Setting up network drives and keeping Time Machine backups

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Level 1

13 points

Setting up network drives and keeping Time Machine backups

I have three goals:

Set up a household network (three Macs, one iPad) to share files and provide local storage space for materials that will not fit on the internal storage of the newest Mac.
Be able to back up that material regularly, maybe continuing with Time Machine?
Have an additional backup of the backup, for peace of mind

The biggest file types needing preservation are photos and email files with family history/conversations.

You’d think I would have worked this out sooner, as I’ve been using Macs since the 80s but files were _so_ much smaller then…

If there’s a FAQ I should go read, I’m happy to do that, but what I don’t want is the “oh, just buy more space on iCloud”. It’s my data; I want to be responsible for it.

Many thanks!

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 12.6

Posted on Apr 9, 2025 9:55 PM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

157,902 points

Apr 10, 2025 12:00 PM in response to RhetRx

Basically, to achieve your stated goals, I would suggest that you consider getting a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. If you are not familiar with what a NAS is, it is basically a computer with built-in drives. You would attach it, by Ethernet, to your local network router or to a local network Ethernet switch. In turn, it can be accessed by devices on your local network either by Ethernet or by Wi-Fi.

Since it is a computer, you can access it via a web browser, and configure it for many kinds of services like file sharing and for backups.

FWIW, I have been using a Synology NAS for these for years now and can first-hand verify that it works well of this. In addition, the Synology NAS also supports Time Machine for backups.

Ref:

What is NAS? - Synology
Secure your data, scale your success - Synology

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Answer 2

Apr 10, 2025 1:43 PM in response to RhetRx

Have an additional backup of the backup, for peace of mind

When you say this, are you really saying that you want to backup a backup?

A better plan might be to make a separate a second backup on another drive......not copy all of the data on one backup over to another drive to make an additional backup.

If there is any problem or issue with a backup, backing up that backup again to another drive will copy over any of the problems or issues on the first backup.

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Setting up network drives and keeping Time Machine backups

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