Making Time Machine work with the ReadyNAS

I should have remembered that there's only USB on the MBA. I expect that a restore of the MBA's hard drive is possible from TimeMachine.

Perhaps you could copy your sparsebundle to a USB drive, boot from the DVD with the USB drive connected and see if it allows you to do a restore.

Also, for my edification, in what version of the ReadyNAS OS did Time Machine support begin. I didn't think it was available yet?

Thank you.

sirozha wrote:

Now that the Time Machine backup to the ReadyNAS is no longer a hack but a supported feature, are there any instructions on how to restore after a hard drive crash? I am not talking about restoring a particlular file from the Time Machine backup but rather restoring the entire Time Machine backup to either a clean hard drive or to a clean OS X install? There has been a lot of effort made by this community as well as by Netgear to get the Time Machine backup feature working with the ReadyNAS. However, all those efforts are not worth much if the full restore from Time Machine is not possible. If it is possible, can the instructions be posted? Also, is it possible to restore the Time Machine backup to a different Mac? For instance, if I replace my Macbook Air (Rev A) with Macbook Air (Rev B), can I restore my Time Machine backup to the new Macbook Air?

It should work exactly like a Time Capsule. If the Mac is connected to the network by Ethernet or AirPort, the ReadyNas Time Capsule share should be listed as a restore option when you boot with the OS X 10.5 installation DVD.

I just updated both the RAIDar and RAIDiator on my NAV+ and time machine was up and running within 30 min. I used the Beta 4.1.5 firmware load..

This is a big Deal for us MAC users.. Now three machines are time machining to ReadyNAS.. Awesome!

We need to take out our Leopard Disk and try to see if Leopard sees the Ready NAS disk and file

Blues wrote:

I should have remembered that there's only USB on the MBA. I expect that a restore of the MBA's hard drive is possible from TimeMachine. Perhaps you could copy your sparsebundle to a USB drive, boot from the DVD with the USB drive connected and see if it allows you to do a restore. Also, for my edification, in what version of the ReadyNAS OS did Time Machine support begin. I didn't think it was available yet? Thank you.

The recent betas have this feature, and the recently released 4.2.3 final for ReadyNAS Pro should have it too. I have not yet installed firmware that have the official support. You probably know that there has been a hack for over a year that allows you to do TM backups to a ReadyNAS. I am not sure if anyone has attempted a restore with a hacked TM backup. However, this is now a moot point since the official support for TM has come to the recent betas and now to the final for the ReadyNAS Pro.

I would still like Netgear to respond to this. You guys probably realize without me saying it that your ReadyNAS beats Time Capsule hands down. As an Apple investor I am saddened by that, but as a ReadyNAS aficionado for 3 1/2 years now, I am very happy for the ReadyNAS. The TM backup as an officially supported feature is a huge plus for ReadyNAS products, and this should really drive your sales up with Mac users. However, as I have mentioned before, we need to know that the TM restores are reliable enough so that we can lose the constant worry of how we are going to restore our Macs if they crash. So, do you guys think you can spend a couple days in your lab to test out TM restores, and then published instructions on how to do this? Not many people want to sacrifice their Mac to try TM restores at home before the hard drive actually crashes. However, if Netgear tests this out in the lab and publishes official instructions, I will tend to believe that in case of the catastrophic failure of my HD, my TM backups will save me.

Thanks!

sirozha wrote:

I would still like Netgear to respond to this. You guys probably realize without me saying it that your ReadyNAS beats Time Capsule hands down. As an Apple investor I am saddened by that, but as a ReadyNAS aficionado for 3 1/2 years now, I am very happy for the ReadyNAS. The TM backup as an officially supported feature is a huge plus for ReadyNAS products, and this should really drive your sales up with Mac users. However, as I have mentioned before, we need to know that the TM restores are reliable enough so that we can lose the constant worry of how we are going to restore our Macs if they crash. So, do you guys think you can spend a couple days in your lab to test out TM restores, and then published instructions on how to do this? Not many people want to sacrifice their Mac to try TM restores at home before the hard drive actually crashes. However, if Netgear tests this out in the lab and publishes official instructions, I will tend to believe that in case of the catastrophic failure of my HD, my TM backups will save me.

So, I had the drive on an iMac fail yesterday and I can report that the ReadyNAS Time Machine backup looks just like a Time Capsule backup to a new Mac.

I replaced the drive on the iMac, booted using a Leopard OS DVD and after Leopard installed, it gave me the normal restore from backup options. I selected Time Capsule and the ReadyNAS appeared in the resulting list. Selected the NAS and entered the username "ReadyNAS" and password and it continued as normal.

Along the same lines ... Apple doesn't officially support writing Time Machine backups to any network device other than a Time Capsule. The explanation that's made the rounds as to why a USB disk attached to an Airport Extreme - nominally the equivalent of a Time Capsule - isn't supported is that only the Time Capsule supports some kind of ack - presumably a "the data you wrote is actually on the disk" - that is needed to ensure the backup is actually usable in the event of a failure. As best I can tell, this is done using an undocumented extension to AFP implemented only by Time Capsule (and maybe by Mac OS Server? I don't recall if Time Machine backups to disks exported by Server are supported).

