ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance • Hacker News Board

ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#1

Post by picture » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 8:59 PM UTC

ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance
tomverbeure.github.io

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#2

Post by beering » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:47 PM UTC

Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#3

Post by jamesy0ung » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

beering wrote: post #2

Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff.

Yes, although Apple is deprecating AFP and now allows backup over SMB

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#4

Post by tverbeure » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

beering wrote: post #2

Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff.

Yes.

There is nothing special about this, other than personally finding out that I could replace my failing Time Capsule for something so cheap.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#5

Post by toomuchtodo » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

jamesy0ung wrote: post #3

beering wrote: post #2

Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff.

Yes, although Apple is deprecating AFP and now allows backup over SMB

A shame they still haven’t implemented the ability to target iCloud.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#6

Post by mberning » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

Synology has nice support for time machine backups. Very easy to set up in DSM.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#7

Post by housemusicfan » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

beering wrote: post #2

Is netatalk the key thing here that makes it Time Machine compatible? The rest seems like standard DIY home server stuff.

Yeah this is as pointless as every "life hack" on YouTube. Haven't you been able to Time Machine backup to any HFS-formatted sparse bundle since forever? Located on literally ANY samba server - Windows, Linux, or ye olde NAS. I have personally done this for years. I don't get the novelty here unless you're into the "I built a submarine with parts I got off eBay" angle.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#8

Post by scorxn » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

I have a Raspberry Pi running Pi-hole and Time Machine, making that little board probably the best value piece of tech I've ever owned. https://saschaeggi.medium.com/use-a-raspberry-pi-4-for-time-... is what I followed.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#9

Post by murphyslaw » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:09 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #6

Synology has nice support for time machine backups. Very easy to set up in DSM.

Yh, and even they can't get it right. You lose connectivity once in a while and the only way to recover is to erase the backup and start over.

I came here to see if someone had built a macos native time machine, but this looks like just another hack.

Re: ThinMachine – A $25 thin client macOS Time Machine appliance

#10

Post by pridkett » Sun, Jun 25, 2023, 10:12 PM UTC

mberning wrote: post #6

Synology has nice support for time machine backups. Very easy to set up in DSM.

A superpower of doing Time Machine backups to a Synology is that you can put it on a BTRFS drive with automatic snapshotting. About once a year something seems to happen that causes Time Machine to give a “whoopsie, gotta start over from the beginning again!” sort of error. I’ve found that going back a day or two with snapshots on BTRFS fixes the problem.