6 ms·

Time Capsule for $25 (Using Raspbery Pi)

43 points by garmoncheg 14y ago

trackofalljades 14y ago
Neat writeup, now please please please search and replace "MAC" with "Mac" so it doesn't look like it's all about Ethernet hardware addressing or cosmetics? ;)
- avree 14y ago
  I was actually thrown off for a second by the capitalization and possessive apostrophes.
  - TheGateKeeper 14y ago
    It's almost like he didn't have a tech literate editor to fix his fuckups.
tesmar2 14y ago
It should be noted that journaling on the HFS volume should be off or the Raspberry pi will not be able to write to it. When I set this up @ home, I formatted the disk in OS X first with journaling off, and then connected it to the RSBPi. Very effective, cheap backup solution. You can also then use crashplan to upload your backups to the cloud as the RSBPi receives them.
pepijndevos 14y ago
Be warned. I used my Raspi with netatalk3 for a while, and it kept corrupting. I reverted to using an external drive on my Mac.
- wch 14y ago
  I second this warning. I've never used a Raspberry Pi, but I've used netatalk for years on a Linux server, and after I upgraded OS X 10.7, my backups to it would get corrupted once every month or two. I think it's not so bad if you have a wired connection, but wireless backups from a laptop (which can get put to sleep at any moment) just aren't reliable, for me at least. Also, it would constantly index my Time Machine backups over wireless, which takes forever and made my Macbook Air's fan turn on. I suspect some of this is due to limitations in netatalk's AFP implementation, but I've never compared to a proper Time Capsule
  - solarexplorer 14y ago
    Same here. Apple changed the AFP protocol in Lion and netatalk had trouble keeping up. But since my last update to netatalk 3.0.1 a month ago I have had no corruption. (I hope they finally got it right!) The initial backup and indexing is very painful indeed, but after that it works smoothly. (and without fan for my MacBook Air)
  - jws 14y ago
    Aside from the nuisance of having to do a full copy, you end up losing your history beyond that point which really hurts when you try to use Time Machine to go back and retrieve something old.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Another part of it is that as far as I know, Linux does not support HFS+ journalling.
a235 14y ago
The actual read/write speed should be awfully slow. His screenshot estimates that 322mb will be transferring 18hours!
- gambiting 14y ago
  I use this and transfer speeds are around 5-6MB/s. That's because both the hard drive and Ethernet share the USB bus. And it's completely fine, took around 6 hours to backup 90GB from my MacBook Air.
  - sebbi 14y ago
    5-6 MB/s is fine? My backup runs with 100+ MB/s and still feels awefully slow :/
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  It is 357GB total that it is backing up that will take 18 hours. :)
  - a235 14y ago
    oh, you'r right, it's my mistake
- agumonkey 14y ago
  laptop backup is done over wifi right ? wouldn't that be the limiting factor ?
solarexplorer 14y ago
There is no need to use the buggy HFS instead of the stable Ext3 on Linux. The backup will be in a disk image anyway...
- TheGateKeeper 14y ago
  Buggy or no, Ext3 is still the better option for linux when doing network shares for other operating systems since it's pretty transparent anyways.
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
"Time Capsule for $25" A naked Raspberry Pi costs $35. Add an enclosure and shipping, it will be closer to $60. That doesn't include storage. Time Capsule contains a 2TB hard disk. The same WD drive retails for $170 at Amazon. That brings our total to $230, for a product that doesn't work nearly as well as a real Time Capsule and for which you won't receive service and support from Apple. Or you can just buy a Time Capsule for $299: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD032/time-capsule-2tb http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD032/time-capsule-2tb
- CrazedGeek 14y ago
  Where are you getting $170 for a 2TB disk? Amazon has 3TB disks for $130.
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    When Hardmac did a teardown of the latest Time Capsule, they found it has a Western Digital WD20EARS hard disk. [0] That drive is listed as $169 MSRP at Amazon. [1] [0] http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/25/updated-time-capsule-opened-server-grade-hard-drive-nowhere-to/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/25/updated-time-capsule-open... [1] http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Desktop-WD20EAR...
    - jws 14y ago
      You might be seeing a premium price for discontinued hardware. The current lineup of WD Green 2TB drives are ~$100. There is no way for me to know if these are lower quality than the previous model or not.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        Good point. I'm curious as to which HDD models Apple uses nowadays for their Time Capsule, that would allow for a better comparison. I couldn't find that information anywhere. By the way, my first generation Time Capsule has a 500GB Seagate Barracuda ES, which used to retail for over $300. http://goo.gl/Yazvn http://goo.gl/Yazvn
stcredzero 14y ago
Time capsules of any sort just aren't so useful anymore. They work fine most of the time, but they get inconvenient when you have to reinstall or migrate to a new machine. If you end up doing so and have to re-establish your backup, it might take 12 or 18 hours or more to do that! Add in the Time Machine memory leak, and Time Machine/Capsule no longer makes much sense.
gambiting 14y ago
Two weeks too late, I set my Raspberry Pi to serve as a Time Machine all by myself using Raspbian, and boy, it was a massive pain. As for people saying that the complete setup is almost as expensive as an actual TimeCapsule - yes,but then I had a spare 500GB drive laying around,and had no special use for my Raspberry Pi. Thanks to this both of them are used on a daily basis.
runjake 14y ago
You could rig up something similar for Windows 8 using this hardware, Samba, and Windows 8's File History [1] feature, which is similar to Time Machine. 1. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8Step0TurnOnContinuousBackupsViaFileHistory.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8Step0TurnOnContinuousB...
- lloeki 14y ago
  While a useful feature, it's only remotely similar in that it keeps an incremental history of selected user folders, whereas Time Machine backups all files and gives you a 1:1 (file-level, as opposed to block-level, like dd/carbon-copy-cloner/ghost) image of your computer, including the OS.
sciurus 14y ago
Great timing on this post! It reminded me to check on the status of OpenWRT 12.09, and I see that the first release candidate came out a week ago ago. 12.09 includes a netatalk 3 package. If like me you have a wireless router with USB ports, OpenWRT should provide a great platform for building your own "time capsule".

