How to setup ReadyNAS 314 to work with a Mac?

[Lu]

Hi

I just tried to setup my ReadyNAS 314 using the installation guide (ReadyNAS OS 6.2 Desktop storage Systems) that came with it. I have my ReadyNAS plugged in, power on and connected to my mac via ethernet. I then went to http://readycloud.netgear.com selected Setup new ReadyNAS and then hit Discover. And I get a message that No Devices Discovered. I then hit the backup button on my ReadyNAS and hold for 5 seconds and then hit the retry button on the webpage. I still get No Devices Discovered. I then try the link to download RAIDar and install it on my Mac. When I open it, it tells me that all my hard drives are healthy and nothing else. What was the point of that?

How do I back up to my ReadyNAS? How do I see the files that have been backed up? Is there an instruction manual that I can download that will tell me this information? I'm confused as to how this system works. Can I back up more than one computer to my ReadyNAS? How do I do that?

And when the LED on the ReadyNAS says Resync Data, what is it doing?

Thanks in advance.

Lu

[mdgm-ntgr]

In RAIDar you should see an Admin Page button, click on that and login using the default username and password: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23012/~/what-are-the-factory-default-settings-for-my-r...

You should be prompted to update the firmware if the firmware is not up to date.

Under Backup > Time Machine in the web admin interface you can configure the Time Machine service.

Yes you can backup more than one Mac. You can either use the Shared Time Machine for all Macs or add users under Accounts and configure a Private Time Machine for each user under Backup > Time Machine > Private Time Machine.

The disks have to be synced sector by sector to setup the RAID. This will take some hours. I would wait till this completes before updating the firmware.

[Lu]

Thanks for your reply. I was able to login to the admin page.

What's the difference between Private and Shared Time Machine? How much space should I allocate for a 1TB hard drive I would like to back up?

Can I just copy over files that I would like to back up as well? How do I do that?

How do you set up the backup button? Is this different from using the TimeMachine?

Does the TimeMachine write over old backups? I would rather that it didn't.

[mdgm-ntgr]

Private Time Machine is useful if you have multiple Macs and want to set a separate quota for each one.

Whereas with Shared Time Machine you set a quota of e.g. 2TB and that is a quota for one Mac individually, but also the collective quota for all the Macs backing up to the Shared Time Machine.

You should set a quota that is higher than the amount of data you are backing up. So if you are using e.g. 500GB on your hard drive then you would want a much higher quota than that or else you won't get much in the way of backup history.

The backup button can be configured to run backup jobs that you create on the NAS itself.

You can copy over files manually or run 3rd party software on your Mac that can backup to a network drive.