Reports: Time Machine needs wires
If you want to use the Time Machine feature in Mac OS X Leopard to set up automatic backups, you'll have to find a networking cable.
In the advance marketing material for Leopard, which goes on sale later today, Apple had promoted the ability to connect an external USB hard drive to an AirPort Extreme wireless router (Airport Disk) and use Time Machine to wirelessly back up the hard drives of Macbooks scattered around a home. Time Machine, one of the more universally liked features in Leopard (click for CNET's review), is designed to make backing up and restoring files much easier than before.
Time Machine, being demonstrated by Apple's Scott Forstall at the 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference, won't work with external hard drives connected to Apple's Airport wireless routers.
(Credit: CNET Networks)But Macworld's Dan Frakes (who has an excellent spin move to the basket) noticed earlier this week that Apple had pulled the language advertising the use of an AirPort Disk from the Time Machine promotional copy. AppleInsider then verified that its copy of Leopard did not allow the use of an Airport Disk to do wireless backups, forcing you to physically connect the USB drive to a Macbook or Macbook Pro to make sure the backup operation takes place. Time Machine can also back up data to another Mac running Leopard that is set up for file sharing, a server running Leopard, or one of Apple's Xsan storage devices, but casual Mac users are much more likely to back up to one of the many external hard drives available.
That's certainly not the end of the world, but it's somewhat inconvenient if you're used to using your notebook on a wireless network at all times. Posters on AppleInsider's forums speculated that backing up an entire hard disk over a wireless network would take forever, even at 802.11n speeds of over 100Mbps, and that seems to make sense. But certainly Apple was ready to go forward with the feature up until the last minute, so it must have been convinced as recently as a few weeks ago that wireless backups wouldn't be an issue.
The most likely scenario seems to be that Apple pulled it from the final release of Leopard at the last minute because the software simply wasn't ready. The company can add support for Airport Disks at a later date with a software update, but Leopard early adopters will have to wait.
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Leopard that is set up for file sharing, a server running Leopard,
or one of Apple's Xsan storage devices, but casual Mac users are
much more likely to back up to one of the many external hard
drives available."
Um, that means it can be done wirelessly to a drive attached to
another mac on your wireless network. So while the base station
feature is missing, the wireless option is not.
Leopard, an AirPort Extreme, and a USB Hard Drive. I am an avid
Mac user, but I must admin that I have been a bit let down lately
by some of their offerings. For example, I have a FireWire hard
drive already, but Apple conveniently left FireWire off the Airport
Extreme. These sorts of things could be viewed as oversights, or
even outtakes due to engineering concerns, but I'm not so sure.
This is Apple we're talking about. No; this is a way for them to
get a little more money out of people.
It is possible that they could, with a software update, make
wireless Time Machine happen, so I may just hang back a bit and
see.
updated my iMac to Leopard and was going to buy an AirPort
Extreme when I buy my MacBook next year so I could connect an
external hard drive to it and back up both my iMac and MacBook
wirelessly. This is ridiculous. What about those with MacBooks?
They can't lug around an external hard drive with them all the
time! Yea you can partition your hard drive in your Mac and
back up to it, but what if it fails? Then you've wasted that space
and your time backing up all your crap for nothing. As far as I'm
concerned Time Machine is about as useless as System Restore
in Windows.
with Time Machine you're not going to back up at all.
Or perhaps you have an alternate wireless backup solution that
more seamless than a tethered one.
[sarcasm]You've convinced me of how useless Time Machine
is.[/sarcasm]
feature is the unreliable nature of current wireless. Imagine
starting a backup and the wife starts the microwave or you get a
call on your wireless phone. Maybe you have a baby monitor that
interferes. Too many uncontrolled sources of interference to make
for reliable back-ups IMO. Aa nice as it would be to manage this
function wirelessly, I don't trust the service to make a critical
backup.
Until the other day, I couldn't figure out why my newly
purchased iPhone had such problems in the house, but works
very well elsewhere.
It's the cordless phone... :( it struck me the other day... like
"Duh" ahaha
Second point: I too have AirPort extreme but back up to a USB
external and to iDisc simultaneously... so far so good, but your
point of reliability is well taken
All viable computer transmission protocols, including 802.11, verify the data at the receive point. WiFi data packets may be affected by certain high ?noise? environments, but that simply results in a retransmission of the bad packet. The actual data applied to the hard drive backup image will not be corrupted. And you should be able to get rid of the source of all ?noise? in your home.
The centralized backup of computers, wired and wireless, is an essential component of any network that includes multiple computers. Apple needs to get this right!
Western Digital My Book Essentials external hard drive. It did NOT
take forever to make the initial backup, although it did take a few
hours. I used a Linksys bridge.
- Windows Home Server Can Already Do This!
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by John-D
February 28, 2008 12:21 PM PST
- Microsoft Windows Home Server can provide efficient wired and wireless backups at the drive image and individual file levels.
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Reply to this comment
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(16 Comments)WHS also acts as a centralized repository (i.e. shared files) for audio and video files that can be accessed by PCs, Macs and even your TiVo. It also supports a single point of remote entry for all your home computers.
Apple needs to get this right!