OSX Backups

FATeknollogee

Francesco Provino

No needs to buy anything: you just spin a Linux VM with enough storage your server, and build a time machine server compatible service using Netatalk and Avahi. I've used this from years till today, it's perfectly realiable and very simple; it's enterprise-ready also, you can made this VM as big as you want, backup to tape or replicate as any other VM, and of course host it on enterprise-class hardware etc.

I've read somewhere that Apple's TM is just a linux or bsd machine with a tuned version of netatalk/avahi.
I've build my own "Time Capsule" in a CentOS VM hosted in a KVM environment, no issue at all from 2013. Just search "linux time machine netatalk" and you will find a bunch of tutorials.

scottalanmiller

@Francesco-Provino said in OSX Backups:

I've read somewhere that Apple's TM is just a linux or bsd machine with a tuned version of netatalk/avahi.

Don't know about Avahi, but Apple's TM is definitely running on OSX, which is derived from FreeBSD (long ago.)

Are they still using Netatalk in TM? Apple officially moved to SMB as their standard for everything else a couple of OS releases ago.

marcinozga

Would Time Capsule work? http://www.apple.com/airport-time-capsule/
I use an older model at home and it just works without any effort. And you can backup multiple macs to one. And it's less than half the price of Mac Mini.

dafyre

I'm another huge fan of Crashplan. I love their product and it has saved my hide a few times as well as some friends of mine.

Minion Queen

We have lots of clients with Macs as well as GroveSocial runs on Mac's. I use Unitrends (gotta love having like 3 Unitrends appliances in my office).

For one client we do Time Capsule and Crash-Plan. Another is Backblaze. All options are great. All options easy.

bbigford

@marcinozga said in OSX Backups:

Would Time Capsule work? http://www.apple.com/airport-time-capsule/
I use an older model at home and it just works without any effort. And you can backup multiple macs to one. And it's less than half the price of Mac Mini.

I've been considering that. My thought was, that Time Capsule wouldn't allow for multiple Macs to be broken out so that users can only see their own restores. Also that OSX Server on a Mac Mini might be able to break out those restores completely isolated. I have used neither though so I haven't found anything concrete. Most people using Time Capsule are home users or SOHO, and anyone in enterprise I've found to be using something that doesn't involve a complete roll back in time.

dafyre

With time Machine, you can do file-level restores, you don't have to restore the whole system back to the snapshot that you need a few files from.

bbigford

@dafyre said in OSX Backups:

With time Machine, you can do file-level restores, you don't have to restore the whole system back to the snapshot that you need a few files from.

The whole system roll back is something that would interest them.

So I know CP and BB do file level, out to the cloud. Has anyone used TC or OSX Server to break out different machine backups? Were they isolated?

marcinozga

Would encryption work in your case? Each individual mac get's its backups encrypted.