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Apple has stated that High Sierra requires that Time Machine works over SMB. Will ReadyOS 6.9 include the support? Current version still uses TM over AFP
APFS and Time Machine: You don't need to change any Time Machine settings to back up APFS-formatted disks. Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208018
There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what Apple actually said. They did not say that Time Machine backups will only work over SMB. The statement that has been pointed to ("Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP") is talking specifically about the fact that High Sierra will not let you share an APFS filesystem over AFP -- it can only be shared over SMB or NFS. Therefore, you cannot use an APFS filesystem as a Time Machine backup destination over the network using AFP. There is no limitation that prevents you from using Time Machine to back up an APFS filesystem to remote storage over AFP.
We will have SMB Time Machine support before it's actually necessary. We are well aware of the proposed patchset. The patchset submitted upstream will go into the next major Samba release, which will be Samba 4.8. That is expected in roughly 6 months. Of course, we can and expect to bring the feature to ReadyNAS before then.
And yes, we know that some of the competition offers SMB Time Machine support. We also know that the competition's implementation ignores the commands sent by Time Machine to ensure data safety. That's a shortcut we're not willing to take with your data. There are also some missing features in the proposed Samba implementation that we use in our AFP Time Machine support; so we'll need to get those added before we can offer a smooth transition from AFP to SMB Time Machine support. And unlike the competition, we'll contribute those improvements upstream.
Betreff: Readynas OS 6.9, High Sierra, Time Machine
II already have High Sierra installed on my MacBook Pro and the backup to my ReadyNAS 3140 runs perfectly, as before. I didn't have to make any changes on the NAS. On my NAS runs firmware 6.9.0-T62.
Yeah, I've been running High Sierra since the public beta phase, and Time Machine works just as it always has with my ReadyNAS. My 314 was just upgraded to 6.8.1.
Synology has supported Time Machine over SMB for a while now. Works flawlessly and is one of the reasons I just bought a new NAS from them instead of Netgear. Not sure what’s taking Netgear so long...
It’s my understanding that Time Machine support in samba is still very much a work in progress. Once it’s fully implemented and considered stable it’d be worth using.
There's a comment in there from a contributor saying it should be in the next official Samba release as of 2 weeks ago, but patches have been available for a while.
That said, the competition has had this feature working pretty well for a while, so saying it's not stable is far from true.
For most users there should be no hurry to update to High Sierra just yet. I haven't yet myself as I want to give it some time to stabilise and I would need to purchase updates to some software I use all the time as the version I currently use is incompatible. I'm in no rush to purchase those software updates at this time so I'm quite happy to stay on Sierra.
I asked a colleague of mine last month and his understanding was that Time Machine over SMB support in samba was still some months away from being included in a production samba release.
We're using samba 4.7.0 in 6.9.0 Beta (whereas we use samba 4.4.9 in 6.8.1). Once patches are merged to samba we should pickup those pretty quickly (or be able to merge in patches ahead of time should we wish to do so). What would take more time would be getting it integrated with our UI and software to enable/disable and configure it. We'd need to see about global Time Machine and private Time Machine and see what needs to happen with those. All that takes time.
There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what Apple actually said. They did not say that Time Machine backups will only work over SMB. The statement that has been pointed to ("Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP") is talking specifically about the fact that High Sierra will not let you share an APFS filesystem over AFP -- it can only be shared over SMB or NFS. Therefore, you cannot use an APFS filesystem as a Time Machine backup destination over the network using AFP. There is no limitation that prevents you from using Time Machine to back up an APFS filesystem to remote storage over AFP.
We will have SMB Time Machine support before it's actually necessary. We are well aware of the proposed patchset. The patchset submitted upstream will go into the next major Samba release, which will be Samba 4.8. That is expected in roughly 6 months. Of course, we can and expect to bring the feature to ReadyNAS before then.
And yes, we know that some of the competition offers SMB Time Machine support. We also know that the competition's implementation ignores the commands sent by Time Machine to ensure data safety. That's a shortcut we're not willing to take with your data. There are also some missing features in the proposed Samba implementation that we use in our AFP Time Machine support; so we'll need to get those added before we can offer a smooth transition from AFP to SMB Time Machine support. And unlike the competition, we'll contribute those improvements upstream.
"For most users there should be no hurry to update to High Sierra just yet" - that's an unreasonable statement. As with any OS update there are features some folks will use and others won't. Photos (along with new codec support), is the big customer-facing one this time around. People can upgrade whenever they want and Apple pushes updates aggressively. It's certainly reasonable to say that Netgear isn't ready to support High Sierra or TM over SMB yet, but just because you don't want to upgrade doesn't mean others won't or don't have good reasons to.
Stability is a completely valid reason to hold off on support (and an OS upgrade!). To be completely honest, I've never found TM over AFP to be terribly stable over the years on my ReadyNAS and with other vendors' equipment. My machines, particularly those connecting via wifi, get the dreaded "your backup could not be verified" message every couple of months. That usually requires nuking the backup and starting over from fresh.
Apple definitely hasn't been clear on the APFS + SMB situation, but getting rid of AFP is high on Apple's list.
If you're after stability one would wait for a while after a major OS X update comes out before jumping on it. Yes, everyone's needs are different, but my computer is not going to stop working because I'm still running Sierra.
We already support High Sierra Time Machine backups over AFP.
As Skywalker said AFPS volumes can't be shared as AFP Time Machine backup destinations, which is not relevant to Time Machine backups to the ReadyNAS.
Verifying backups is a lot better than not doing any verification checks and being left with a backup that's corrupt and that you can't restore from when you need it. It's no good having Time Machine backups over SMB if they can't be trusted.
Time Machine does support multiple backup destinations (so you could backup to one destination one hour and another the next and to the first destination the hour after that...).
Getting rid of AFP is high on Apple's list but they haven't got rid of it yet and we are on track to have Time Machine support over SMB well before that's necessary. One would think Apple won't completely get rid of AFP for at least another 12 months (when the successor to High Sierra comes out) if not later.
Thank you for clarifying this. I had heard various accounts of potential compatibility, and I took a cautious approach of not upgrading until some kind of real word came down. Apple has been known to take severe steps to kill old tech, after all. 😄 But with this information, and notes from beta testers who continue to see AFP based TM continue to work, I may take the leap and upgrade. There are some application changes I really want to take advantage of. Yes, some things will break or need upgrading, but sadly those some times take far longer than reasonable people are prepared to wait. 😉
"Verifying backups is a lot better than not doing any verification checks and being left with a backup that's corrupt and that you can't restore from when you need it. It's no good having Time Machine backups over SMB if they can't be trusted."
I think you missed my point. TM over AFP is unstable. It results in backups that the OS says are no good and have to be thrown away.
Regardless, it's good to know that Netgear is actively monitoring the SMB situation.
