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Forum Discussion
Backing up Time Machine with rsync
Hi all
My first post on here, hopefully someone can help. I have browsed through other similar posts in the forum but don't see the answers i'm looking for.
I'll outline the situation:
I have four iMacs which I am wanting to back up to a single ReadyNAS using Time Machine.
I then want to back up this ReadyNAS to another ReadyNAS which will be stored offsite.
I want to do it this way so that the users have local access to their respective time machine backups if they want instant access to them and a duplicated backup of the time machine off site in case something happens to the on site one.
I have two main questions.
1. Can I have multiple machines backing up with time machine to one ReadyNAS.
2. Will the rsync backup to the offsite ReadyNAS only copy the time machine hard links or will it resolve the hard links and try and copy everything?
Thanks for reading, I hope i've made sense :?
My first post on here, hopefully someone can help. I have browsed through other similar posts in the forum but don't see the answers i'm looking for.
I'll outline the situation:
I have four iMacs which I am wanting to back up to a single ReadyNAS using Time Machine.
I then want to back up this ReadyNAS to another ReadyNAS which will be stored offsite.
I want to do it this way so that the users have local access to their respective time machine backups if they want instant access to them and a duplicated backup of the time machine off site in case something happens to the on site one.
I have two main questions.
1. Can I have multiple machines backing up with time machine to one ReadyNAS.
2. Will the rsync backup to the offsite ReadyNAS only copy the time machine hard links or will it resolve the hard links and try and copy everything?
Thanks for reading, I hope i've made sense :?
3 Replies
- 1) Yes.
2) The Rsync backup would copy your TM sparsebundles. Best to run this when TM backups are not being run from your Macs. There are 3rd party apps such as Time Machine Editor (http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/) you could install on your Mac and configure not to start TM backups overnight. This would give you a window to run your Rsync backup in. Of course it depends on how fast your internet connection is at each end on whether this will be viable.
Do you already have the ReadyNAS units?
Do you have a VPN? - Thanks for the quick answer.
The iMacs will be off overnight and this is when the offsite backup will run. The internet connection isn't very good so the intial backup would be done onsite and then transferred offsite. My only concern is that the rsync only copies the hard links and not the actual data every time - Rsync would copy the actual data but only changes to the data. It would compare the source and destination and copy the changes across. It would backup all you need it to.
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