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Apr 07, 08 - 02:39 pm Comment from: Darkness

Anything to get you to buy a Time Capsule instead.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Emulsion/Beijing.gif

Saved my (unsupported) *ss.. MacBook HD died last monday, ordered a new one, popped it in, retrieved the TM backup (with a wire, wireless would have teken forever, they're right about that), working on the MacBook right now...

The bigger question is why didn't Apple make the USB drive a supported feature.

USB is a slow thing even with cable.
All this wireless features are very, very newcomers. People should better wait patiently before jumping parachutless into science fiction. It all comes out right... but leave a little time to time... even to Timemachine...

As disappointing as this is, as I would do it too, the fact remains that using timemachine with a wireless connection would suck. Or USB. Firewire is def the answer and will hopefully open the eyes of some of the new mac users. USB is over rated and only good for a mouse. Anyone remember the firewire iPods...the ones you could use as a portable boot drive? yea....good times.

Apr 07, 08 - 02:59 pm Comment from: Brian Allen

The USB drive will crash the device under a heavy loads. So, you have a very hard time with the initial backup.

The same problem is happens with the Airport Extreme.

Oh it does work -- sort of. Time Machine does see and back up to a usb connected Airport disk, but only allows you to view the most recent back-upfor one back-up. There is no cascading series of back-ups you could "scroll" through to find a particular folder or file. After a few days of trying, I connected the back-up drive to my computer vis firewire. Everything works as advertised now.

Apr 07, 08 - 03:07 pm Comment from: Logan

I am as big an Apple fan as there is, but I am surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit out of this fiasco. I bought an airport extreme because Apple said I could use it with Time Machine. Then, at some point Apple changed their minds, and now Apple is refusing to make that a reality, even though they have released another product that does exactly what they advertised the AE as being able to do. There is no way that I can think of to spin this as a positive reflection on Apple. Now I have an expensive router that doesn't do what I bought it for way back when it came out.

Sorry Apple, I can't side with you on this one.

I have been using is successfully since the last patch came out. It did take a long time to do the first back up (a lot faster once I go the USB 1 hub out of the way - duh!). But, it now works perfectly - and I do see the "cascading series" of screens that JB doesn't see.

It seems pretty clear to me that Apple intends to provide this feature (Time Machine backups via Airport Extreme) and is working on it, but that there are definite technical issues that aren't solved yet. At least, that's my best understanding given all the facts and ancedotes I've read over the last several months on this debacle.

Be that as it may, and regardless of Apple's policy of silence, their public behavior on this is downright disappointing - especially since the recent release clearly enabled (or at least partially enabled) this same ability for many people? C'mon Apple, get over yourself, and give us some kind of clear answer here.

Apr 07, 08 - 03:28 pm Comment from: Chaplin

What TCUser said... Same here! No problems...

I am fairly sure they won't have any liability issues with data loss... there are no guarantees with time machine or any external drive.

Question is, why does this device have USB and not FireWire 400/500 or even eSata? I thought Apple was cutting edge?

Apr 07, 08 - 03:36 pm Comment from: Macromancer

Im normally not in favor of silly litigation against companies, but seriously Apple had been priming people for this during Leopard development, and Im sure many people (including myself) bought new Airports just to have this feature. Now, they are backing off. Bottom line is they should be held responsible. If they can make it work with Time Capsule, it certainly can work with third party drives.

Um. Presumably Apple discovered that it didn't work. So they withdrew it from the supported feature list.

If it doesn't work, boys and girls, then Apple can't offer it can they...

Apr 07, 08 - 03:53 pm Comment from: DogGone

In my experience Firewire is more reliable than USB for external drives. I have an external drive that I use for TM backups. Initially I connected via USB but the drive would disappear from the desktop (probably gone to sleep) and when it reappeared it would have a modified name (Drive and then Drive-1). It made it difficult to make links etc to that drive.

