Can I use a USB attached Hard Drive on Win7 for TimeMachine backup?

I have a Western Digital external USB hard drive. I would like to use this as my Time Machine backup HDD for my new MacBook. After a bit of research I've found that I can't simply share the HDD via my Windows 7 desktop - the HDD must be considered an NAS.

Is there any utility out there that would allow me to trick computers on my home network into thinking that the USB HDD hooked up to my Win 7 machine is a NAS? Essentially, I need to publish a USB HDD to the network as a NAS.

mac
external-hard-drive
nas
time-machine

James Hill

Posted 2012-01-02T13:46:46.430

Reputation: 979

Answers

A NAS is a network attached storage that really doesn't need to be 'faked',

This should help you tho: Time Machine/Time Capsule with a Windows 7 share disk

Jakub

Posted 2012-01-02T13:46:46.430

Reputation: 3 111

I understand what a NAS is. Thanks for the link, that's what I needed. – James Hill – 2012-01-02T16:55:20.590