WD MyBook World - Time Machine

[AussieGekko]

Ok so I have seen lots of threads about using Time Machine with the MyBook World over WiFi and I have got it to work so I thought I would share with you.

The reason for this is because of the reports I have seen about TimeCapsule and whilst this is slow it does seem to work. I would rather TimeCapsule so I had 802.11n wireless around home but it just seems to hard to deal with it.

I have a Netgear WGR 614 and a WD MyBook World 500GB.

It is quite slow and only seems to backup at about 3gb an hour but I only have a 802.11g connection with a 100mb lan connection to the WD MyBook World.

I would imagine this would improve with a 802.11n and 1gb connections.

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING DO NOT INSTALL THE SOFTWARE WITH THE CD THAT COMES WITH THE DRIVE.

So here are the steps:

1. On your Mac (I am on 10.5) you need to enable unsupported network Volumes by executing in Applications>Utilities>Terminal

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

2. Create a sparse file by entering the following into terminal:

hdiutil create -size 290g -fs HFS+J -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "Backup of StephenAspinall" StephenAspinall_001ff34ecbce.sparsebundle

3. If you don't have DHCP enabled on you Wireless Router enable it, the WD MyBook World does not seem to come with a preset IP Address.

4. Now plug in your WD MyBook World and power it up, you must do this after setting up DHCP so you drive gets a valid address.

5. No I was unable to get Safari to open MyBookWorld to access the web based interface of the of the drive so I booted into my XP build in VMWare and accessed it hat way, complete the wizard you see with time etc. (It does work using the IP address so if you can see on your router the IP address the drive has been assigned just enter that into safari). Oh yeah and default Username is admin and password 12346

6. On general setup tab create a user account, you dont want others to have access to you backups do you?

7. Once you have done the basic configuration create a share I called mine TMBackup on the drive and give everyone none access and your new user account full access.

8. You can now exit the web based console and in Finder GO>Connect To Server enter CIFS://MyBookWorld/TMBackup. you now have access to the share.

9. Copy the sparse file we created earlier to the share and I have deleted mine of the local drive but you may want to keep it for some reason.

9. Open Time Machine preferences and select your new drive.

10. Now it is all set up to go, just wait and be patient as it will take time to prepare, it will tell you if it has failed so just wait.

And there you have it.

Good Luck

[AussieGekko]

In the line

hdiutil create -size 290g -fs HFS+J -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "Backup of StephenAspinall" StephenAspinall_001ff34ecbce.sparsebundle

You should put

hdiutil create -size 290g -fs HFS+J -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "Backup of <YOURCOMPUTERNAME>" <YOURCOMPUTERNAME>_<EN0MACADDRESS>.sparsebundle

Sorry for that

[AussieGekko]

Well I have been using this setup successfully for a few days but here are some tips.

1. The first backup plug your Mac into the router over ethernet is heaps faster.
2. Tell Time Machine not to backup Virtual machine directories. (am running VMware Fusion and everytime you start it Time Machine wants to back it up, takes for ever)

Will keep posted if I find anything else.

[harlour]

Hi there!

I'm xtra happy that I came across your post for the use of my book world as a time machine... been trying to make that happen for a couple of weeks now with no luck...
before I proceed and write scripts ect I need some help in the following line (i'm kind of new in that...)

You should put
hdiutil create -size 290g -fs HFS+J -type SPARSEBUNDLE -volname "Backup of <YOURCOMPUTERNAME>" <YOURCOMPUTERNAME>_<EN0MACADDRESS>.sparsebundle


what does the <EN0MACADDRESS> stand for?
EN is a question
0 isanother one...
...and as for the MACADRRESS, should I put my MAC's MACADDRESS or the MYBOOKWORLD's?

[trevor]

I don't have the WD MyBook World and have not tried to implement this tip, but in general, en0 is the ethernet interface on your computer, and the MAC Address is the hardware address of that interface.

(Note that computers do not have MAC addresses as such, it is the network interfaces that have MAC addresses. So if you only have one network interface, you will only have one MAC address, but that is coincidence. If you have two network interfaces, for example one ethernet and one 802.11x "Airport" interface, then you will have two MAC Addresses, one for each interface.)

You can see the en0 MAC Address in several places, for example if you launch Network Utility (which is an app found in /Applications/Utilities), go to the Info tab, set the little popup menu to "Network Interface (en0)", then look under "Hardware Address".

Looking at AussieGekko's example above, it appears that you use what is shown in Network Utility exactly, except you remove the periods. So if your MAC Address is shown as 01.23.45.67.89.AB then you would use 0123456789AB.

