Use Your Network Attached Storage in Time Machine

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timemachineIf you already have a NAS and it’s not one of Apple’s fancy new Time Capsules, you can still use it to backup your Mac using the Time Machine app in OS X Leopard. Here’s how:

  1. Open Disk Utility. Click on “New Image” and then name your image. Set the type to “sparse bundle” and set the size of the disk image so that it’s big enough to hold your data but not bigger than the space you have available on your NAS. This is going to need to be considerably bigger than your hard drive, as it will need some overhead space to perform operations and update as your files change.
  2. Name your disk image like this ComputerName_MacAddressForWiredEthernetAdapter. If your computer name is “mickeymouse” and your Mac Address is 01-01-AB-BC-DE-42, your disk image should be named mickeymouse_0101ABBCDE42.sparsebundle
  3. Create the disk image somewhere you can easily find it, like the Desktop. Mine was a few hundred megabytes when it was created.
  4. Copy this file to your network share. I’d recommend creating a new share on your NAS that’s separated off from other shares just to keep things tidy.
  5. Run this command from the command line in Terminal: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
  6. Go to Time Machine preferences and select your share that you copied your sparsebundle file to earlier. Make sure Time Machine is on and it should ask you for your credentials to login to your share. Put those in and make sure it saves your credentials in your keychain, and you should be ready to go. If you can’t wait 119 seconds, click on the Time Machine icon up in the top menu bar, and choose “Backup Now.”
  7. Enjoy smooth file backups with Apple’s Time Machine without buying a Time Capsule!

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