MacOS – Network Time Machine backups, OS X vs. OS X Server

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I'm trying to back up several notebook Macs in an office. I'm currently trying to backup various iterations of OS X (Snow Leopard through Mavericks) on client machines to a central Mac Mini running regular (non-server) Mavericks over a wireless network. I'm able to get the initial backups established, but I'm having difficulty getting subsequent incremental backups to connect consistently–some work and some don't. Will installing OS X server on the Mini (and enabling the Time Machine server) improve the ability of client machines to successfully connect and complete incremental backups?

Best Answer

Yes. OS X Server specifically includes the Time Machine Server software that makes it easier for Time Machine backups from machines on your network to reach, wakeup and perform their Time Machine backups to the server using native Time Machine data transfer protocols.

OS X Server can act as a designated Time Machine backup location for all the Mac computers on your network. Centralizing your backup storage helps protect valuable data and free up disk space on individual drives. And it eliminates the need for separate backup drives altogether. OS X Server also takes advantage of Time Machine to back up your server data — including shared files, calendars, mail, wikis, and more — to another hard drive, so you can easily restore to an earlier configuration. And you can view the backup status for each Mac on your network, as well as which computers and users are backing up to your server, when they last backed up, and the total size of each backup.

It is the only officially supported way for performing Mac-to-Mac Time Machine backups by Apple.

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