Mac users | Tell me about your wireless backups with asusWRT-Merlin (Time Machine, CCC, etc)

[sfx2000]

Yeah I'm not looking to use both. After all I read about issues with Time Machine on non Apple routers I think I'm going to shy away from it. You said there were issues with netatalk and AFP. Is there any issues with the Tuxera drivers and GUID/HFS? Can I use those formats without worries or do I need to just stick with Ext2/3?

TimeMachine over AFP uses a command that isn't present in older versions of netatalk - has to do with fd sync, the sparsebundle bands, and hard links (everything in timemachine is hard linked) and some apple secret sauce that isn't documented. Another issue is that one of the missing items is the volume size, and on non-apple network backups, the data is written before the client knows that the volume is full - and ker-blammo, the bundle blows up.

that's why things do tend to get weird after a while - when TM starts trimming and gathering up older backups.

this is your data backup we're talking about - keep it simple

 

[RMerlin]

With all the talks about Time Machine, I find it interesting that on the Wintel side of things, nobody talks about File History. I configured it for a customer a few months ago after a certain accident happened with her local documents, and it was the first time I actually took a closer look at this.

Microsoft sometimes fail at promoting features that matters, and focus on others which no one really needs or care about.

 

[L&LD]

RMerlin, I setup Windows File History on every customers computer that I can (or am allowed to) to their NAS'. Have been doing so since Windows 8 in 2012 shipped.

Just works.

I thought it was well promoted (but then, I regularly search out Windows news, etc.).

 

[sfx2000]

I agree that Windows File History can definitely be a life saver - and also puzzled why MSFT didn't promote this a bit more.. it's a really good feature to have.

 

[RMerlin]

RMerlin, I setup Windows File History on every customers computer that I can (or am allowed to) to their NAS'. Have been doing so since Windows 8 in 2012 shipped.

Just works.

I thought it was well promoted (but then, I regularly search out Windows news, etc.).

Problem is, File History was added in Windows 8, so it was completely overshadowed by everything else that Win8 brought.

Start menu aside, Win8 brought quite a few nice improvements.

 

[sfx2000]

Problem is, File History was added in Windows 8, so it was completely overshadowed by everything else that Win8 brought.

Start menu aside, Win8 brought quite a few nice improvements.

I would agree - they cleaned up a lot of legacy stuff under the hood... MetroUI not withstanding, Win8 wasn't too terribly bad.

 

[Marc66]

I've been using both Time Machine and CCC for the past 5-6 years as follows:
- iMac connected to Time Capsule
- Time Capsule connected to router
- QNAP NAS connected to router
- HDD docking connected to Mac
- All using wired connections, no WiFi

Time Machine alternates backups between Time Capsule and QNAP. I do a manual CCC bootable backup to an external 1 TB HDD once a month.

Solution is working fine and QNAP Time Machine backup is quicker than Time Capsule backup; it seems to be linked to the better disk I/O on the QNAP.

I frankly don't use Time Machine restore too often and when I changed my iMac HDD to SSD, I pointed Migration Assistant to the CCC backup.

I have a few Windows machines and use QNAP NetBak Replicator for Windows which works similarly to Time Machine to save Windows backups on the NAS. About once a year, I use Acronis True Image for full backups of Windows machines.

 

[basketball]

Try to keep "Hourly full network rescans" YES in Tools, it can prevent bundle corruption.

 

[stevec]

I also tried to use my AC68U with TM as a backup network solution (used HFS+ and GUID). The backups become corrupted very quickly and can't be repaired with disk utility. To me the whole thing seems to be very unreliable, but maybe it has been improved on the AC3200. Yesterday I tried using a sparsebundle with SMB over network as the destination for the TM Backup. Worked fine while attached over USB for the initial backup but is dead-slow when used over SMB.
Nice to hear that there is a good solution for the Windows area now, nevertheless TM is still one of the best solutions for Apple Users.
How is the TM functionality in AsusWRT done by the way? Does is use netatalk and other entware stuff?
Will try to find another way, maybe over entware or something.

 

[basketball]

Will try to find another way, maybe over entware or something.

You can try to turn off Memory Management: Regularly flush caches in Tools to avoid your backup corruption.
What about speed, SMB is slightly slower than USB, especially USB 3.0. And OS X always throttles wireless backup speed to lower power consumption and to keep WiFi throughput well. For me the backup speed is usually 2MB/s according Activity Monitor and I think it's OK.
I need to keep my backups encrypted, so I have to make initial backup wirelessly too, a 250GB backup file is creating for about 4-6 hours, it's not a problem. Incremental backups are usually small.
So, I think this firmware is a good solution for Mac users.

 

[stevec]

I tried your suggestion to turn off Memory Management, unfortunatly it didn't change anything. Backups still became corrupt.
Now testing another solution without additional software on the AC68U with just SMB2 (needs to be activated in Tools > Other Settings).
Here are the steps:

1. created an encrypted .sparsebundle for every machine that is supposed to backup to the attached storage
2. then mount the .sparsebundle at the respective machine and tell TM to backup to the volume created by the .sparsebundle
   1. if you want you can attach it locally first, then attach it to the router again, provides more flexibility and speed for the initial backup
3. plug the HDD back into the Router
4. create your Samba Share, either use the root account or create an account for each user (preferred)
   
5. Mount the .sparsebundle, TM will now backup via SMB2

Speed is quite good, under good condition I can reach ~10 MB/s in peaks and around 2-3 MB/s in average. 80 GB initial backup took around 6 hours.
So far this seems like a good solution. I will report back if stability becomes an issue. During backups the web interface becomes a bit slower, also I recommend you not to change any SMB settings during a backup.
While all can be done using Disk Utility and other tools for TM Management, if you feel comfortable using the terminal you can use the following commands:

• to create the sparsebundle, also possible with Disk Utility and AES-128
  • $ hdiutil create -size 500g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -fs "HFS+J" -encryption AES-128 /your_path/your_image_name.sparsebundle
• next mount the image/sparsebundle, then check the name, rename appropriately
  • $ ls /Volumes
• Tell TM to Backup to the mounted image, use -a if you want to add it to the list of backup volumes otherwise it will replace your current volumes
  • $ sudo tmutil setdestination -a /Volumes/your_mounted_image/

I will use it as secondary Backup and have yet not tried to recover anything with this solution, but I don't think it will be a problem as you can always attach it via USB as well.
Also it doesn't rely on the deprecated AFP any more. (see this link)
Hope this helps other with similar problems.

 

[sfx2000]

I tried your suggestion to turn off Memory Management, unfortunatly it didn't change anything. Backups still became corrupt.
Now testing another solution without additional software on the AC68U with just SMB2 (needs to be activated in Tools > Other Settings).

Kind word of advice - Apple doesn't publish how TimeMachine works over the network - it works with TimeCapsules and OSX Server - everything else is reverse engineered and "might" work for some...

 

[stevec]

I tried what I mentioned above with the NFS share option and I am thrilled to say it works absolutely perfect. Backups can be encrypted. Speeds are good and it is pretty reliable. Overall it seems like the more "natural and smooth" choice.
I think I will create another thread to describe the options and their respective advantages and disadvantages. Can also provide some script for a decent and quick backup procedure.
Overall it seems better not to use the provided TimeMachine feature, at least for me with the AC68U.

 

[wheelq]

I have a strange feeling it doesnt work once entware is installed and in use...