have an AEBS tower and I used a Lacie USB 3 portable drive with it as TM and had several backup corrupted errors.

I'm now using a DS214play with no TM problems.

 

[Weaselboy]

Officially supported? Link?

Anyway I have an AEBS tower and I used a Lacie USB 3 portable drive with it as TM and had several backup corrupted errors.

I'm now using a DS214play with no TM problems.

Page 13 of the new Airport Extreme manual here.

Using Time Machine with Your AirPort Extreme

If you connect a USB hard disk to your AirPort Extreme, you can use the Time Machine application to back up all your Mac computers, including your photos, music, movies, and documents.

After you set up Time Machine, it automatically backs up your computer on a regular basis.

Use Time Machine preferences to set up automatic backups, use a different backup disk, or adjust other settings.

 

[Badrottie]

Yes. None of the older pancake shaped models support Time Machine backups to a USB attached drive.

Serious? I have 3rd gen Airport Extreme but I haven't set up external HD for time machine because I don't know how. And if it is not for Time Machine back up then what does USB port on the back of AE do?

 

[Weaselboy]

Serious? I have 3rd gen Airport Extreme but I haven't set up external HD for time machine because I don't know how. And if it is not for Time Machine back up then what does USB port on the back of AE do?

Yep... true story. You can use that USB port for a printer or a USB drive to store files, but just not Time Machine.

 

[nebo1ss]

Yep... true story. You can use that USB port for a printer or a USB drive to store files, but just not Time Machine.

Agreed I see people recommending it as a solution on here all the time, it does work but it is very flaky. I tried it for a while but after a week or so it would suddenly not see the previous backup and start a whole new one. After going through that a couple of times I gave up and now use a Synology NAS very successfully.

 

[Badrottie]

Im disappointed! I should have research more before buying this 3rd gen AE for TM back up. I guess I have to buy expensive latest AE.
Anyway thanks guys.

 

[ColdCase]

Agreed I see people recommending it as a solution on here all the time, it does work but it is very flaky. I tried it for a while but after a week or so it would suddenly not see the previous backup and start a whole new one. After going through that a couple of times I gave up and now use a Synology NAS very successfully.

I had no issue with one self powered WD MacBook on an older gen AEBS... and so have hundreds of folks here. It has been solid backing up three laptops for like three years now.... but older gen AEBS do not seem to have robust disk management. Depending on the drive you select, single or multiple drives can be a problem.

On the other hand, I've had nothing but issues with the synology NAS and TimeMachine and have given up on it. It is not approved by apple as a TM storage device. Along with reliability issues, it seems that every time the OS has an update, the NAS is broken and it takes months for synology to adapt. If I had it to do over again, I'd go right to a real computer, like a mini, and run OSX server on it. At the moment I use CCC as an backup for those devices assigned to the NAS, instead of TimeMachine.