Making Time Machine work with the ReadyNAS

wildeep wrote:

Hoping someone can provide some advice as to why i cannot get Time Machine to backup to my ReadyNAS NV+ I have followed all the instructions exactly but when TM begins backup i get the error that the "the backup volume could not be mounted" i have a .sparsebundle file in an AFP share called 'TMBackup' directory on the readynas. My spare bundle is called 'macpro_0017f20101dc.sparsebundle' which matches my host name and ethernet ID. any ideas please?

What happens if you manually mount the share, then start the backup?

If i mount the share, oddly i get the same error.

If i browse the backup directory on my NAS where the sparsebundle is saved the .sparsebundle which was originally a single file like a .dmg when saved on local machine is now a directory on the NAS and contains a directory called 'bands' and 3 other files 'Info.bckup', 'Info.plist' and 'token'

is this normal?

I only see the sparsebundle file, which has a disk image icon. There is also another file called ".<my_ethernet>" where <my_ethernet> is the same address I used in the sparsebundle.

What version of RAIDiator are you using? Are you using CIFS or AFP to mount the share?

Thanks for helping.

i am using RAIDiator 4.01c1-p1 [1.00a041] and the drive is mounted using AFP

Weird. It sounds like you might have mounted the sparsebundle on your machine and you're seeing inside it. When you say "a directory on the NAS", do you see the directory on the share volume that is mounted on your Mac?

I'd try removing the sparsebundle (or directory) from the share, unmounting the share, creating a new sparsebundle, remounting the share, copying it over, and then seeing if you can start a backup.

wildeep wrote:
Thanks for helping. i am using RAIDiator 4.01c1-p1 [1.00a041] and the drive is mounted using AFP

I seem to recall p1 had a slot of signficiant issues. Please entertain the notion of going to 4.01c1-p2. (heck p3 is already well into beta)

jarrah wrote:
btaroli wrote: Actually, I'd be more curious if Apple addressed the issue that originally resulted in TM's inability to create the sparsebundle directly on the NAS No. The sparsebundle gets created (I can see it on the share), but the backup still fails with "The backup disk image could not be created."

Silly Apple. :( :nashammer:

I can positively report that 10.5.3 does not break my TM backups though. Not so much as a burp since.

OK, have just tried again. I created a new sparsebundle in the terminal on local machine and its a single file like a dmg, when i copy to my backup share on the NAS it stays as a single file until i select it as my time machine disk, when it then changes to a directory and i can see the previously mentioned file in. It only shows like this when mounted through AFP, when mounted through SMB it looks like a dmg again!. I have mounted the same share through SMB and AFP

I have just done some more testing and actually have it backing up now. but... this only works when i have the CIFS service turned on, previously i only had the AFP service on. Doing some more testing, when turning CIFS off the backup fails again with the error that the disk cannot be mounted. Strange!

Anyone else have it all working with only the AFP service on?

btaroli wrote:
wildeep wrote: Thanks for helping. i am using RAIDiator 4.01c1-p1 [1.00a041] and the drive is mounted using AFP I seem to recall p1 had a slot of signficiant issues. Please entertain the notion of going to 4.01c1-p2. (heck p3 is already well into beta)

There isn't a 4.01c1-p2. There was a 4.00c1-p2 which is what your link points to. The next release is 4.01c1-p3. See this thread

wildeep wrote:
Anyone else have it all working with only the AFP service on?

Yes, I only have AFP enabled on my shares. This looks like a Finder preference thing. I wouldn't worry about it.