MP 1,1-5,1 Using one HDD on Mac Pro as Time Capsule?

[GlynH]

Having been burned on more than one occasion by Time Machine on my Synology NAS failing in my hour of need and then suffering the agony of being ping-ponged between Apple & Synology when it came to support with each blaming the other I came to the conclusion I really need an Apple device to backup to.

As Time Capsule was unceremoniously dumped by Apple some time ago I was wondering on the possibility of giving over one HDD in my Mac Pro 5,1 completely as a Time Machine destination backup disk.

Hopefully I would end up with a reliable, in-house backup system and if anything did go wrong maybe Apple might feel obliged to actually support their own hardware/software combo instead of scapegoating a 3rd party such as Synology in my case.

I could also reclaim the 6TB of storage space on my NAS given over to sparse bundles that none of my Macs can even see any more!

I understand the overhead might impact any serious work I might be doing on the Mac Pro but to be honest I don’t intend to do any mission critical work on it but for those times when I might do a spot of video editing I could always pause/suspend Time Machine I guess.

Plan would be to install a reliable large capacity spinner of 10-12TB capacity in one of the internal drive bays, set a quota of 2TB per device and schedule backups of the Mac Pro to itself along with the iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air & Mac Mini.

At least it would be put to good use!

Is there any flaw in this logic that I might not have thought through and does anyone else waste the resources of such a magnificent machine as a wannabe Time Capsule? ?

Could some kind soul also recommend a suitable, reliable drive to use as the destination disk in the Mac Pro please?

Guessing I could sacrifice speed for reliability in the choice of HDD but it would still feel wrong sticking something like a WD Red in a 3.46GHz 12-Core aluminium monster stuffed with NVMe M.2 system drive and a trio of Samsung EVO SSD’s

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

One thing you might consider, if you really want reliable time machine over wire, get an old time capsule and set it up just for wireless back up. You can go 2 ways on that. Plug in a drive via USB, or yank the 3.5" drive from the time capsule and throw in an 18TB driver (or whatever size suits you), and it will work like a native drive.

That said, I just have a local drive in my Mac Pro as a 2nd time machine back up (one on synology and one locally) and the local one is way faster with no issues. That said, I also don't have problems with the synology remote as well. I find the local backup is less impact than even the wireless backup to synology.

That said, using the Mac Pro for multiple backups from all over the network, yea, I could see it eating some resources, but if you localize it to just one drive, and you have a 12core 3.46ghz, I cant see it really being noticeable.

 

[skodises]

Sure! I do this, and I'm all for it. I have a good old 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001-1ER166 that I use to provide Time Machine space on the network for my laptop and my wife's Mac mini, and an additional 4TB ST4000DM000-1F2168 that I use for TM backups for my cMP 5,1 work machine itself. I don't want it to get bored, after all.

All my real storage is on SSDs now, with 8TB on a 7101A and another 8TB split between 2 Sonnet Tempo Pros. The old internal SATA bays are sitting there doing nothing whatsoever, so I figured that I'd stick a couple of big spinners in there for things that can afford to be achingly slow.

I have a multi-tiered backup scheme, with nightly, weekly, and monthly clones of my valuable drives, and then Time Machine always sitting back there behind it all just in case- I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. Nightly and weekly backups are SSD-to-SSD clones (in case of controller-board failure), monthlies are cloned to spinners that I put in a desktop dock and then rotate offsite for disaster recovery. The TM stuff is really just for paranoia (and, I suppose, nostalgia) purposes- I think I've only used it 3 or 4 times in a decade, mostly for my wife's machine.

Defense-in-depth is unquestionably the best approach. Given that, a failure in any single path still has other backups to back *it* up. The actual flavor of drive used then becomes less important, as any single-point failure has multiple workarounds.

Still, having said that: I can also say that I'm glad that Connor, Miniscribe, and Micropolis are just fading memories in the rear view mirrors. And don't get me started on Quantum. Lost a lot of data to those brands back in the day- anybody else remember the Micropolis stiction problems?

