One of the perks about Leopard (OS X 10.5) is that it comes with a feature known as “Time Machine“. Basically, it is a built-in backup solution, runs in the background, and mirrors your drive to another drive via USB or Firewire, and even over your network, if you have Apple’s Time Capsule.

Personally, I have no need for another wireless router, even if it comes with a hard drive, as it is one more thing on my network to worry about, maintain, and the thing ain’t cheap to begin with. Yes, this is a gadget that I decided NOT to get due to cost. How weird is THAT!? 

Anyway, last week, the drive for my work Macbook died. When I say ” it died”, I mean the type of drive death where it clicks, clunks, grinds, and won’t mount. Basically, I can’t do anything with it, so everything I had on it is gone. Was I backing it up? Nope. After setting up everyone else’s machines to backup their data, I never got around to setting up mine. Not much is gone, I use IMAP at work so my email wasn’t stored locally, but all the images, documents, and other things I’ve worked on for the last 3.75 years was lost. Either it hasn’t hit me yet, or I just don’t care. Dunno. But, it made me paranoid about my own machines, so I figured I might as well set up Time Machine at work, ensure it does the trick, and then set it up at home.

I heard rumours about people being able to set Time Machine to use standard SMB (Samba) mounts using 10.5.2 or higher, which makes sense, as OS X is based off Unix, and pretty much operates within the same standards. Sure enough, I came across this site, and it was easy as pie:

http://www.stocksy.co.uk/articles/Mac/getting_time_machine_to_work_how_i_want/

A quick snippet of what was involved:

Within Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

Then:

sudo hdiutil create -size [number_in_GB]g -type SPARSEBUNDLE -nospotlight -volname “Time Machine” -fs HFS+J -verbose ~/Desktop/[mac_network_name]_[eth_mac_addy].sparsebundle

Transferred *.sparsebundle to desired remote directory.

As I have a few Linux boxes that are there only for storage, it made sense to set up Time Machine on my Mac Mini to use one of them rather than spending a chunk of cash on a new device. I had to reinstall Leopard as years of upgrading left me with an operating system that had issues with permissions over network mounts (the weirdest thing), so I backed up my Mac Mini to my Macbook, and started from scratch. After Leopard was installed, it took no time to set up Time Machine. The initial backup took FOREVER, as was expected, but since then, all has been well. I’ll move over the important documents as time goes on, but for the moment, only 14GB on the Mac Mini was used. I’ll have to clear some more space to be able to back up the Macbook via Time Machine, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

So, long story short: if you’re not backing up your data, you might want to look into that. If you want to use Time Machine, and you have a machine on the network that you can use as a network mount via SMB, check out the link above, and save yourself some cash. Why Apple doesn’t allow you to do this by standard, who knows, but I’m glad that the process to do so wasn’t too much of a hack.

Thanks to Stocksy for the instructions.  

Breakfast

• Protein shake (shared)
  • Two scoops of MuscleTech Nitro-Tech Hardcore - vanilla
  • One banana
  • 250ml 2% partly-skimmed lactose-free milk
  • Frozen strawberries
  • Frozen blueberries
  • Frozen raspberries

Activity

• Rode the bike to work (6.1km)
• Rode the bike to Dominion, then over to Strachan, down to the Princes’ Gates, through the CNE, and back up to the office (4km)

Snacks

• One Interactive Nutrition Low Carb Bar - iced dream

Dinner

• Shoeless Joe’s
  • Canadian burger with peameal bacon, onions, a pickle, and lettuce topped with ketchup, mustard, and relish
  • Side of fries with ketchup
  • Two pitchers of Rickard’s Red (shared)

Activity

• Rode the bike home (6.1km)