Enable Time Machine on a Network Drive

On June 17, 2008 by dhammy0110

On Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.x), there’s a nifty built-in backup program called “Time Machine”. By default, it only works with drives that are directly connected or connected through an airport extreme. The hack below allows it to at least see network drives, although there is no guarantee that the backup will be successful, depending on the drive format and network.

The steps:

1. Mount your network drive (check step-5 if you are getting error in mounting).

2. Change the preferences by running following command in a terminal window:
 defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

3. Now turn on Time Machine.

4. Select your network drive.

5. If you lose your network mount, you will need to reset your preferences by running the following:
defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 0

Category : DIY / Tech

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