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I have a Samba NAS that I would like to be able to backup to using Timeshift. I am able to mount it to a folder via cifs-utils, but it does not show as an available local drive in timeshift. Mounting it in the /timeshift folder does nothing either, timeshift copies to the local folder instead of the network one.

Is there a way to mount the NAS as a local drive so Timeshift can find it and backup to it?

James Palmer
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    As far as I know, TS only works with Linux partitions, and uses rsync or BTRFS snapshots. See https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift – heynnema May 03 '20 at 23:23
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    My NAS is using an ext4 formatted drive, though – James Palmer May 03 '20 at 23:26
  • Yes, but you're accessing it via SMB or CIFS, yes? If you connect the drive directly to your PC it'll work. – heynnema May 03 '20 at 23:26
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    I know, but I would like to be able to have it backup over the network, instead of having to connect a drive every time to backup. My laptop also doesn't have enough space to locally store backups. – James Palmer May 03 '20 at 23:28
  • Your last sentence confuses me. No local space is used. – heynnema May 03 '20 at 23:30
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    Yes, but I would like to automatically backup over wireless, instead of directly connecting the drive to my laptop – James Palmer May 03 '20 at 23:41
  • Backup over wireless?!? I wouldn't trust backups done over wireless. I know... Apple did it... but they don't make those Time Machine base stations any more... – heynnema May 03 '20 at 23:44
  • In the end I used Ubuntu's included deja dup, backing up to the mounted NAS, which works fine for my purposes. – James Palmer May 08 '20 at 05:32
  • Thanks for the update! Glad you found a working solution. – heynnema May 08 '20 at 13:37
  • I still can't find any reasoning or workaround for this. My SMB mount is a SATA hard disk and the device I'm trying to back up is a low power semi-embedded device with only a single USB-C port, so no option for a physical connection. – user2561747 May 08 '23 at 09:14
  • I don't understand the incredulity of backing up over wireless, it's not like latency spikes would pose a problem. Time machine over wireless to Ubuntu SMB server has been BY FAR the most reliable backup and restore tool I've ever used. – user2561747 May 08 '23 at 09:19
  • I'm thinking of simply backing up to the local disk and copying over the resulting snapshot files to the SMB server after Timeshift finishes. But this will only work while <50% disk usage, and even at 49% there won't be much free working space... – user2561747 May 08 '23 at 09:26
  • Hi, it's been a while, after trying every backup program here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Synchronization_and_backup_programs I found that while it doesn't have a GUI, restic has been by far the best and most reliable backup tool for me. If you aren't restricted to timeshift backups, setting up a recurring restic backup through cron could be a solution. You could mount the SMB share as a folder or as an rclone destination to then backup to for restic. – James Palmer May 09 '23 at 08:12
  • Thanks! I was also thinking of trying Borg. – user2561747 May 09 '23 at 22:40

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