Can't get Time Machine to work with Nighthawk

I realize this thread is a year old, but I was having the same issues. I finally figured out how to enable this, and since I couldn't find anywhere else that explained it, I figured I would do it here since I found this thread when looking for answers myself. I know the OP already did some of this, but I'm going to make it a step by step guide.

If you don't care about why we have to do it this way, you can skip to section 1. But basically, Time Machine looks for mounted drives in OSX, which happens automatically with AFP. Some netgear routers support AFP, but many do not. Lots of them, the C7000 included, only support the SMB protocol, which cannot be "mounted" by OSX. So, we're going to give OSX a way to mount an image ON the external drive, which we're connected to with SMB.

1. SETTING UP THE DRIVE

** WARNING **

This will erase all content on the drive. If it's already Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and GUID Partition mapped, you may be able to skip this section.

a. Plug the external drive directly into the computer.

b. Launch "Disk Utilities" through spotlight or through Finder -> Applications -> Utilities.

c. You should see the external drive on the left side pane. It should have multi-levels, like you see in the OVAL in the screenshot attached. If it's only 1, click the "View" button (highlighted by the red ARROW in the screenshot attached) and select "Show All Devices"

d. Select the top level for the external drive, like in the OVAL in the screen shot attached, then click erase (SQUARE in the screen shot attached). Choose a name for your device, then select "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" for the format and "GUID Partition Map" for the Partition Map

e. Wait for that to finish. Depending on what's on the drive, this could be a few seconds, or take a little while.

f. DO NOT let Time Machine start backing up to this drive yet.

2. CREATING THE SPARSEBUNDLE

The sparsebundle is what OSX will mount and Time Machine will be able to back up to. A couple words of warning: This is going to take a looooong time. This step took roughly 12 hours for me on a 4TB drive.

a. First, figure out how much usable space you have that you want to devote to backups. This space will ONLY be available to backups, and can't be adjusted later. You have to have AT LEAST as much space available as your hard drive that you'll be backing up. I used 3.9TB and left 100GB free for file storage on my 4TB drive.

b. In Disk Utility, go File -> New Image -> Blank Image. Put "TimeMachine" or similar into the "Save as" and "Name". Click the down arrow all the way to the right of the "Where:" dropdown box - this will expand your selection - and choose your external drive. Put your size as what you determined in step 2A. GB = gigabytes, TB = terabytes. Format should be "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", Encryption = "None", Partitions = "Single Partition - GUID Partition Map", Image Format = "read/write disk image"

c. Click "Save" and then go about your business. It's going to take a long time.

3. TIME MACHINE SETUP

a. Now that that's completed, find and double click on the .dmg file it created on your external drive. You should see this "mount" on your sidebar in Finder.

b. Open Terminal, either through spotlight, or through Finder -> Applications -> Utilities.

c. Type in `sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/TimeMachine/` (without the ticks) and enter your password. **NOTE! If you named your image something other than "TimeMachine", you should enter that instead of "TimeMachine" like in this example.** That will tell Time Machine that even though it did not recognize the disk image as something it could write to, it definitely is.

d. Open up Time Machine preferences, and you should now see your "TimeMachine" (or whatever you called it) drive listed! Success! But don't let it go to your head. There's still more steps below.

e. While not explicitly needed, it's always faster to do your first backup while you're physically connected to the drive. So start your first backup now, if you like.

f. Once you're ready to attach your Time Machine disk to the router, click the "eject" button next to the external drive and the "Time Machine" disk image. Both should be on the sidebar in Finder.

4. ROUTER SETUP

a. Plug the USB drive into the router.

b. Log in to the router (Mine is http://192.168.0.1, but yours may be different), then click the "Advanced" tab, and click "Reboot" under the Cable Information box. In different versions of the software, the reboot button may be located somewhere else, but that's where it is in v1.03.01 on my C7000v2.

c. Once rebooted, you should see the drive listed in the "Basic" tab, under "ReadySHARE", in the "Available Network Folders"

5. MAC SETUP (aka RETURN OF THE MAC)

a. Open up Finder, then, from the menu bar, choose Go -> Connect to Server.

b. Enter in "smb://readyshare". (If you changed the name of your Network/Device Name, use that instead of readyshare)

c. You may need to login, but use your router username and password (ex. "admin" and whatever password you used to login to the router in step 4).

d. It may prompt you to select which drive to mount. You will probably see 2: Something like T_Drive and USB_Storage. I don't think it makes a difference, but select the T_Drive (or similar) and click "Ok"

e. You should now see your "readyshare" external drive on the sidebar in Finder. Click on that, then "T_Drive" (or similar), and you should see your "TimeMachine.dmg" or whatever you named it. Double click to mount.

f. Go into to Time Machine settings on your mac and it should already be selected, but you can click "Back up now" and it should start backing up to the external drive! You've done it!

g. The last step is setting up the Drive to automatically mount on startup. To do this, go to Apple Button -> System Preferences -> Users and Groups -> your user name. Click the "Login Items" tab, then the "+" button at the bottom of the pane. Choose your "TimeMachine" mount on the sidebar and click "Add". It should now have a Time Machine icon and say it's a "Volume". Sweet!

h. Weep softly

Hope that helps!