Forcing Time Machine to Use a Network Drive

Update 18 December 2007:

I’ve discovered a better way to force Finder to browse the contents of a network drive. You can read more here.

By default, Time Machine will not allow you to back up to a network drive - even if you can get Leopard to recognise the drive.

However, there is a command that will allow you to use a network drive with Time Machine. Before running this command, mount your network drive. Open Terminal, and at the prompt type:


defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Open Time Machine Preferences, and you should now be able to view your network drive mounts.

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This entry was written by Paul, posted on Friday, 23rd November, 2007 at 12:15, filed under Apple, Mac, Mac OS X, Networking, Software, Technology and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
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7 Comments

  1. Larry UNITED STATES Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 3.0b2
    Posted Friday, 28th December, 2007 at 22:05 | Permalink

    Perfect!, why doesnt apple make the network drives avail?

  2. Tom BELGIUM Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.11
    Posted Saturday, 29th December, 2007 at 13:02 | Permalink

    works like a charme! A little slower than a Firewire 800 drive of course, only natural unless you have a Gigabyte ethernet network.

  3. paulmc IRELAND Windows XP Internet Explorer 7.0
    Posted Saturday, 29th December, 2007 at 16:20 | Permalink

    @ Larry:

    Apparently the Beta version of Leopard allowed backups to network drives using Time Machine, but for some reason this was removed in the final version. Seeing as it’s possible to re-enable this option, there is a possibility that Apple could make this feature available through an update at some point in the future.

    @ Tom:
    I’ve tried this on my MacBook over 802.11g and it can be very slow to backup. As you say Gigabit Ethernet would be perfect for using this method, but I find that used a wired network with my MacBook negates the whole mobility aspect of having a laptop. When I get the new iMac I’ve been promising myself, this will probably be one of the first things that I set up.

    Cheers,
    Paul.

  4. jm CANADA Mac OS X Safari 525.20.1
    Posted Friday, 14th November, 2008 at 20:28 | Permalink

    I saw this tip on an Apple discussions thread and a few people mentioned it was unreliable - data not making it to the remote backup drive.

    Anyone here run into reliability issues with this method?

  5. Paul IRELAND Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3
    Posted Saturday, 15th November, 2008 at 03:32 | Permalink

    I’ve actually given up on trying to use a network drive as a Time Machine backup. It just takes too long, and sometimes it fails to backup. I haven’t tried to restore from a Time Machine backup over my WLAN, but I wouldn’t be too confident about it.

    At the moment, I’m sticking with a standard USB drive - at least I know that works.

  6. John NETHERLANDS Mac OS X Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5
    Posted Friday, 26th December, 2008 at 11:20 | Permalink

    Hi
    I have a Time Capsule and trying to backup my networkdrive (that’s where my data is) to Time Capsule using Time Machine.It doesn’t work because Time Machine doesn’t see my networkdrive as a source.. Cany someone help me out?

  7. Paul IRELAND Windows XP Internet Explorer 7.0
    Posted Friday, 26th December, 2008 at 12:24 | Permalink

    Hi John,

    If your data is on a network drive, then I don’t think that Time Machine will be able to use it. Time Machine runs on your local computer, so it won’t catalog your remote drives. The only option that I can see is to copy your data to your Mac and then start the backup.

    Cheers,
    Paul.

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