Time Machine Issues

[Rossmon]

Recently, I tried to setup on a 68u and an 88u with the same result.

The router see's and mounts an unencrypted drive but when I select the path all i get is the apparently hidden and tiny Boot_OS_x partition.
The drives have existing time machine backups and plenty of free space. The several drives I have used range from a crucial SSD to a new 6tb WD mybook.
I have run all the Apple and third party apps I have to check the drives and I have been downgrading the firmware in hopes of solving it that way.
What gives, time machine support used to be a slam dunk on these Asus routers.

Thanks for any idea's!

PS reducing usb 3.0 interference is off

Ross

 

[Rossmon]

Recently, I tried to setup on a 68u and an 88u with the same result.

The router see's and mounts an unencrypted drive but when I select the path all i get is the apparently hidden and tiny Boot_OS_x partition.
The drives have existing time machine backups and plenty of free space. The several drives I have used range from a crucial SSD to a new 6tb WD mybook.
I have run all the Apple and third party apps I have to check the drives and I have been downgrading the firmware in hopes of solving it that way.
What gives, time machine support used to be a slam dunk on these Asus routers.

Thanks for any idea's!

PS reducing usb 3.0 interference is off

Ross

Update, I decided to flash the latest firmware and suddenly Time Machine is working and see's the boot and the main partition. Great, this is now about the 10th asus router that I have installed and I think the next will be a different brand. I like the small features to work from day one. Especially in front of my clients its nice not to look bad trying to get something like sharing a time machine disk to work.
I just don't have the time to become an up to the second router model expert and have always expected residential class stuff to just work out of the box with the occasional glitch.

 

[RMerlin]

I like the small features to work from day one. Especially in front of my clients its nice not to look bad trying to get something like sharing a time machine disk to work.

Quite frankly, anyone needing reliable Time Machine support should buy an Apple product. Every non-Apple implementation out there had to be reverse-engineered, and therefore will never be guaranteed to work reliably.

 

[sfx2000]

Quite frankly, anyone needing reliable Time Machine support should buy an Apple product. Every non-Apple implementation out there had to be reverse-engineered, and therefore will never be guaranteed to work reliably.

Agreed - and even on Apple Products - Time Machine over the network can be sketchy sometimes...

And Apple changes the TimeMachine client (most recently to support TM over SMB), but it's not documented very well as to the particulars.

Time Machine is useful, but it shouldn't be the only backup in place - Carbon Copy Cloner and/or SuperDuper are good products to consider along with Time Machine.

 

[Rossmon]

I disagree or I am lucky! (never won the lottery!)
I have over 15 68u's in the field and many are running time machine without a glitch for something like a couple of years now.
I do not specialize anymore in WAN technology or giant customers. Just want slam dunk smaller network solutions.
It has only been the last week that issues have arisen for me, which is how I found this site! Previous to discovering the ASUS router line, I was either Apple brand or Cisco for my larger but still small business client sites.
I have not had any issues using time machine on Apple routers. They just don't have the resources to deal with larger numbers of clients! In my experience, after about 30 seats and up, they definitely start running out of juice to support DHCP, possibly other services too!
The bottom line is advertised features should work or I will be trying new brands if I see more of this...
Finally, both the new 88 and an older 68 that were giving me problems are now working after about 5 flashes to earlier and back to latest firmware version. (i'm persistent!)

Ross

 

[sfx2000]

I have not had any issues using time machine on Apple routers. They just don't have the resources to deal with larger numbers of clients! In my experience, after about 30 seats and up, they definitely start running out of juice to support DHCP, possibly other services too!

With that many seats - one might consider a MacMini with OSX server - it does do a better job across all things - TimeMachine, DHCP, VPN, you name it... Airports are fine for small networks, even though they do not support VPN, they can handle more than one would expect.

Depends on what your customer's needs are... If your customer base is Mac centric, then OSX server is a pretty good choice, and it's cheap...

 

[Rossmon]

Thats what my solution was (this is years ago) an osx server.

 

[sfx2000]

Thats what my solution was (this is years ago) an osx server.

So.. trying to understand your basic problem - seems like you have it solved.

Do consider CCC and SuperDuper as part of the backup plan.

 

[Rossmon]

Yup its solved. Thanks for the suggestions.
I have always used CCC as one method for cloning. I am aware
of Superduper but never really looked at it which I will have to remedy!
Now that I am semi-retired (been fixing Apples since 1980) my clients tend to be work from home individuals, so a native built in solution like TM is great plus some method of internet redundancy like icloud drive, 1drive, amazon drive, Carbonite.
Here I am, when I was young with a rare short haircut! (probably for the occasion