Backing up to mac server HELP!!

[useraaron321]

Hi we have a number of Macs that we would like to back up as we are getting a new Mac network put in. The trouble we are having is that we want rid of all the unwanted data we have on our current Mac system that students and so on have saved but we need to keep the work that the current students will want back. Our understanding is that if we use Time Machine we will be able to back it up but upon restore it will just dump everything that was backed up back on those computers. Is there any way to back up and choose the files you want to be restored so when a student comes in asking for there work we can just send those files back to there computer rather then restore the computer to an earlier date so to speak? Currently the only way we can think to do this is to go round all the Mac's with a HD and copy the content from each one noting down the computer it came from.

 

Any help would be really appreciated

[TomPearceGeek]

Hey Aaron,

 

Have you considered using Networked home directories rather than having the files located on the Macs?

 

With time machine, you would need to go to the terminal, and go into time machine and just find the file from the right date from within the Time Machine interface, and then Just hit restore. If you need to actually start backing up, you can enable the Time Machine backup service on OSX Server directly, and then just ensure the Time Machine backup drive is shared on the network.

 

If that's all working, you should be able to go to the Terminal and add a new backup disk. Fingers crossed, your time machine share will show in the available disks.

[robjduk]

I was in a similar situation to you a couple of years back and bought a thunderbolt 4TB WD storage device. I networked it from my mac mini server as a network share and copied all the home folders from the iMacs to this device (one folder per machine). It took a few days but it did work for the most part other than a few iMovie files needed to be recreated as it didn't like directory's moving. As a share you can just map it back after your upgrade and say, there you go, find your files.

[robjduk]

something like this would do the job perfectly.

 

LaCie d2 hard drive - 5 TB - USB 3.0 /... | 9000465 | £264.99 | Insight UK

 

if you did do it, may be worth making it read only so they have to drag their work to their new location.