UniFi Drive - How To Use Your UNAS for macOS Time Machine Backups

Apple’s Time Machine feature provides hourly, daily and weekly computer backups saved to a local disk. UniFi allows you to integrate your Mac’s Time Machine with your UNAS, giving you the ability to save your backups wherever you are.

Remember, in order for this feature to work, you will need at least one fully set-up UNAS.

Preparing Your UNAS

The following steps required Admin permissions:

1. In UniFi Drive, navigate to Settings > Services > File Service.
2. Enable the SMB and Time Machine settings.
   
   1. If you ever disable SMB settings, the Time Machine settings will be disabled automatically.
3. Once Time Machine is enabled, all UNAS users with personal drives can use Time Machine to back up their Mac on the UNAS.

Setting Up Time Machine

1. In your Mac’s System Settings, navigate to General > Time Machine.
2. Select Add Backup Disk…
3. Choose the UNAS you want to use and enter the local account information.
   1. Note: You will be presented with two options; one showing the local IP address, and one showing the device name. Select the device name option, not the IP address option.
4. Follow the directions to choose Encrypt backup.
5. Click Done and begin the Time Machine backup.