Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

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TMroy
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by TMroy »

Folder storage quota only available for btrfs file system.
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macmpi
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by macmpi »

TMroy wrote: 13 Jul 2021, 14:08 Folder storage quota only available for btrfs file system.
Hi Roy,
I'm sorry this does not answer the principal questions:
  • When is TimeMachine quota support planned?
  • On which NAS platform (x86/ARM)?
It was promised for 4.2beta, and almost one year later, it is still a no-show.
Thanks.
TerraMaster F2-210 under TOS 4.2.43, RAID1, Btrfs, serving Mac, Linux & Windows clients
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TMroy
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by TMroy »

{L_BUTTON_AT}macmpi
If I gave a wrong answer in previous post, I have to apologize for that.
Folder quota only available for Btrfs file system, so if you want to limit your time machine folder storage quota, you need your file system to be Btrfs. As Btrfs file system not more supported on ARM models, so I am sorry tell you are not able to set a quota on ARM models for your time machine backup.
To contact our team, please send email to following addresses, remember to replace (at) with @:
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macmpi
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by macmpi »

Hi,
Sorry, but I’m asking a TOS product spec question, not an engineering how-to question here (@stephenM has explained some of the missing technical bits here).

Today TOS product spec does NOT support TimeMachine quota (i.e. User can not simply setup a TimeMachine service quota with UI, which is then taken into account by TimeMachine server and overall NAS filesystem).

For now, I’m not discussing how it is done technically, but IF and WHEN TOS will fully support that essencial feature, to avoid NAS storage is gradually fully filled with Mac backups over time…

So please let us know when TOS is scheduled to support that feature (and for which platforms). It was annouced for 4.2beta, and is not yet available.
TerraMaster F2-210 under TOS 4.2.43, RAID1, Btrfs, serving Mac, Linux & Windows clients
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djonesuk
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by djonesuk »

I'm not a mac user but have you tried using Time Machine GlobalQuota?

This is done via a configuration file, .com.apple.TimeMachine.quota.plist placed in the root of the shared folder accessed by Time Machine. Within this file, one can specify a GlobalQuota that will be used by each Time Machine backup to limit how large it can grow.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>GlobalQuota</key>
	<integer>500000000000</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
The .plist file must be owned by root and not be writeable by non-root users (eg. chmod 644)

The value of GlobalQuota is in bytes so this equates to 500 GB. All macs that connect to the share have the same quota but they don't share the quota - it's per mac. If you want different quotas for different macs you will have to use multiple shares. If you add a quota in this manner it won't shrink existing backups.

Further reading
https://blog.jbowen.dev/2020/05/remote- ... iple-macs/
https://www.truenas.com/community/threa ... tas.47173/
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macmpi
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by macmpi »

{L_BUTTON_AT}djonesuk
Very interesting approach indeed: thanks for sharing.
As we can see, there's no shortage of technical solutions to bring-up some sort of TimeMachine quota onto TOS.
We just need Terramaster to properly craft such feature in a user-friendly and reliable way within a TOS release...
TerraMaster F2-210 under TOS 4.2.43, RAID1, Btrfs, serving Mac, Linux & Windows clients
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seba22
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by seba22 »

You need find solution for this problem, recently I starter running out of 12TB storage on my NAS. I make investigation what could lead to that horrific amount of storage being used up and to my surprise it was not my video projects... it was over 5TB in time machine backup.

Time machine was dedicated to be used on time capsule or external drive so by design it will be limited by space of device - mac will fill it to brim... now I can't copy any new videos - only solution would be delete time machine backups folder... but then i will lose ability to track back document's i edited in past...

Not good TerraMaster - I'm not impressed....
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TMroy
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by TMroy »

This feature will implement in TOS 5, but it is only for AFP, it is not available for SMB.
To contact our team, please send email to following addresses, remember to replace (at) with @:
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macmpi
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Re: Add quota for TimeMachine shared folder

Post by macmpi »

{L_BUTTON_AT}TMroy
Thanks for the update: hopefully this promise will materialise more than the earlier for 4.2? Can you please confirm, this will be available on both ARM and x86 platforms, and that it will support any of ext4 & btrfs NAS filesystems? As you may know Apple has been depreciating AFP over SMB for years, and therefore recent macOS are better off SMB. Please consider supporting quota on SMB too (we saw previously several methods to support that feature, pick the one that has broader support).
TerraMaster F2-210 under TOS 4.2.43, RAID1, Btrfs, serving Mac, Linux & Windows clients
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