> does it deal with times where the file share isn't connected?
Yeah, it just delays and retries occasionally until it's able to mount it.
I personally find it is fine to backup my macbook pro (1TB drive) over wifi to my Debian server. The first backup takes multiple days though. After that (when it works[1]) the backups take about 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much changed.
[1] I've been having tons of trouble with it the last few months where it takes forever and constantly gets errors while backing up random files. When tries again it gets further and further until it eventually finishes. But instead of getting backups every hour I get a backup finishing once a week or so. I switched from netatalk to samba on the server but I still get the same errors (so I don't think it's a transport layer issue). I know plenty of other people who back up just fine and I believe my issue isn't widespread.
It will even warn you if you haven’t connected to the drive for ten days or so. If it regains connection Time Machine will generally start copying files immediately (and quietly). I’m not aware of situations where you would have to micromanage Time Machine.
One bad thing about keeping your Time Machine drive disconnected for long is that Time Machine will eventually lose the thread. FSEvents logs every change to the filesystem and tells Time Machine which folders have changed. Consequently Time Machine ordinarily doesn’t have to search the whole disk for changes, it knows at all times what has changed and what to backup.
Logging can, however, fail from time to time, the longer the backup drive has been disconnected, the likelier that becomes. Time Machine then has to search the whole disk for changes which is time consuming and resource intensive. Connecting to the Time Machine drive only infrequently is not a nice experience, the hourly backups are usually no big deal.
Yeah, it just delays and retries occasionally until it's able to mount it.
I personally find it is fine to backup my macbook pro (1TB drive) over wifi to my Debian server. The first backup takes multiple days though. After that (when it works[1]) the backups take about 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much changed.
[1] I've been having tons of trouble with it the last few months where it takes forever and constantly gets errors while backing up random files. When tries again it gets further and further until it eventually finishes. But instead of getting backups every hour I get a backup finishing once a week or so. I switched from netatalk to samba on the server but I still get the same errors (so I don't think it's a transport layer issue). I know plenty of other people who back up just fine and I believe my issue isn't widespread.