Your mileage may vary...

 

[GlynH]

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys. Glad to know I'm not out on a limb here and am in good company wanting to use the cMP to take care of Time Machine backups! ?

I've since read a couple of articles online that seem to confirm it is a working solution so I'll press ahead with my plan.

@ZombiePhysicist: Going to steer clear of an old Time Capsule for various reasons along with wireless as I have enough wireless bits whizzing around my ears as it is!

I'm thinking I might even presss both Gigabit Ethernet ports on the cMP to Link Aggregate a connection to my switch much like I already do with my Synology RackStation?

@skodises: Similar mindset to me then. Some of the drive bays are empty so why not give them something to do? Yeah I'm old school too and remember binning Micropolis drives many years ago. My very first HDD was a Quantum 40MB purchased to make my Amiga fly back in the day although I had been exposed to 10MB Winchesters in my Company housed in an enclosure that resembled a filing cabinet some years before that.

So still looking for recommendations for a suitable 10-12TB spinner and it seems like the Seagate IronWolf should fit the bill probably in its Pro clothing for the added workload, MTBF & warranty but open to suggestions as always as would like to keep noise, heat and power consumption to a minimum without impacting too much on performance which is always a compromise.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Ironwolfs are total garbage. I’ll never use them again. Get the seagate exos

 

[BrianBaughn]

The downside, which I don't think anyone mentioned, is having multiple devices backed up on one drive.

I don't think it would stop me, either, but I thought I'd mention it.

 

[GlynH]

Ironwolfs are total garbage. I’ll never use them again. Get the seagate exos

Well I remember when Seagate drives were referred to as Seacrate but I know they've come a long way. I used Barracuda 50-pin SCSI drives back in the early 90's but seem to have settled on Western Digital in recent years.

For some reason the 16TB Exos can be had on a Christmas deal for £262-285 although showing out of stock at many suppliers. I'm not surprised at that price!

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[GlynH]

The downside, which I don't think anyone mentioned, is having multiple devices backed up on one drive.

I don't think it would stop me, either, but I thought I'd mention it.

Yeah there's always a counter-argument. On the other hand the more drives the more points of failure but I am comfortable with one dedicated HDD for backup so on balance it's not going to stop me either!

I can always mirror/selective copy from that to another device/service if needed.

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[mattspace]

Could some kind soul also recommend a suitable, reliable drive to use as the destination disk in the Mac Pro please?

Guessing I could sacrifice speed for reliability in the choice of HDD but it would still feel wrong sticking something like a WD Red in a 3.46GHz 12-Core aluminium monster stuffed with NVMe M.2 system drive and a trio of Samsung EVO SSD’s

I have two Red Pros an original Red (Pre SMR Reds) and a Red Pro in my machine - one for time machine, the other for my photo library respectively, which is also backed up with time machine. I have another Red Pro A Red Plus in an external case plugged into a USB hub as a second Time Machine drive. All work superbly.

As a thought, have you investigated plugging a HFS+ Time Machine external drive into the Synology, and then sharing that over AFP(?) to your network for the backups? I had the impression the Synology time machine issue was more due to Time Machine having issues with Synology virtual disks (though I may be wrong).

If you want to duplicate a TM drive and keep all your backup history, just be aware that SuperDuper! is the only app that can do it properly, though it's a days, to weeks-long process depending on the backup size.

 

[GlynH]

As a thought, have you investigated plugging a HFS+ Time Machine external drive into the Synology, and then sharing that over AFP(?) to your network for the backups? I had the impression the Synology time machine issue was more due to Time Machine having issues with Synology virtual disks (though I may be wrong).

Well I just took a look at my Support tickets and see that I had issues in 2015 and 2019 with Time Machine on the Synology where I lost 3 Macs worth of backups and the last support exchange with Synology ended with the classic, and I quote;

"Regardless of this however, the issue remains with Time Machine, so the points outlined in my email remain the same - we would advise speaking to Apple in regards to the issue that you are having with Time Machine as from our point of view, there is zero that we can assist with."