43 points by garmoncheg 14y ago

Neat writeup, now please please please search and replace "MAC" with "Mac" so it doesn't look like it's all about Ethernet hardware addressing or cosmetics? ;)

avree 14y ago
I was actually thrown off for a second by the capitalization and possessive apostrophes.
- TheGateKeeper 14y ago
  It's almost like he didn't have a tech literate editor to fix his fuckups.

tesmar2 14y ago

It should be noted that journaling on the HFS volume should be off or the Raspberry pi will not be able to write to it. When I set this up @ home, I formatted the disk in OS X first with journaling off, and then connected it to the RSBPi. Very effective, cheap backup solution. You can also then use crashplan to upload your backups to the cloud as the RSBPi receives them.

pepijndevos 14y ago

Be warned. I used my Raspi with netatalk3 for a while, and it kept corrupting. I reverted to using an external drive on my Mac.

wch 14y ago
I second this warning. I've never used a Raspberry Pi, but I've used netatalk for years on a Linux server, and after I upgraded OS X 10.7, my backups to it would get corrupted once every month or two. I think it's not so bad if you have a wired connection, but wireless backups from a laptop (which can get put to sleep at any moment) just aren't reliable, for me at least. Also, it would constantly index my Time Machine backups over wireless, which takes forever and made my Macbook Air's fan turn on. I suspect some of this is due to limitations in netatalk's AFP implementation, but I've never compared to a proper Time Capsule
- solarexplorer 14y ago
  Same here. Apple changed the AFP protocol in Lion and netatalk had trouble keeping up. But since my last update to netatalk 3.0.1 a month ago I have had no corruption. (I hope they finally got it right!) The initial backup and indexing is very painful indeed, but after that it works smoothly. (and without fan for my MacBook Air)
- jws 14y ago
  Aside from the nuisance of having to do a full copy, you end up losing your history beyond that point which really hurts when you try to use Time Machine to go back and retrieve something old.
lloeki 14y ago
Another part of it is that as far as I know, Linux does not support HFS+ journalling.