After switching to FW I have not problems at all. The external drive is hooked up to an old G4 tower. There are three macs connected by ethernet or Airport via an Airport Extreme (n version). All are backed up via TM to the same external drive. Time Machine works flawlessly.

So my take on this is that the USB connection is not consistant enough since the same Airport can transfer TM backup data to a FW Drive (via a Mac).

Apr 07, 08 - 04:05 pm Comment from: rahrens

Logan, I am with you on this one.

The night the last updates came out, I was on the phone with Apple support about it, and that's when they told me the same thing.

I posted that info here under the topic for it that MDN had posted, but nobody paid any attention. Everybody was too excited thinking that Apple had finally released it.

So, if any of you clowns that try to use a non-supported feature get burned, don't say that nobody told you so.

Cause I did, and now Glenn has.

Apr 07, 08 - 04:19 pm Comment from: DogGone

@ Logan / Rahrens

Airport extreme can be used with Time Machine. Read my post above.

What is not supported is connecting a USB drive directly to the AE. If you only have laptops on your network it may be harder to backup since you need to plug in a drive to one of your Macs for backup.

>byronic wrote: If it doesn't work, boys and girls, then Apple can't offer it can they...

It's a good thing Apple didn't tout that it would be part of Leopard before Leopard was released.

So what if a bunch of people claimed they did. This is Apple and they can get away with what they want and people will continue to blindly love it.

Now bend over and cough!

I have both Airport Extremes the 100/ethernet and the gig version. Both are horrible with external USB drives. I was actually so frustrated with them I purchased a Mac Mini and attached two 500-gig drives(seagate)and raided them to 900-gig for my time-machine backup. Works great over the wired network and wireless for my MacBook Pro and Mac pro. I have had to restore files and two boot drive replacements with super-duper worked flawlessly. I have used this configuration since Leopard came out and have only had to rebuild one of the backups. The other nice thing is you can add another drive down the road. I also have found the printing function not to work very good I opted for the new Brother wireless laser jet $149 at staples works great!

Apr 07, 08 - 05:07 pm Comment from: alansky

If it's not supported, then it shouldn't be possible to select the drive in Time Machine Prefs. Apple may have made itself liable for any data loss users may incur. —MDN

If Apple had to worry about liability for users' data loss, they'd be out of business in six months. It is possible to do many things with computers (and computer settings) that should never be attempted by the average home user. There's no way that Apple could ever be held accountable for the almost infinite variety of unwise moves that users manage to come up with.

Personally, I think only those who weren't backing up at all before Time Machine should count on Time Machine for their only backup. As good as it is, Time Machine is still a new feature that can behave unpredictably. My Time Machine backups often occur at irregular intervals and sometimes grow in size much faster than normal.

No matter what, Apple is not liable for data loss. At all. Ever. Seriously MDN, it's shocking that you would type that.

As for the AirDisk feature originally promoted with Leopard, yeah, I would have liked to have seen it. If it's not working perfectly, though, I'd rather not have it at all.

And Logan, when Airport Extreme came out at MacWorld 2007, there was no mention of using it as a back up, just NAS. You can be upset that the shipping version of Leopard did not support a feature it announced, but don't be a revisionist as to why you bought the Airport Extreme 'when it first came out.'

Sounds like MDN feels foolish about pushing the "fact" that this feature was added in the latest Airport update. It worked the same for me before and after the update with regards to seeing mounted AirDisks in Time Machine, and yet news websites jumped on the bandwagon of reporting it as a "fact". I was surprised by that action. My posts claiming that this wasn't a supported feature were even removed. *shakes head*

I've been using TM backup wirelessly from my MB Pro 17" on my AP Extreme for over 2 weeks now with no probs - all works fine albeit slowly - but for the small incremental backups that's no problem.

I can even force a backup while the MBP is not connected to power by selecting 'Backup Now' from the TM menu.