So I took it up with Apple and after they couldn't resolve the issue either the conversation ended along the lines of; "We are unable to support 3rd Party Time Machine hardware & software...only genuine Apple solutions." so I was left between a rock and a hard place.

At the time I remember reading articles stating that Time Machine can be fussy when it comes to non-Apple hardware so figured the cMP should now overcome that particular gotcha if I press it into service.

Attaching external drives to the Synology is not something I want to do again as the whole idea of a RackStation with 4 drive bays was to prevent hanging drives out the back!

I did have a LaCie d2 Quadra eSATA plugged in at one time dedicated to Time Machine but it just looked ugly perched on top of the equipment rack instead of in it and the Seagate 4TB HDD inside gave up the ghost with another collection of sparse bundles on it. Actually I lost another Seagate 4TB HDD in either another LaCie enclosure plugged into my iMac around the same time which was why I went over to Western Digital and haven't lost a drive since. Famous last words now that I've opened my mouth...

I'm pretty much set on my course of action taking comfort from this thread that I'm not alone so thanks everyone for your valued input. ?

I'll try and jump back in to post an update when I am confident all is working as it should.

Something that just occurred to me though - should I format the HDD as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journalled) for use as a Time Machine destination drive? I am running High Sierra and I remember reading in its early days that APFS was intended for SSD and HFS+ for HDD and especially Time Machine.

Wondering whether during the lifetime of High Sierra this might have changed and/or advice updated?

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[KeesMacPro]

+1 for the WD drives.
I've been using WD drives for almost 2 decades without any issue whatsoever.
Especially the WD RED Pro are known as very reliable , I use them for backups.

I (still) format all spinners as HFS+.

 

[skodises]

It has been my experience that Time Machine and APFS spinner destination drives do not mix. I have seen articles from Apple that say that APFS is fine as a TM target volume. I also have seen posts from non-Apple sources that confirm my experience with backups simply never completing for some machines (but not others) when the target is an APFS volume. This is one thing that Apple arguably got wrong, unless they've finally chosen to officially document this erratum somewhere (probably on page 15, fourth column, down by the comic strips...).

Your mileage may vary, of course, but I personally would stay with HFS+ for TM target purposes. Who needs that pain?

 

[GlynH]

Thanks again for the replies guys. Seems like HFS+ will be the format for the HDD then! ?

And just when I think I have all of the answers I am now wondering if there is any particular Drive Slot that would favour this spinner in this particular role? Guessing not in this day & age but thought I'd better ask those who know about such things.

Planned configuration including PCIe Slots for a sanity check is;

NVIDIA Quadro NVS 510 in PCIe Slot 1
PCIe Slot 2 Empty for now in case I discover a x16 card I can't live without!
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB (System Boot) in either Kryo M.2 EVO or Sabrent adaptor in PCIe Slot 3 or 4?
Possibility of 4-port USB 3 card in PCIe Slot 3 or 4?
Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD (Data) in Drive Slot 1?
Seagate EXOS 16TB HDD (Time Machine) in Drive Slot <where exactly>?

Also hoping the EXOS bolt pattern will fit the cMP drive sleds as I have read some later drives have a different hole pattern?

My OCD is telling me that the 870 EVO SSD should live in Drive Slot 1, leave the next two slots free for more SSD's in future and put the spinner in Drive Slot 4 but not sure if any of the slots have a priority like back in the Dark Ages of Computing? As above I'm guessing not but will ask if this is the optimum configuration for what I am trying to achieve?

Thanks in advance.
-=Glyn=-

 

[Soba]

Also hoping the EXOS bolt pattern will fit the cMP drive sleds as I have read some later drives have a different hole pattern?

