TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Impact of Tahoe on Time Machine

  • Many reports that macOS Tahoe breaks Time Machine to NAS targets (Synology, QNAP, UnRAID, Time Capsule, etc.), often by tightening default SMB security so existing NAS configs stop working.
  • In several cases, backups simply stopped without obvious errors; users only noticed when trying to restore. Some had to reconfigure or recreate targets, losing history.
  • A few people also see serious issues even with USB disks (backups never finishing, getting stuck at ~10%, or triggering kernel panics).

User Responsibility vs “It Should Just Work”

  • One side: if you care about backups, you must periodically test restores (even spot checks) and monitor backup health. Anyone running a NAS is “technical enough” for that.
  • Other side: Time Machine is a consumer feature; expecting average laptop users to do full-restore tests or run monitoring tools is unrealistic. The product should be robust and loudly report failures.

Network NAS vs Direct-Attached Storage

  • Some argue NAS-based Time Machine is inherently fragile, especially over SMB, and should be avoided; local USB/SSD targets are described as far more reliable.
  • Others counter that consumer NAS devices are mainstream, Apple historically marketed network Time Machine (e.g., Time Capsule), and laptop users realistically need network backups.
  • There’s disagreement over whether this breakage is “Apple’s fault” or a NAS-vendor configuration issue triggered by Apple’s stricter defaults.

Reliability Experiences and Silent Failures

  • Long-running pattern described: Time Machine to NAS works for months, then deems the backup corrupt, forcing a full reset.
  • Several people report repeated corrupted sparse bundles or periodic need to wipe Time Machine disks; others say it has worked flawlessly for them since 2007, especially with simple setups.
  • Almost everyone agrees the worst aspect is silent or opaque failure: poor alerts, weak health reporting, and confusing behavior.

Alternative Backup Tools and Strategies

  • Many have abandoned or de-emphasized Time Machine in favor of: Borg + Vorta, restic + GUIs, Kopia, rsync scripts, Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper, Arq, ZFS/Btrfs snapshots, or S3/Backblaze-based setups.
  • Common pattern: Time Machine (if used at all) for quick local/historical restores, plus a separate, more “serious” backup (often offsite or cloud).

Critiques of Apple’s Software Quality and Direction

  • Tahoe is widely described as a low point: Mail search broken, Finder and Music glitches, backup instability. Some users rolled back to earlier macOS or now delay major upgrades by 1–3 years.
  • Multiple comments question Apple’s QA and automated testing, suggest macOS features like Time Machine are under-maintained, and speculate that Apple is nudging users toward iCloud instead of local backups.

Detection, Workarounds, and Mitigation

  • Suggested checks: random file restores, scripts that write timestamps and verify they appear in backups, tools like BackupLoupe or TimeMachineMechanic, or external monitoring (e.g., watchdog timers).
  • Workarounds include using encrypted/sparse-bundle images on SMB shares, enabling “Apple SMB2/3 extensions” on NAS, or switching protocols (e.g., NFS) where feasible.