I just setup Time Machine to use a HDD connected to my Asus wireless router. I chose at setup to make it an encrypted backup but the drive doesn't seem to ask me for a password until I try to mount the sparse bundle named after my Mac. Also no password while connected to the router unless it was the router password for setup. Is this normal?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Time Machine backup to a router
- Thread starter comics addict
- Start date
-
- Tags
- backup router time machine wireless
- Sort by reaction score
Yep... when you do an encrypted TM backup over the network the only real encryption is by storing the backup files inside an encrypted sparse bundle image. What you are seeing is normal.
Perfect!! Thanks Weaselboy. I was left scratching my head since so far my experience has been with encrypted drives connected directly to the Mac. Do you by any chance know how I can verify that the backups are safeguarded even over the network? I was only asked once for my admin credentials for my router during setup. After that it's been automatic.
What happened is the first time you entered the password it saved it in Keychain, so as long as you are logged in to that account, it will see the password in Keychain and just open the encrypted sparse bundle on its own. What you could do is go to Finder and unmount the disk then remove the entry from Keychain then after that try to access the sparse bundle... you should then be asked for the password.
You refer to the encrypted password that I chose for the Time Machine backup or the admin credentials for accessing the NAS?
Oh no I have never been asked that from the Time Machine preferences. Only the credentials for the router.
In the Time Machine settings when you first checked the box you wanted to encrypt the backup you should have been asked to create a password. When you did that it was saved to Keychain so you don't get asked any more.
Ah, well, that explains it. Haha, dumb me. One final question I am using a 1 TB HDD but I don't want to use the entire drive just for Time Machine backups. The ASUS router allows me to limit the dedicated storage on the drive for Time Machine without having to make a separate partition with all the added hassles. Since it's already setup as a sparse bundle I should be unconcerned about it working like I set it up right? Also why does the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences displays the full amount of the drive but actually displays the "free" space available for backups per my limitation at the router level? Thanks a lot for your time.
You should be fine.
I'm not clear from how you worded this what you are seeing, but normally all the pref pane would show is the space set aside for TM backups. So if you have limited it to say 300GB on the router, that pane would show 300GB. This is how it works with locally attached disks that have been partitioned anyway. I have not tested it with an Asus router to be sure, but I would think it would work the same way.
Glad to help.
Man believe me that you have been much better help that Apple support regarding this. On the second issue regarding the allocated space for Time Machine I originally set it up to use all the 1 TB space because I wasn't sure that it would work to use it as well for putting files there. Only after toying with the settings I chose to limit the space for Time Machine without partitioning my drive. Now on the Time Machine preferences it says that 256 GB are free from 999GB for backups. Now when I subtract that amount from the 300GB gives me the 58GB already on the drive but I'm aback as to why the Time Machine preferences still displays the full capacity of the drive since momentarily when I had done the change it only displayed the 300GB limit but on a subsequent reboot came back with 999GB capacity.You should be fine.
I'm not clear from how you worded this what you are seeing, but normally all the pref pane would show is the space set aside for TM backups. So if you have limited it to say 300GB on the router, that pane would show 300GB. This is how it works with locally attached disks that have been partitioned anyway. I have not tested it with an Asus router to be sure, but I would think it would work the same way.
Glad to help.
I'm guessing a bit because I'm not sure how Asus is dividing up that space, but it does not sound like the router is making another partition, but rather in software just limiting the space that can be used for Time Machine.
It seems that that is sundered the case as far as I have been able to check out. What I can't seem to do is move files over to the networked drive that I'm also using for backups since the finder doesn't allow me to create folders or anything else for example. Is there a setting somewhere that I have to enable or something ? I'm authenticating just fine with my credentials but I don't understand what gives?
I'm sorry, I am not familiar at all with how Asus handles external drives like this or even if you are supposed to be able to create folders there from Finder. If you can't figure it out from the Asus documentation, you might try asking over at the Smallnetbuilder forums... they have a section on Asus routers and people there seem helpful. Maybe someone there would know the answer.
http://www.snbforums.com/forums/asus-ac-routers-adapters.47/