Has anyone at Netgear looked into what's actually going on here to ensure that Time Machine backups are not damaged in the event of a failure - e.g., a crash or just plain network disconnect while Time Machine is running?

I've been using my NV+ to do Time Machine backups for a while now. I figure that even if this feature isn't there, it's still a hell of a lot better than not doing backups! But it would be nice to get any extra assurance....

Jerry Leichter wrote:
As best I can tell, this is done using an undocumented extension to AFP implemented only by Time Capsule (and maybe by Mac OS Server? I don't recall if Time Machine backups to disks exported by Server are supported).

AFP v3.2 adds a FPSYNCDIR call. For lack of an easier way to describe it, this command flushes any writes to a directory to disk, ensuring that what the AFP client thinks is written is actually written (and not cached.)

This has been reverse engineered and available as a patch to the normal "netatalk" open source package (though finding the patch is annoying.)

There are a couple of other things needed to properly advertise an AFP share usable for time machine, such as specific TXT records in the bonjour/avahi responder... All the information is findable via google - though you might have to go through several pages of google results to find it...

bollar wrote:

sirozha wrote: I would still like Netgear to respond to this. You guys probably realize without me saying it that your ReadyNAS beats Time Capsule hands down. As an Apple investor I am saddened by that, but as a ReadyNAS aficionado for 3 1/2 years now, I am very happy for the ReadyNAS. The TM backup as an officially supported feature is a huge plus for ReadyNAS products, and this should really drive your sales up with Mac users. However, as I have mentioned before, we need to know that the TM restores are reliable enough so that we can lose the constant worry of how we are going to restore our Macs if they crash. So, do you guys think you can spend a couple days in your lab to test out TM restores, and then published instructions on how to do this? Not many people want to sacrifice their Mac to try TM restores at home before the hard drive actually crashes. However, if Netgear tests this out in the lab and publishes official instructions, I will tend to believe that in case of the catastrophic failure of my HD, my TM backups will save me. So, I had the drive on an iMac fail yesterday and I can report that the ReadyNAS Time Machine backup looks just like a Time Capsule backup to a new Mac. I replaced the drive on the iMac, booted using a Leopard OS DVD and after Leopard installed, it gave me the normal restore from backup options. I selected Time Capsule and the ReadyNAS appeared in the resulting list. Selected the NAS and entered the username "ReadyNAS" and password and it continued as normal.

This is good stuff! Were you running the firmware on the ReadyNAS that had the official support for Time Machine backups? I figured so because you said that you had to supply the username ReadyNAS when you were restoring.

I have never installed Mac OS X from scratch - I have only had Macs for a year, and I am way to busy at work to mess with my Macs' OS at this time. However, I am about to buy a new Macbook Air for my wife, and I may just install the OS on the new one from scratch when I buy it and then I want to try to restore the backup of her current Macbook Air to the new one.

My questions:
Is it possible to restore the backup made on one system to another system?
Is there any good paper on how Time Machine backups work with Time Capsule?
You mentioned that you had to first install the OS before you were able to restore your Time Machine backup from the ReadyNAS. Is there an option to restore the entire computer, including the OS, when you install a brand new hard drive, or do you HAVE to first install the OS?
Once you installed the OS, how did you get to the "restore from backup" options? Is this a wizard that the installation of Mac OS runs automatically, or do you have to do something to launch it?

In other words, since you seem to be the only one here who has recently restored from a Time Machine backup hosted on a ReadyNAS, do you mind writing up the sequence of steps in as much detail as possible?

Thank you very much!

sirozha wrote:

This is good stuff! Were you running the firmware on the ReadyNAS that had the official support for Time Machine backups? I figured so because you said that you had to supply the username ReadyNAS when you were restoring. I have never installed Mac OS X from scratch - I have only had Macs for a year, and I am way to busy at work to mess with my Macs' OS at this time. However, I am about to buy a new Macbook Air for my wife, and I may just install the OS on the new one from scratch when I buy it and then I want to try to restore the backup of her current Macbook Air to the new one. My questions: Is it possible to restore the backup made on one system to another system? Is there any good paper on how Time Machine backups work with Time Capsule? You mentioned that you had to first install the OS before you were able to restore your Time Machine backup from the ReadyNAS. Is there an option to restore the entire computer, including the OS, when you install a brand new hard drive, or do you HAVE to first install the OS? Once you installed the OS, how did you get to the "restore from backup" options? Is this a wizard that the installation of Mac OS runs automatically, or do you have to do something to launch it? In other words, since you seem to be the only one here who has recently restored from a Time Machine backup hosted on a ReadyNAS, do you mind writing up the sequence of steps in as much detail as possible? Thank you very much!

Yes, I am using 4.2.3 for the Pro, which is the current version with Time Machine support. I would look at the following KB article from Apple, which describes how to do lots of Time Capsule restores. Just do a global search on "Time Capsule" and replace with "ReadyNAS". Seriously!

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1177