Granted, it's not supported and may all fall in a heap at some stage (I have other backups in case this happens) - but for now all works flawlessly. When browsing back in time it is again a little slow to refresh each window but I have used it to save my ass on a number of occasions where files have been stuffed or overwritten by accident.

Hopefully it will one day be supported. If there's an inherent fault with TM wireless backups to an extreme with external USB HD it's failed to show itself here.

Microsoft tactics.

Apr 07, 08 - 07:43 pm Comment from: GizmoDan

I have all the latest software installed, and I can't even see the hard drive using Time Machine. So I can't select it to make it the backup target. Doesn't work for me. I have reformatted the drive, and tried several things. In Time Machine I have an empty list to pick from as the backup drive. But I can see it in the Finder under Shared.

I am very dissapointed.

Apr 07, 08 - 07:46 pm Comment from: GizmoDan

If Apple was working on fixing this problem, they would not say that it is "unsupported". They might say that it is not working yet, or that it is unsupported at this time.

They have had two tries. Failed both times for me. And their communications with their constituents about this has been below their normal standards.

Apr 07, 08 - 08:44 pm Comment from: Ferf Muckmeyer

This is aboslute bullshit. I just plopped down $239 for a USB 1TB drive for this exact purpose, and now I hear it's not supported. And already I have corrupted backup files.

GizmoDan: You have to connect up to the drive first and mount the drive on your desktop. Then you can select it in Time Machine prefs. After that you no longer have to mount the drive - Time Machine will find it. Trouble is after a while it will not work.

Best bet - mount a drive already attached to an existing Mac over the network and do the same as above. I have had NO problems with this.

Shame on you Apple.

Time machine, airport extreme...I hate them all at this point and will continue to do so until they fix this problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6755717&tstart=0

i've been using it without issue since the patch came out. i'm running a 500GB "mybook" with my AE base station. every hour, my macbook pro "finds" the air disk, mounts it, backs up and un-mounts it. i've restored files and i can choose anything in the past.

Apr 08, 08 - 12:40 am Comment from: Cubert

Maybe this is the reason why there seems to be a sudden push to get 10.5.3 out?

Why are we using USB CRAP? FireWire at 800 is where we should be at, but the need to 'standardise' seems to be destroying the fastest and best connection in the known universe - FIREWIRE!

Apple - why are you letting FireWire fade?

Apr 08, 08 - 06:58 am Comment from: LinuxGuyAndMacProdigalSon

Major suckage Apple! How about a deep discount on Time Capsule for Airport Extreme owners?

Mine works OK. iTimeMachine works fine too. If the backup fails, it just starts over, nothing diff than unplugging the USB cable from the Mac itself.

Since the last updates, mine had to start over, it saves the folder now as a sparse image.

Want FULL control of where/how the files are backed up? Try iBackup - http://www.grapefruit.ch/iBackup/

Not like Super Duper where there's a bootable image but it's free (donations accepted).

Apr 08, 08 - 10:12 am Comment from: Ferf Muckmeyer

For those of you that have had success, beware. Mine was working as well, connected to a USB My Book. After a few days the sparsebundle image files somehow became corrupted and became "read-only" access with no way to change them to read-write. This happened twice.

So be warned - you are playing with fire if this is your primary backup mechanism. I need a file server solution anyway, so I might have to plop down a few dollars to get Time Capsule. It kind of sucks but what's the alternative?

Apr 08, 08 - 10:36 am Comment from: alansky

Firewire really IS superior to USB 2.0 for moving data, and it's a shame that the computer world is focusing on USB, which doesn't work in target disk mode and has serious power issues when used in portable devices.

Apple - why are you letting FireWire fade?

Because FW isn't an Intel technology.

Apr 08, 08 - 07:45 pm Comment from: R5D4

"Apple may have made itself liable for any data loss users may incur."

Thanks, MDN, for taking a fair and objective stance on this issue. Previous to this take, I would have guessed your stance would be something akin to users should know better or caveat emptor, or whatever.