a235 14y ago

The actual read/write speed should be awfully slow. His screenshot estimates that 322mb will be transferring 18hours!

gambiting 14y ago
I use this and transfer speeds are around 5-6MB/s. That's because both the hard drive and Ethernet share the USB bus. And it's completely fine, took around 6 hours to backup 90GB from my MacBook Air.
- sebbi 14y ago
  5-6 MB/s is fine? My backup runs with 100+ MB/s and still feels awefully slow :/
res0nat0r 14y ago
It is 357GB total that it is backing up that will take 18 hours. :)
- a235 14y ago
  oh, you'r right, it's my mistake
agumonkey 14y ago
laptop backup is done over wifi right ? wouldn't that be the limiting factor ?

solarexplorer 14y ago

There is no need to use the buggy HFS instead of the stable Ext3 on Linux. The backup will be in a disk image anyway...

TheGateKeeper 14y ago
Buggy or no, Ext3 is still the better option for linux when doing network shares for other operating systems since it's pretty transparent anyways.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago

"Time Capsule for $25" A naked Raspberry Pi costs $35. Add an enclosure and shipping, it will be closer to $60. That doesn't include storage. Time Capsule contains a 2TB hard disk. The same WD drive retails for $170 at Amazon. That brings our total to $230, for a product that doesn't work nearly as well as a real Time Capsule and for which you won't receive service and support from Apple. Or you can just buy a Time Capsule for $299: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD032/time-capsule-2tb http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD032/time-capsule-2tb

CrazedGeek 14y ago
Where are you getting $170 for a 2TB disk? Amazon has 3TB disks for $130.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  When Hardmac did a teardown of the latest Time Capsule, they found it has a Western Digital WD20EARS hard disk. [0] That drive is listed as $169 MSRP at Amazon. [1] [0] http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/25/updated-time-capsule-opened-server-grade-hard-drive-nowhere-to/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/25/updated-time-capsule-open... [1] http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Desktop-WD20EARS/dp/B002ZCXK0I http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Desktop-WD20EAR...
  - jws 14y ago
    You might be seeing a premium price for discontinued hardware. The current lineup of WD Green 2TB drives are ~$100. There is no way for me to know if these are lower quality than the previous model or not.
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      Good point. I'm curious as to which HDD models Apple uses nowadays for their Time Capsule, that would allow for a better comparison. I couldn't find that information anywhere. By the way, my first generation Time Capsule has a 500GB Seagate Barracuda ES, which used to retail for over $300. http://goo.gl/Yazvn http://goo.gl/Yazvn

stcredzero 14y ago

Time capsules of any sort just aren't so useful anymore. They work fine most of the time, but they get inconvenient when you have to reinstall or migrate to a new machine. If you end up doing so and have to re-establish your backup, it might take 12 or 18 hours or more to do that! Add in the Time Machine memory leak, and Time Machine/Capsule no longer makes much sense.

gambiting 14y ago

Two weeks too late, I set my Raspberry Pi to serve as a Time Machine all by myself using Raspbian, and boy, it was a massive pain. As for people saying that the complete setup is almost as expensive as an actual TimeCapsule - yes,but then I had a spare 500GB drive laying around,and had no special use for my Raspberry Pi. Thanks to this both of them are used on a daily basis.

runjake 14y ago

You could rig up something similar for Windows 8 using this hardware, Samba, and Windows 8's File History [1] feature, which is similar to Time Machine. 1. http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8Step0TurnOnContinuousBackupsViaFileHistory.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8Step0TurnOnContinuousB...

lloeki 14y ago
While a useful feature, it's only remotely similar in that it keeps an incremental history of selected user folders, whereas Time Machine backups all files and gives you a 1:1 (file-level, as opposed to block-level, like dd/carbon-copy-cloner/ghost) image of your computer, including the OS.

sciurus 14y ago

Great timing on this post! It reminded me to check on the status of OpenWRT 12.09, and I see that the first release candidate came out a week ago ago. 12.09 includes a netatalk 3 package. If like me you have a wireless router with USB ports, OpenWRT should provide a great platform for building your own "time capsule".