Multiple Macs with Time Machine


Recommended Posts

I already have an iMac and I got myself a MacBook the other day. I was wondering what would be the best way of going about backing both up with Time Machine. Preferably onto the one drive. I do have an AirPort Extreme so I could plug the drive into that. But what is backing up over the network like?

And to save creating another thread :p One iTunes library accessible by all machine. I was thinking a HDD connected to the AirPort. Any other ideas?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plugging a Time Machine HDD into an AirPort Extreme is basically a Time Capsule. From what I've read, wireless backup is fairly slow, but works just as well as a local HDD with Time Machine installed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Baking up over the network is very very slow, but it works just fine.

Now for the iTunes question, Trying to have more than one system directly access the library is not a good idea,

it can lead inaccurate data and corruption of the library file itself.

I suggest simply sharing your library over your network, there are 2 ways to do this with iTunes

First way

Using your iMac as the system hosting the library

20100124-xqwcnkn8rx786gkktj9sg65pw4.png

The second is to your Home Sharing which is the same except you can download file from the iMac library to the macbook library if you want

Home Sharing With iTunes Home Sharing Info and Here is some Info on Music sharing with Airport

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind slow backups. The initial backup would be done locally. As for iTunes I wouldn't have more than one Mac accessing it at a time, so would that eliminate the issue of conflicts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind slow backups. The initial backup would be done locally. As for iTunes I wouldn't have more than one Mac accessing it at a time, so would that eliminate the issue of conflicts?

I Have tried it before and it always screwed up my song ratings and play counts

With network share and Home share there is really no reason to do it that way

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mind slow backups. The initial backup would be done locally.

You have to be careful about the local backup. When you use Time Machine with network attached storage, it creates HFS+ disk image files with an extended attribute that has the MAC address of your system. I thought I was being tricky by doing my first backup locally. Then I connected the drive to my Mac Mini Server and my Mac started a whole new backup.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.