Trevor

[eriedearie]

Thank you so much for this information. It was very helpful.

Before I complete the Time Machine setup, I want to be sure that this will not prevent me from backing up files from my XP PC to the same My Book. Does anyone know if I can use one My Book World Edition drive for both Mac (Time Machine) and Windows files backup?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[rbdavis]

To answer the post above, the Time Machine folder is independent. It shouldn't affect any of the other folders where you are storing other data so you should have no problem. I currently have my iTunes lib on the same drive, as well as Windows PC data. (That said I think Apple recommends dedicating the drive to Time Machine).

Also thanks from me. I followed the instructions and had my drive working vie Ethernet with Time Machine first time.

My problem is that when I complete my Ethernet backup, and disconnect, Time Machine is no longer able to back up to the drive via WiFi. I CAN enter Time Machine via WiFi, but not perform a backup. OSX says unable to mount the volume.

I've tried going into TM settings and reconnecting to the same drive via WiFi but it doesn't help.

I'm aware that I've used the MAC address of my Ethernet port, not my Wireless adaptor in the settings above. Is that the problem? If so, does that mean you can't back up to the same drive via Ethernet and WiFi - seems an unlikely limitation.

Any help much appreciated...

[rbdavis]

I should add that the drive volume mounts on my desktop fine, is explorable in Finder and is mounted automatically when i enter TM to explore backups.

Its just new backups that it doesn't think it can mount the volume to create (I tried starting with the volume already mounted or not mounted - same problem)

[rbdavis]

I think I managed to solve it!

I had to reconnect to the drive via Finder's "Connect to server" and it then worked. Hoping I don't manually have to do this each time I return home and want background TM backups to happen - i'd hoped it would all be automatic.

[Celou13]

Hi,
First, thanks with your tutorial.
Second, i'm french, so my english is not very good ...
Third, i do exactly what you write about the MyBookWorld Nas.
But, 2 problems appears :
- Time machine returns an error : "Can create the backup disk image". But i can write on it, like copying files ...
- My MacBookPro disk appear to have less free capacity, even i delete the sparse file. Is there an hidden file created by the Os when I create my sparse file ?
- In the case where i have to create a new sparse file, how can i write it directly on the mounted disk (MyBookWold) (I don't know the shell's command)

Thanks very much for your help.

[wattj009]

can you do this if you have already installed the software that came on the disk if not how do you restore it to its factory settings

[julienlopez]

post up !

i have tryed this and it say

Can't create the backup disk image...

help please...

[wattj009]

Quote: Originally Posted by julienlopez post up ! i have tryed this and it say Can't create the backup disk image... help please...

i had this problem too

[julienlopez]

come on guys ! please don't leave us like that :-)
help please.

[philipitus]

First of all don't buy a Mybook world, but if you have it as I do this worked for me. I found the solution here http://www.flokru.org/2008/02/29/tim...eopard/#update.

It is essentially what is described above but done mostly with finder and cut and paste. I will describe what I did.

1. In terminal executed:

defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

2. Created a protected share on the MyBookWorld called TMBACKUPS and created a USER called backups to own it using the browser interface. I assume I could have used the public share but this protects the backups.

3. Opened finder and browsed to the share.

4. Opened and setup TM to use the new share which was visible as a drive.

5. As TM made its first attempt to backup, a tmp sparsebundle file was visible in finder which I quickly copied and pasted elsewhere to preserve the name. The original file was deleted when TM failed.

6. From the copied file, copied the first part of the name, everything before the first period.

7. Using disk utility, created a sparsefile image by pasting in the extracted name to the save as and the disk volume names. Other settings: Volume Format - Mac OS Extended (Journaled); Partitions - No partition ma. I gave the size as the max I wanted to allow on the MyBook (600 GB). Note that you should set the size after you choose sparsebundle or OSX may not allow it.

8. Copied the newly created sparsefile into the share TMBACKUPS on the MyBook.

9. Started TM again and reselected the share to try again


As of now my initial backup is running. The volume inside the sparsebundle was automatically mounted by TM and is visible on my desktop. Hope it keeps working.

Cheers,
Philipitus

[MooseMan]

I've used this process to build a sparsebundle that I've put on my MyBook World edition. It works well for a while, but after time (about a month) the backup seems to go corrupt - it tells me that it can't mount the drive, etc.

This has happened a few times - I need to delete the shared system on my MyBook, recreate it, and replace the sparsebundle. The sparsebundle was configured for less space than the drive can take... I forget the exact size.

Any ideas? Could this problem be caused by other data on the shared drive growing to a size that makes the sparsebundle + the other data > the total size of the drive?