Time Machine and ext HDD connected to Airport Ext

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I have and Airport Extreme with 1TB built in HDD. I also have a 3TB WD external HDD attached to the Airport router. 2008 MacBook with all software up to date

I have my iTunes and Aperture library lined to the WD drive through the Airport router.

My TimeMachine backup is set to the Airport router internal drive.

When I I do the TM backup, it does not look like it is touching the iTunes or Aperture library. Nothing is excluded in the list, iTunes and Aperture are not running. Even when I go to exclude the Movie folder, the iTunes and Aperture folders are greyed out.

Can I do a TM backup with this config?

Thanks
 
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I have and Airport Extreme with 1TB built in HDD. I also have a 3TB WD external HDD attached to the Airport router. 2008 MacBook with all software up to date

I have my iTunes and Aperture library lined to the WD drive through the Airport router.

My TimeMachine backup is set to the Airport router internal drive.

When I I do the TM backup, it does not look like it is touching the iTunes or Aperture library. Nothing is excluded in the list, iTunes and Aperture are not running. Even when I go to exclude the Movie folder, the iTunes and Aperture folders are greyed out.

Can I do a TM backup with this config?

No. Time Machine will not backup network drives, which is what the WD drive is when attached directly to the router.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4662565?start=0&tstart=0.

EDIT: I just had an idea that "may" work (EDIT: or not... see below). This is a bit advanced. Keep the folders/files stored on that WD drive, but put hard links to those folders (hard links are functionally similar to aliases) in a folder on your Mac that does get backed up with Time Machine. A hard link is basically a special type of alias that the OS cannot distinguish from the original file. More importantly, if you move the content that the hard link points to, the hard link will auto-update to link to the new location. It also looks EXACTLY like the original file. The Time Machine software actually makes extensive use of hard links in the backups.

EDIT 2: Hard links won't work. They can only be made for files on the same volume. Ah well.
 
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That sucks...I guess I'll create a partition to hold an Aperture and iTunes library backup and have Time Machine back up the rest.

I can plug in the external to my laptop but it seems a little too much to keep changing library locations.
 
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That sucks...I guess I'll create a partition to hold an Aperture and iTunes library backup and have Time Machine back up the rest.

I can plug in the external to my laptop but it seems a little too much to keep changing library locations.

You could just use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to make backups of your external drive. You can even have it make backups to the Time Capsule. Just drop the backup disc image right next to the one for your Mac. Both those apps, when registered, can do incremental backups without re-writing the whole file.
 

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