Need Recommendation: Mac client backup software

[simonmason]

After many trials and tribulations I have come to the conclusion that Time Machine on the Mac simply doesn't work on MacBooks that are connected through wifi most of the time. If you leave it plugged into an ethernet connection and turned on all of the time - it would probably work. However, if you use it as intended - as a laptop on wifi - it doesn't work.

Does anyone have any recommendations on a Mac backup client that I could use with my MacBooks to back them up to the FreeNAS server that might actually work? Thanks.

 

[cyberjock]

If the problem is the wifi is disconnecting(which is what it sound like) using a different backup client will change nothing. Having that reliable network connection for the entire time you are running your backup is pretty much universally required everywhere.

 

[simonmason]

I should have been more specific. The issue is with the way Time Machine handles the fact that a particular laptop disconnects and reconnects. It is supposed to stop backing up (naturally) and then recommence upon network hookup. This is a capability that is a must for mobile users. However, in the process of disconnecting and reconnecting, with FreeNAS in particular, it very quickly determines that the backup file is corrupted (which it is not) and therefore insists on recreating the backup from scratch and losing all of the history. This does not happen with external USB drives that I connect and reconnect to the laptops - it is something unique to FreeNAS. Under another post I have done a lot of troubleshooting with this - it appears that restarting AFS once a day does sort of reset Time Machine into thinking that the backup file is not corrupt - but even this is not 100%. I am hoping there are other backup clients that will deal with this more gracefully?

 

[cyberjock]

I'm not sure if Time Machine is supposed to gracefully handle the backups. I'm not a Mac user but I am unaware of any backup software that lets you suspend and then restart a backup when you lose your wifi connection. Part of the problem with network disconnects is that it is actually impossible to easily identify what packets made it to the destination if the destination wasn't given an opportunity to respond that it did receive them.

I do know that some people have said that Time Machine backups are being corrupted when stored on a FreeNAS machine but not on other devices. One of our mods uses Mac and he said he's never had the problem with backups being corrupted aside from his own foolishness. So I have to think this is something with user-error or related. But as I don't own a Mac and don't know anything about Time Machine I can't provide much more help than that.

 

[simonmason]

It definitely does appear to be an issue that is limited (for the most part) to FreeNAS. The Time Machine app was clearly designed to allow for the laptop to be on and off the network. It automatically runs hourly snapshots - so they clearly take into consideration the fact that people open and close their laptops during the day. I am only assuming that the process of disconnecting - perhaps when an hourly snapshot is running - causes it to think the backup is corrupted. As I said - this does not happen with other storage devices. I have seen some threads about issues with the Apple Airport - but not like FreeNAS. Now that I am writing this - another backup client may be more reliable if it only works at night - as I know the laptops are plugged in (for the most part) and the backup can run without interruption?

 

[DaPlumber]

Time Machine is pretty reliable and I'm using multiple Macs with it to my FreeNAS box. I've had the corruption issue that you mentioned before, even with Apple's own Time Capsule. The reason, as you guessed, is the network disconnect. While Time Machine does a good job with interrupted backups and restarts, the underlying filesystem is the problem. Basically Time Machine needs a full blown HFS+ filesystem to work, you can read here for some limitations of HFS+. On top of that in order to guarantee TM gets a full HFS+ filesystem to work with it create a sparse bundle on whatever it's storing the backups on. So if HFS+ flakes out OR your Wi-Fi drops while writing one of those 8MB bundles, you have a corrupted HFS+ filesystem. TM does do some automated repair work and some clever things with Time Capsules to minimize the damage, but it's still a problem. TM has also had issues with when the underlying filesystem it's storing the image on is running out of space/hitting quota although it's better than it used to be.

You can look here: http://pondini.org/TM/A5b.html for a guide to repairing the TM filesystem image, it's the same no matter how the bundle is stored. Ironically the one place it's very difficult to repair is a Time Capsule, because getting access to the underlying sparse bundle image is a PITA.

Bottom line: IMO you need to fix your Wi-Fi...

I have multiple MacBooks happily backing up with Time Machine to multiple destinations simultaneously, including FreeNAS. They do it via Gigabit Ethernet if at a desk, or via Wi-Fi when elsewhere including the sort-of-wake-from-sleep sessions. You don't say what version of OS X you're running and that can also make a difference as there have been a raft of TM patches and improvements over the last few versions. As of June 2014 I'd suggest the current Mavericks 10.9.3 if you can.

One last suggestion: turn the AFP service off and on again on the FreeNAS box to force the Macbook to redo all it's AFP connections and see if that avoids the "corrupted" issue.

