3TB of Time Machine Backup Storage for the xtendx Office
And a video with blinking lights to prove it
At xtendx we are big on simple, effective, and most things Apple. With an office of only a few people, we don't have the need or desire for a dedicated "IT Guy" and so those responsibilities generally fall on me.
Most of us are on MacBook Pros and have been handeling our backups individually at home when convenient. Recently, my colleague Mattia also started using a MBP, and a critical mass of support developed for bringing our backups "in house". To that end, we ordered three 1TB LaCie Grand USB-attached external hard drives (designed by Neil Poulton.) At SFr120 each (approximately US$122) from Digitec they were a fair price.
The original plan was to connect all three drives to the Apple AirPort Extreme base station and have each Mac's Time Machine backup over the network. No go. Constant errors like "Error 17 creating backup disk image" and "Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO CopyingTime", Machine/System Preferences becoming unresponsive, and other drama. Big Apple #fail.
After three hours of tinkering and following many suggestions found on the Intertubes (downgrading the AirPort firm ware to 7.5.1, reformatting to a non-journel file system, and renaming the drives to conform to 8.3 naming convention), I gave up. The three disks now site near our desks and are attached directly via USB. Not as nifty, but it works and my time is valuable.
I like the blinking lights.
Here are some of the logs. Maybe if someone out there on the Interwebs has a suggestion then I'll try agin.
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL:
afp://xtendx@xtendx%20AirPort%20Extreme._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Stu's%20Time%20Machine
Mounted network destination using URL:
afp://xtendx@xtendx%20AirPort%20Extreme._afpovertcp._tcp.local/Stu's%20Time%20Machine
Creating disk image /Volumes/Stu's Time Machine-1/Stu Thompson’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle
Disk image /Volumes/Stu's Time Machine-1/Stu Thompson’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted
at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Ownership is disabled on the backup destination volume. Enabling.
Backup content size: 129.6 GB excluded items size: 12.0 GB for volume Manoa SSD
No pre-backup thinning needed: 141.11 GB requested (including padding), 926.89 GB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle
writeData:]: Input/output error
Error: (-36) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Stargate.Universe.S01E10.720p.HDTV.x264-SiTV.mkv
to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Stu Thompson’s MacBook
Pro/2010-01-18-132728.inProgress/8289BDA1-B63B-4F3C-9277-936B11355DA5/Manoa SSD/Applications
Stopping backup.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle
writeData:]: Input/output error
Error: (-8062) SrcErr:NO Copying /Applications/Stargate.Universe.S01E10.720p.HDTV.x264-SiTV.mkv
to /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb/Stu Thompson’s MacBook
Pro/2010-01-18-132728.inProgress/8289BDA1-B63B-4F3C-9277-936B11355DA5/Manoa SSD/Applications
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle
writeData:]: Input/output error
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle
writeData:]: Input/output error
Copied 16560 files (6.1 GB) from volume Manoa SSD.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:*** -[NSConcreteFileHandle
writeData:]: Input/output error
Copy stage failed with error:11
Re: 3TB of Time Machine Backup Storage for the xtendx Office
Next attempt, a Snow Leopard server. Hopefully it can avoid the need for remote images, and constant failure.