Unless the Exos is some kind of unicorn drive, it won't fit. I've never seen a 6TB+ drive with the old hole pattern. You will need a new drive sled, but these are not expensive and are available from a handful of different sources. I bought a couple of these for my 5,1 and I've been very happy with them:

OWC Hard Drive Tray / Sled / Bracket for Mac Pro (2009, 2010-2012)

OWC Hard Drive Tray / Sled for Mac Pro (2009, 2010-2012), compatible with all 3.5-inch drives, including 6TB-18TB drives with new (2014+) screw mount standard.

eshop.macsales.com

I don't recommend trying to jury-rig something. A $25 tray is a minimal investment to make sure you don't wreck your Mac or your data!

 

[GlynH]

Ah I wasn’t aware of that. I’ve fitted hundreds of drives over the years but thinking about it the largest would have been a bunch of 4TB HDD’s in my Synology NAS.

Should arrive later today along with a couple of those blue OWC Mount Pro sleds.

Thanks for the heads-up Soba ?

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[GlynH]

Well it seems like my decision for where to mount devices and in which order has pretty much been made for me.

Opening up the cMP I can see PCIe Slot 3 has a Sonnet USB 3.0 card in it and the EVO 970 is mounted in its adaptor card in Slot 4 above it.

Consequently although there is enough space to mount the EXOS in Drive Slot 4 that would leave little to no clearance between it and the EVO and cooling would be severely impacted as it is or prevent relocating the SSD in the KryoM.2 EVO or Sabrent adapters altogether.

So layout is as follows;

Seagate EXOS 16TB HDD in OWC Drive Sled in Drive Slot 1 at the front of the computer
Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD in sexy blue OWC Mount Pro Drive Slot 2
Samsung 850 EVO 500TB SSD in another OWC Mount Pro Drive Slot 3 (just because I have one laying around)
Drive Slot 4 empty for now
PCI-e Slot 1 NVIDIA Quadro NVS510 (single height so plenty of room around it for airflow - even more so as x16 PCI-E Slot 2 directly above it is currently empty)
Sonnet USB 3.0 in PCI-e Slot 3
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB in PCI-e Slot 4

Looking forward to letting the cMP exercise its Dual 3.46GHz Xeons and 96GB of Registered ECC RAM after all these years.

-=Glyn=-

 

[GlynH]

Something that has just occurred to me after reading some articles online regarding using a Mac Pro as a Time Machine destination is they mention downloading & installing the Server App.

Bering in mind the age of some of these articles is this still required today and if so is it safe to purchase & install the current Server app from the App Store on a 5,1 on older hardware running High Sierra?

My plan is to back up my other Macs to the cMP using a big internal spinner named Time Machine and formatting it to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) where each Mac has their own folder containing just their own backup and not granting access to anything else similar to the setup on my Synology.

To this end would I setup each Mac as a new User set to Sharing Only?

These Users would be named after each other Mac such as iMac, MacBook Air etc and then I would create a new Group called Time Machine and add these users in.

Hopefully this would limit access to just their own Time Machine folder named after themselves on the Time Machine HDD?

Am I on the right track or am I overthinking things as usual and are there any other steps I need to take on the cMP before setting up Time Machine on the other Macs choosing the cMP Time Machine HDD as the destination?

I did try a dummy run but Time Machine on the Macs could not connect to the Time Machine on the cMP which is why I am asking for advice here...

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[skodises]

HS is the last generation of MacOS that had a functional Server package, IMNSHO. So yes, if you are staying with HS, it is worth it. By the time you get to Catalina, Server is worth essentially nothing- it isn’t even much use as a log file viewer Any more. It still helps with certificate management to an extent, but much of the other functionality is long gone.

Apple moved the Time Machine server functionality into the Sharing preferences for these post-HS later versions, so you simply designate a volume as “used for backups” when setting it as shared, and the machine will advertise it via Bonjour and it will automagically show up for your other machines as a possible Time Machine destination- at least if I recall correctly. Any errors in this post are due to my abject lack of short-term memory…

 

[GlynH]

Ahh thanks for the reply skodises.

