I am planning to upgrade all of the computers in my house... going with iMac and a MBP after the next line of upgrades. As a non Mac user currently I wonder about the reliability of Time Machine. I intend to network a couple of TB's of networked storage using a Drobo unit. I would ideally keep my itunes library on either my iMac or my Drobo and share it but also use the network storage for Time Machine on Both computers....
1) Is this possible.... can a single network storage solution be used for two separate computer's time machine files?
2) If either computer actually completely breaks down and I am forced to start over with a new Mac or a completely new hard drive for one of the Mac's can I restore that new computer or new drive using Time Machine files stored off on a network drive? Or, are there some reference files on the original computer/drive that must be present in order to "find" the correct backup files to reload. In other words, how good is Time Machine really? If someone steals you laptop, can you restore another one using your networked time machine backup???
As a windows user I just make redundant backups of files / folders. I assume that those files / folders won't be really discernible on the network storage as individual files and this will require a time machine equipped computer to restore them.
1) Is this possible.... can a single network storage solution be used for two separate computer's time machine files?
2) If either computer actually completely breaks down and I am forced to start over with a new Mac or a completely new hard drive for one of the Mac's can I restore that new computer or new drive using Time Machine files stored off on a network drive? Or, are there some reference files on the original computer/drive that must be present in order to "find" the correct backup files to reload. In other words, how good is Time Machine really? If someone steals you laptop, can you restore another one using your networked time machine backup???
As a windows user I just make redundant backups of files / folders. I assume that those files / folders won't be really discernible on the network storage as individual files and this will require a time machine equipped computer to restore them.
