I've got 3 computers that I want to be able to use Time Machine for backups. I'm not sure the best way to set this up with unRaid? Since I don't want one machine to be able to fill all the space I was thinking of setting 3 separate shares, each would just be a small space reserved on 3 separate disks (one disk per share). And then I could assign the remainder of each disk to my primary (XBMC media) share.

 

Normally I would just have set 3 partitions on a single disk, but I don't see a way to do this with unRaid. Does this look proper? Maybe there is a better way? I want to make sure I get these settings right to start so that I don't lose anything if a disk fails or I replace it with a bigger one.

You can't partition the disks in unRAID.

Here's what I do with my TM:

1. I set up a User Share called 'DaleTimeMachine'

2. I make sure its on ONE physical disk ONLY. (use INCLUDE setting).

3. Do NOT enable the cache drive for this share.

4. I've got minimum free space in the SHare Setting set at 10Gig...but that's to make sure that TM doesn't totally fill the disk.

 

You should be able to backup multiple TM's to the same disk using this mechanism. Give EACH a unique share name and point them at the same Physical disk with INCLUDE.  IF for example, you point 3 TM's at the same disk, they'll all back up...and when the physical disk is full, as each TM updates, it will delete the oldest stuff for that user.  ((or point each TM share at a separate disk if that's what you want.)

 

Note that if one user is constantly changing stuff, his TM backup will consume lots and lots of space...if you want to ensure that user#2 and user#3 have space available then they'd have to be on separate physical disks.

 

Even though you INCLUDE a physical disk in the TM share definition, that same physical disk can still be used by other shares (movies, etc.)...you'll have to 'manage' that yourself. One thing that I *think* will work, but have not personally tried is this strategy:

1. Set up a TM share and a Movie Share.

2. Give the TM share a minimum free space of 1GIG

3. Give the movie share a minimum of 100 GIG.

That should result in about 90Gig of TM space 'reserved' and not being available to the Movies Share.

 

Even though you INCLUDE a physical disk in the TM share definition, that same physical disk can still be used by other shares (movies, etc.)...you'll have to 'manage' that yourself. One thing that I *think* will work, but have not personally tried is this strategy:

1. Set up a TM share and a Movie Share.

2. Give the TM share a minimum free space of 1GIG

3. Give the movie share a minimum of 100 GIG.

That should result in about 90Gig of TM space 'reserved' and not being available to the Movies Share.

 

 

If I do it like this then every disk in the Movies Share would have 100 Gig of empty space though correct. The 100G would probably be more like 500G in my case. Would amount to a lot of wasted space if there are 8 or 10 disks in the share. This was basically what I was planning on doing but now I'm not sure. Would be much better if I could set min free space for individual disks. I guess I'll probably set it up like yours. One disk for all 3 machines and just use the disk for TM backups (no movies). Sorta makes me wish I had built a 24 bay unRaid instead of just 12.

Agree about the potential of 'wasted' space...but not sure that's relevant if the TM is going to use the difference between 100-10 anyway.

 

SOMEWHERE, and I'm sorry I can't find it, I think there's a TM thread that says, no matter what you have as 'minimum free space', when TM starts running, if it needs more space, and the space is available, it will use it.

That is, after TM starts running, if free space falls to, say '5 gig', it doesn't matter...TM will continue to write to the sparse.bundle. Its only if it runs out of space that it will then actually delete old data.  but that's from memory and I could very well be 100% off and completely wrong.  Might also have seen the discussion on the Apple forums...TM to a NAS is a popular topic over there, too.

 

 

 

I use SMB for EVERYTHING Mac, EXCEPT TimeMachine...there are threads suggesting that the iTUNES music library prefers AFP, but I can't confirm that.

Create a share for each client. Set TimeMachine volume size limit for each share. Limit each share to a single disk. The Min free space setting is not important since the maximum size is limited.