I noticed when I went through the Time Machine setup procedure on the cMP that I was able to right-click the Time Machine shared folder entry in Share and check Time Machine backup destination which my other Macs could then automagically see so maybe this particular Server feature made it to HS as well?

Despite the fact that my other Macs can see the destination none of them are able to connect despite my entering their username & password when prompted to connect.

Ah well more research & work needed I guess...

Thanks & kind regards,
-=Glyn=-

 

[skodises]

Could be, honestly. When I was still running HS, I always used Server, so I can’t say that I ever tried to set it up without it… just make sure that the destination volume is HFS+, and it ought to work.

Before I read about that, I just used the ”Go to server” item in Finder on the client machine to connect, but had to manually reconnect each time after reboots on either end…

 

[HDFan]

Ironwolfs are total garbage. I’ll never use them again. Get the seagate exos

I have had no problems with my Ironwolf Pros 16 TB drives, other than DOAs. Backblaze latest report on disk reliability:

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2021

By September 30, 2021, Backblaze was managing a whopping 194,749 drives. Here’s a deeper look into the SSD and HDD drive stats for Q3 2021 at Backblaze.

www.backblaze.com

Note that they have used consumer drives as their data indicated enterprise drives weren't worth the extra expense.

A Look at How Backblaze Buys Petabytes of Hard Drive Storage

Backblaze currenlty uses 117,658 hard drives in our data centers, which means we've learned a thing or two about purchasing petabytes-worth of storage.

www.backblaze.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I have had no problems with my Ironwolf Pros 16 TB drives, other than DOAs. Backblaze latest report on disk reliability:

Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2021

By September 30, 2021, Backblaze was managing a whopping 194,749 drives. Here’s a deeper look into the SSD and HDD drive stats for Q3 2021 at Backblaze.

www.backblaze.com

Note that they have used consumer drives as their data indicated enterprise drives weren't worth the extra expense.

A Look at How Backblaze Buys Petabytes of Hard Drive Storage

Backblaze currenlty uses 117,658 hard drives in our data centers, which means we've learned a thing or two about purchasing petabytes-worth of storage.

www.backblaze.com

Glad you havent had a problem. I have. And several of my friends have. IronWolf is dead to me. That said, we've all had way better success with the EXOS. Plus they are faster drives on top, as well as having longer warranty and MTF.

As always, YMMV.

 

[HDFan]

as well as having longer warranty

EXOS have more than a 5 year warranty?

But it is sort of irrelevant for me since QNAP has additional drive support features for Ironwolf drives.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

EXOS have more than a 5 year warranty?

But it is sort of irrelevant for me since QNAP has additional drive support features for Ironwolf drives.

Iron wolf has 3 year warranty, Exos 5. Iron wolf has MTBF of 1,000,000 and Exos is 2,500,000. Also, the Exos is faster 249MB/s vs 210 on Ironwolf.

https://www.seagate.com/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/ironwolf-14tb-DS1904-10-1807US-en_US.pdf

https://www.seagate.com/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/ent-cap-3-5-hdd-10tb-channelDS1863-5C-1608US-en_US.pdf

 

[HDFan]

From NAS compares:

Seagate 16TB Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro NAS Hard Drives Revealed

Seagate 16TB Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro NAS Drives Revealed - ST16000NE000 and ST16000VN001 Good news for those looking maximum storage in both small and large NAS drive enclosures, with the announcement that the Seagate Ironwolf NAS hard drive series is going to be available in a staggering 16 Tera

nascompares.com

The 5-year warranty on the ST16000NE000 16TB Ironwolf Pro NAS

Seagate's warranties are very difficult to find: "length of time indicated as part of your product packaging". The product packaging says the exact same thing. You have to look it up by serial number.

Checked the warranty on 1 of my IronWolf Pro disks and it is indeed 5 years. It also includes data rescue, which I suppose accounts for the higher price. These things tend to be disk specific so don't know about other Ironwolf Pro versions.