Enable Time Machine backup to Samba (Windows) Shared Network Volume

 

To enable Time Machine backup across a network, simply open Terminal and type in the following. You will need admin privileges and to type in your password.

sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

To disable Time Machine backup across a network, open terminal and type in the following. 

sudo defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 0

OS X 10.5.3 Update breaks Time Machine backup with “cannot mount volume” error

I am using Leopard Server and was happily backing up to a Leopard Client. (Yes, my server is backing up to a Firewire mounted external volume on an OS X client machine, shared over ethernet with AFP!!)

After months of trouble free operation, I upgraded both to 10.5.3 and got the “cannot mount volume” error.

I tried several times, but it would time out with an exclamation mark icon after a few minutes, each time.

• I switched off Time Machine
• Disabled file sharing on the client
• Reset the Client
• Switched AFP sharing back on
• Manually mounted the .sparsebundle once on the server – It mounted fine.
• I then reenabled Time Machine, ran the “backup now” option.

In my case, the above steps fixed the problem. I now have hourly backups working again.