Multiple Time Machine Network Backups

1

I have FreeNAS servers at work and at home. Both are set up to back up via Time Machine. Is there a way I can tell my Macbook Pro to use both without having to manually switch in the Time Machine Preferences?

churnd

Posted 2010-03-03T04:02:59.103

Reputation: 4 228

Answers

2

Yes, there in theory is... But it's not going to be necessarily easy...

The core idea is that you will need to use something like Marco Polo to identify where you are.

Then you need to backup the Time Machine preferences for each location, with the proper settings...

When Marco Polo detects that you are leaving your current location have it run a script that, turns off Time Machine. When you enter "home" have a script, copy the Time Machine Preferences that has your home NAS in it, to the proper location, and then turn on Time Machine.

When you arrive at work, Marco Polo fires off a command line script, that does the same thing, except this time it's your work NAS in the preferences...

This is quite a bit of work... But it can be done...

Benjamin Schollnick

Posted 2010-03-03T04:02:59.103

Reputation: 4 313

This sounds promising. I've downloaded Marco Polo, and I can see where it has IP aware rules, but I don't see anything about changing Time Machine. I guess you were talking about the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist? So I should have a script that rotates them out based on the IP location? – churnd – 2010-03-12T12:14:55.223

Yes, that's my thought.... To Turn On TM - defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.timemachine AutoBackup -boolean true Turn Off - defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.timemachine AutoBackup -boolean false ... You could also trigger on a specific USB device (ie mouse), network mount, etc... – Benjamin Schollnick – 2010-03-12T22:34:18.630