Since my Mac computers are now all running High Sierra, it seems TimeMachine over AFP is no longer supported. Doing a bit of research, I found that the 6.4rc's had added support for TimeMachine over SMB via the inclusion of the 'FULLSYNC' patch for SAMBA.. So, I've updated to the 6.4.0-rc18f build, 'fixed' my cache drive (had to move data, reformat it, restore data) and set about trying to get TimeMachine backups to work via SMB.. and this is where I'm having the issue. Is there any special options I'm meant to set? TimeMachine doesn't see any compatible shares, and when I try to set it manually using tmutil, im told the share/disk doesn't support TimeMachine.

 

Any clues?

Time Machine backups to network destinations via AFP are supported by High Sierra. However, APFS-formatted volumes cannot be exported using AFP. So, if the destination of your Time Machine backups is to an APFS-formatted volume then you have to use SMB or NFS as the network protocol. You can still use AFP to backup your High Sierra-running Macs to unRAID or other NAS - I use a Western Digital MyCloud for that very purpose.

 

If you really want to use SMB to backup your Mac to unRAID you might find this thread useful. There is a little confusion at one point between APFS (Apple's new file system) and AFP (Apple's old network protocol) via the non-existent "AFPS", though.

My Mac(s) are all using APFS as their filesystem, which (as far as im aware) means they can't be backed up to an AFP share. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

What I am looking to do is backup my APFS-formatted Macs to an unRAID share, and I have been lead to believe this must be done via SMB.

 

Does anyone know the magic settings required to make TimeMachine see the SMB share as a valid target?

As a potential customer (evaluating the trial currently), I'd also like to know this.

 

All my Mac's are using APFS for their file system so being able to back them up to unRaid via Time Machine over SMB would be superb.

1 hour ago, wishie said:

My Mac(s) are all using APFS as their filesystem, which (as far as im aware) means they can't be backed up to an AFP share. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

With respect, I believe you're wrong. See here.

 

Specifically this: 

Quote

You don't need to change any Time Machine settings to back up APFS-formatted disks.

 

In other words, they are not treated any differently from HFS+ formatted disks from the point of view of backing them up or restoring them with Time Machine.

 

However this

Quote

Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP.

 

is potentially confusing and in the context it would be better written as "Any APFS-formatted Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP." because in the previous section, entitled "APFS and file sharing" it has already pointed out that

Quote

Volumes formatted as APFS can't offer share points over the network using AFP. 

 

I haven't successfully been able to do any backups to unRAID since moving to High Sierra (and APFS). Perhaps its just co-incidence? In any event, using SMB would be better than AFP (for me, at least) as the ONLY reason I export anything with AFP, is for Time Machine backups.

The wording on that Apple page is not the best.. It could be interpreted a few ways..

On its own "Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP." sounds like SMB is required.

Edited January 2, 20188 yr by wishie

I am successfully backing up my mac 10.13.3 Beta (17D25b) on Unraid 6.4.0-rc9f, though I did have issues and a restart of my Mac (I restarted unraid also) fixed it but the reboot included, updating to another High Sierra Beta so.....? I really don't know the cause, I did read that having multiple AFP shares can cause issue so I disabled the only other one that I wasn't using. Before some of the other Beta's I had no issues so I put it down to macOS at this point in time. 

17 hours ago, wishie said:

The wording on that Apple page is not the best.. It could be interpreted a few ways..

On its own "Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP." sounds like SMB is required.

 

Yes. That's what I said. But that sentence in isolation is not true because, historically, Time Machine share points have required AFP. It has to be taken in the context of the article, which is about APFS volumes, which can't be shared via AFP.

9 hours ago, bagg3rs said:

I did read that having multiple AFP shares can cause issue

 

You can have multiple AFP user shares without causing any problems. What I would avoid is using both AFP and SMB protocols with any given Time Machine-enabled share.

 

I have had much more success with AFP since moving the Netatalk database off of the hard disks in my unRAID array and keeping them on my cache SSD pool instead. See here.