# Time Machine question



## palex71 (Mar 2, 2010)

Hello,
I have the following two machines:

1) MacBook Pro Lion OS X 10.7.3
2) Quicksilver G4 Tiger OS X 10.4.11

I am interested in backing up files from the MacBook to the G4. Is this possible to do using Time Machine? When I try to set it up, there doesn't seem to be an option for selecting another local machine via Airport.

Thanks very much!


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

No this isn't going to work using Time Machine.

Check out Carbon Copy Cloner ( http://www.bombich.com/ )
It has the ability to do network backups to another machine.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

You _can_ do it, if you can connect the two via firewire... You could boot the G4 in TDM (start it up holding 'T' key) and it will just show in Finder on the MBP as an external drive. You may need to set up a new partition to use as the TimeMachine drive, but it should work.

Danny


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

allnodcoms said:


> You _can_ do it, if you can connect the two via firewire...


I thought of that but he said using Airport so I left it alone.



allnodcoms said:


> You may need to set up a new partition to use as the TimeMachine drive, but it should work.


I don't think you need to dedicate the partition and it can be made to work with any network share, but I'm not confident in recommending it. From the material I read it doesn't seem perfect and people have had issues with the sparse image doing that method. When it comes to backup, needs to be reliable.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

Yeah, I saw the Airport thing but it's the only way to connect the two for back-ups, so I thought I'd mention it.

I said about the partition as Time machine (AFAIK) won't back up to a directory, so creating a new partition, or better still installing a dedicated drive, would basically set the G4 box up as a server. I agree it's not the ideal situation, and doesn't answer the OP, but it is a workaround...

Danny


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

allnodcoms said:


> I agree it's not the ideal situation, and doesn't answer the OP, but it is a workaround...


Like you mentioned, without a second hard drive this would be a terribly inefficient method.
The G4 would be nothing more than a high wattage HD. If that's all that it would be used for, much better and faster option to just remove the HD and get an external case to attach directly to the MBP.


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## allnodcoms (Jun 30, 2007)

Danny


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## mister2 (Apr 28, 2012)

I find myself trying to back up several copies of important work files across multiple devices. 

There are 2 ways that I use that work well for me.


1. I spent the money to get a 50 GB account with dropbox. All my devices are linked to dropbox and when I make a change on one device and save that file to the dropbox folder on that local device it synchronizes with all my other devices.

2. Like headrush had mentioned previously, 2 TB and larger external drives are relatively inexpensive. I bought a file synchronization program called good sync and I have several profile set up to make synchronized or mirrored copies of my important folders.

My main Wi-Fi router is an Apple AirPort Extreme with the Time Machine feature built into it. 
I haven't really looked into if it is possible to have multiple time machine backups on the same time machine device. 
I have it dedicated to my main iMac.

I have a portable external drive that I have partitioned so that my MBP can run Time Machine to it.


What's really fun, is to use true crypt as a file container inside dropbox so that you are synchronizing an encrypted file between all of your dropbox connected devices. This increases your level of security if you are concerned about having your information stored/synchronized via the cloud.


Like was said before, I have found that trying to use a network for backup or synchronization purposes can be a long and slow process. Best of luck in whatever you accomplish and I look forward to reading about your success in the near future.


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## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

mister2,

Yes the Airport Extreme can host multiple machines using Time Machine on it.

I can't imagine using Dropbox for full backups. I find upload speeds to Dropbox are brutally slow.
(My upload speed is 1Mbps which I think is average for most people)


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## mister2 (Apr 28, 2012)

Actually, dropbox is not too bad. The first time that I actually placed a large amount of information into my local dropbox folder, it took a long time to upload and then sync across all my devices. I think it took all night because when I checked in the morning everything was synchronized.

Once I have a baseline of files that I use in dropbox, they sync very fast. I typically only create or change a small handful of files in a day, and since I am working on the file as it exists in my local dropbox folder, the second that I save it or close it it starts to synchronize across my devices. So by the time I wish to view that file on another device, it has typically been updated and is current to where I left it on the previous device.


You're right however, is entirely dependent on bandwidth. At my home I have a package from xfinity and I typically get over 25 Mbs download and over 15 Mbs upload. When I'm on the road, some of these hotels are pretty bad. I find that tethering to my iPhone gives me about 8 times the speed as some of these hotels do.

v/r

Mike


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## mister2 (Apr 28, 2012)

PS

I often use Dragon NaturallySpeaking when I am posting to forums. If I get in a hurry and don't proofread what I write, sometimes you may read things that might not make sense. I just wanted to make sure that it's out there for everyone to know that I am not on drugs or drinking too much if a bunch of crazy words appear in some of my posts. 

I just thought of a new post topic.


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