Time Machine Backups OTA?

Question

Level 1

43 points

Time Machine Backups OTA?

Is there a way to do time machine back ups over the air without me buying the apple router that apple no longer supports? Does apple have iCloud backups like time machine I don't know about?

I was trying to connect a hard drive to my TP link router but MacOS and time machine wasn't seeing the hard drive. Upon further inspection for Finder to see the drive I had to sign into the server every time which isn't convenient, nor do I want to do that every time I get home from school. Also time machine still wouldn't use that.

Does anyone have any DIY solutions or help for this?

Posted on Sep 18, 2019 3:34 PM

Reply

Answer 1

dot.com

Level 4

2,455 points

Sep 18, 2019 4:31 PM in response to MerkNN

Time Machine (the backup software on Mac system) can be rather fussy about what kind of drives it will work well with. A locally attached HFS+ formatted drive is best. Some NAS drives work and some have problems -- see https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac/best-nas-drives-mac-3674321/ for article about NAS and Time Machine.

The main thing to consider is you want reliable and dependable to be the most important things when doing Time Machine backups -- the last thing you want is to not be able to restore file(s) when you need them because the backup solution is being flaky.

A good Time Machine backup will save you from lots of problems, so get a good solution that is known to work well and stay away from the ones that have problems. These discussion forums are full of discussions about this topic.

The web page that babowa referred to by Pondini is one of the best Time Machine resources around -- the fella that wrote it has passed away, but I still consider him the best Time Machine explainer on the web.

Good luck...

Reply

Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,126 points

Sep 18, 2019 8:06 PM in response to MerkNN

You can backup up over WiFi to a drive connected to another Mac on the network, or using a NAS that supports Time Machine over SMB--I haven't heard of one that supports that specification.

Many claim they support Time Machine, but they don't.

Reply

Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,562 points

Sep 18, 2019 3:54 PM in response to MerkNN

Have a look at all of the stuff here (written by our TM "guru" some time ago, but still valid).

https://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/FAQ.html

and an article from Apple

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202784

Reply

Answer 4

MerkNN Author

Level 1

43 points

Sep 18, 2019 3:46 PM in response to babowa

I already do this but, I own a MacBook Pro with USB C I only wish to make the process easier I don't want to plug in my hard drive and Power source and back up and what is worse is sometimes it won't even back up. I was wondering if there is a way where once I walk into my house the back up happens as the drive is connected to my wifi router

Reply

Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,562 points

Sep 18, 2019 3:42 PM in response to MerkNN

How about a supported by Time Machine method - an external hard drive with USB or whatever ports you have?

Reply

Time Machine Backups OTA?

Similar questions