Add A Server To Your Home

Reuse a Spare Mac for Networked Backups and to Speed Up iCloud Drive.

- Nick Peers

Apple’s commitment to its networking hardware seems to be at a halt, to the point that its AirPort team was recently rumoured to have been disbanded. With the future of AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule routers apparently under threat, you may be looking elsewhere for a device to centralise Time Machine backups for all the Macs in your home. Many third-party network drives come with Time Machine support, but you could press an older Mac into service instead.

The advantages of this are numerous. Firstly, you can plug in (and swap out) external storage, so you never have to worry about running out of room. Secondly, a USB drive represents much better value than a Time Capsule. Thirdly, external drives perform much quicker when plugged directly into a Mac (particularly if it has USB 3.0) rather than going through the slower USB 2.0 port on an AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule.

To do this, you’ll need to purchase macOS Server (£14.99, Mac App Store). This installs as an app within an existing version of macOS, and it comes with additional benefits too, from setting up centralised folder sharing to the caching of iCloud Drive data, which can save you time and potentially money if you’re on a metered internet connection.

What you need to know

Your Mac will need to be running OS X 10.11.6 or higher to run the latest version of macOS Server, which might not be practical if you’re using an older Mac. The trouble is, Apple has made it difficult – but not impossible – to buy and install an older version of the app (which used to be more simply dubbed ‘Server’).