NAS for Enterprise and Timemachine compatible

[carmelolopez]

Hi,

I have 700+ macs that need timemachine backup (around 1TB each), but we have NetApp that is not AFP2+ compatible.
Anyone has a solution that is scalable and Enterprise oriented for Mac backups in-house?
Thanks

Carmelo Lopez

[mconners]

Hello @carmelolopez interesting timing to your post. I too am considering this and yesterday, I was talking with an engineer at Other World Computing about the Jupiter line of enterprise storage. One of the interesting pieces I was told, their entire staff of Mac users use this storage for time machine backups. I would look into it. I spoke with Rich there and he can certainly help out.

[carmelolopez]

So there's no easy way to use NetApp? apart from using CIFS?
And the solution is always local storage on a mac or AFP2+ NAS?

Best
Carmelo

[mconners]

To be honest @carmelolopez I am not certain. This is kind of foreign to me.

I know I have the same goals as you and this would be a huge step for us. Although NetApp is here at our college campus too, I haven't found an easy way to use it for macOS specific functions. Our Mac people are certainly accessing shares on NetApp, but to natively use it for TimeMachine or other Mac deployment pieces, I really haven't found a way to use it.

[carmelolopez]

Hi,
I managed to make it using CIFS for connecting and using the normal SMB share TM backup way:

1- Create a sparsebundle with the Max space you want to have, put it on the Shared Volume under NetApp, mount the volume with CIFS, select it as TM backup and so on

But this is too much work , since each user has to log in with their credentials (quota issues).

So we would have to end up looking into QNAP extra storage or OWC. But if anyone else has another solution that is not cloud base Im all ears.

Thanks.

C.

[Cornoir]

Synology might be the best backup choice, both Synology and NetApp got top reviews and I have used Synolgy in the past for large Mac environments with little to no issues (nothing in the past 2 years though).

[Taylor_Armstron]

I'd throw my vote to Synology as well. That being said, I still argue that using TimeMachine for enterprise-level backups is just asking for trouble. I'll use it at home, but not a chance I'd touch it in the office for anything vital.

[rderewianko]

I'll second the don't use time machine in the enterprise you're just begging to have a bad time..
Look at solutions like crashplan backblaze or other solutions.
Teach your users to back their files up to whatever cloud vendor you utilize for online storage.
Try and get away from using time machine. You'll thank yourself later.

[carmelolopez]

I am trying to get out, since TM backup still relies on AFP and Apple never moved away. Been waiting for them to kill this sh.. protocol since 10.9 .

Anyway I might end up using Synology if I Can get nice price and my boss agrees. My costumers are scientist and cloud wont be a solution since the data they have is quite sensitive so we want to keep it in-house.

Best,

C.

[Aguiness]

Hi why not use rsync you could write a script to sync the required file you won't need to backup apps or the system just the required files

[Cornoir]

I recommend rsync as well, I used to make a DMG backup image so the end user could quickly mount the backup locally (I also copied it to the backup Mail share folder so it would get backed up via tape).

[jasonhollis]

I'm using SMB only with my Qnap for TMBackup and it works like a champion. I'm currently backing up 5.3 gigs in the background over wifi whist I write this message.

https://www.qnap.com/en/how-to/tutorial/article/using-time-machine-to-back-up-your-mac-to-a-qnap-nas-via-smb

You might want to take a look at the URL above. I suspect that you can make most of these changes on your NetApp filer. You could also just setup a big Qnap. I've been using them since 2004 with my Macs and they are rock solid. You could also probably use a Qnap as a font end to your NetApp via iSCSCI, NFS, or SMB. But I definitely have mine setup to support my normal SMB user space/permissions for TimeMachine for multiple users. I move hundreds of gigs a day via this method.

[carmelolopez]

I finally decided to move to AFP only and Synology device.

NetApp didn't support this and was having issues.

Rsync was also an idea but since we had budget we decided to go for the Synology NAS .

And so far happy.