 

[c32767a]

I should have been more specific. The issue is with the way Time Machine handles the fact that a particular laptop disconnects and reconnects. It is supposed to stop backing up (naturally) and then recommence upon network hookup. This is a capability that is a must for mobile users. However, in the process of disconnecting and reconnecting, with FreeNAS in particular, it very quickly determines that the backup file is corrupted (which it is not) and therefore insists on recreating the backup from scratch and losing all of the history. This does not happen with external USB drives that I connect and reconnect to the laptops - it is something unique to FreeNAS. Under another post I have done a lot of troubleshooting with this - it appears that restarting AFS once a day does sort of reset Time Machine into thinking that the backup file is not corrupt - but even this is not 100%. I am hoping there are other backup clients that will deal with this more gracefully?

The family has 5 laptops that come and go and are connected to wifi (802.11n via Aruba Instant APs) intermittently. They all successfully use time machine to back up via AFP to a FreeNAS box.
About once a quarter or so, one of them throws the corrupt image/redo backup error, but it's very uncommon. 99% of the time things "just work".

 

[diedrichg]

To answer your first question in your op: I use Goodsync on my wife's two MacBooks. I can select which folders to backup and where I want them backed up. There are about10 different ways to connect to different services. It works great and it was worth the money. I only paid for one license but it allowed me to register it on both computers. I definitely recommend it. Goodsync worked great for her because she was able to go to a cafe, save her document and by setting Goodsync to look for file changes every 5 seconds; her document was instantly backed up to FreeNAS. It was the perfect backup and disaster prevention.

 

[simonmason]

I have ordered a new AP - it was something I was planning to do anyway. The frustrating part is that when the image is reported as corrupted (which is happening far more than once a quarter for me at present) then it has to complete a full backup. This invariably doesn't complete without plugging the computers into a wired ethernet connection - it simply takes too long over wifi. So this means that I have to educate the users to plug in when this situation arises and let it complete. I forgot to mention - the users are my teenage daughters - so this is not easy!

 

[fracai]

A solution that I've used with the corrupted backup / start over issue is ZFS snapshots. Basically, you can check the system log (search for backupd) and find the last TimeMachine backup session that completed successfully. Then find a ZFS snapshot that occurred between that last successful backup and the next backup that failed. Roll back to that snapshot. This might require going back a few backup sessions if you can't find a snapshot that occurred between backups.

I've used this method several times and only had it fail to produce a valid sparse image once or twice. I've also not had to do this in quite a while; it seems like my AFP / TM / WiFi / FreeNAS combination has been more stable lately.

It's also been my experience that TimeMachine backups complete very quickly (usually no more than a minute or two). If yours are taking a long time you should look at what is being backed up each time. You may be able to exclude some directories to speed up your backup. Also, check your wireless network. Hopefully the AP you bought supports N or even better AC speeds. That should help as well.

 

[diedrichg]

This sounds like a bug. Maybe you two should collaborate to write a bug report.

 

[fracai]

I'm sure Apple could do something to improve things, but there's the difficulty of knowing what was changed on the remote side when the network went down. It's likely this would require a network journal and I'm not sure if any file service provides that.

 

[DaPlumber]

I have ordered a new AP - it was something I was planning to do anyway. The frustrating part is that when the image is reported as corrupted (which is happening far more than once a quarter for me at present) then it has to complete a full backup. This invariably doesn't complete without plugging the computers into a wired ethernet connection - it simply takes too long over wifi. So this means that I have to educate the users to plug in when this situation arises and let it complete. I forgot to mention - the users are my teenage daughters - so this is not easy!

Yeah, filesystem repair tends to be an I/O intensive process that's best not done over Wi-Fi. Ditto for full backups. I like the ZFS snapshot idea, that should cut down on the I/O somewhat.

Captain Obvious question: Have you done a channel scan to see how "noisy" your Wi-Fi neighborhood is? (Click the wifi icon on the menu bar with the Option key pressed. On the bottom of the list, you have "Open Wireless Diagnostics...") Any elderly microwaves in the vicinity, etc...

 

[DaPlumber]

I'm sure Apple could do something to improve things, but there's the difficulty of knowing what was changed on the remote side when the network went down. It's likely this would require a network journal and I'm not sure if any file service provides that.

Yeah it's not like Apple was considering ZFS and snapshots would have been an easy fix for this. Oh wait...

 

[fracai]

I almost wrote regarding Apple and ZFS, but then stopped when I started to consider what would be required to exclude files from snapshots. Apple is taking their own path with CoreStorage. Here's hoping it at least gets to the same continent as ZFS resides.