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Can't get Time Machine to work with Nighthawk
Mac OS Mojave 10.14.3
Nighthawk(R) X4S R7800
Router Firmware Version V1.0.2.62 (just updated)
I bought a new 1TB Seagate SSD external HD. I formatted it according to the instructions low...
Having seen other posts with the latest firmware being a problem, I downgraded to firmware V1.0.5.2. When I open a Finder window and scroll down to the list of "Locations" on the left side of the window, click on the the router name which is R9000 and then click on the "T_Drive" and "USB_Storage", they both open up, and I am able to copy files to/from them. I ran the Terminal script 'sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/T_Drive/'. I ejected the drives and reconnected to them. I then told Time Machine to start backing up, and it appears to be working. There is currently a 422.4 MB sparsebundle file on the drive. Time Machine's status is "Preparing Backup..." So, we shall see.
I'd like the "USB_Storage" drive to also be an option for Time Machine so I can have a dual backup. Is there a Terminal script I can run to also make that drive selectable in the Time Machine preferences? The script above only seems to replace any drive(s) listed. I have another drive at another location, and that is no longer listed as having ever been a Time Machine destination, so I'll have to reconnect once I get back to that location (work).
Got it to work - but not sure why!
After doing all the steps again (exactly the same as initial try) I experienced the following:
When plugging the drive into the router, the readySHARE page on 192.168.0.1 returns "500 - Internal Server Error". Unable to do anything there.
However, accessing smb://readyshare from my mac works as expected.
And the weirdest thing: The TimeMachine backup now works:/ !
Not sure what is going on.
While I'm here:
1. Anyone know how to fix "500 - Internal Server Error"? on my router admin page? It goes away as soon as I unplug the USB drive..
2. My TimeMachine backup is 700 GB - my mac HardDrive shows as 400 GB used - anyone know why the one and only backup is so much larger?
Thanks for your support!
efish In step 2A did you make it 700G? That will always show up that size, since that's the size you made the sparsebundle. I know nothing about the 500 error. I've never seen it and would be related to something on that page, not time machine. It's possible maybe you used an illegal character in naming the drive or something I suppose, but not really sure.
BMac123456 You cannot use "USB_Storage" for time machine backup. First, you wouldn't want to, because it's on the same disk so it would be worthless. Second, the way this trick works is that it sees a sparsebundle as a mountable drive that time machine can back up to. USB_Storage can only be used like a regular thumb drive. Also, I'm not sure if readyshare lets you mount 2 drives at once to make it possible to use 2 sparsebundles on 1 drive. However, if you want to have two drives with alternating backups, it is possible, you need to use the -a flag in the tmutil command. You can find more detailed instructions on this thread a little earlier.
You could try creating 2 sparsebundles on the drive and see if you can mount them both and point time machine at them, but you're not creating redundancy, so I don't think it's very worthwile.