Are you being served?

I subscribe to MacFormat printed monthly magazine which I enjoy very much and find it very helpful and interesting. However, on page 52 ( MF289) there is an article headed “Back up all your Macs”. The article gives detailed information on using OS X Server to use for backing up several hard drives via Time Machine to the server. You give the url to locate the software in the Apple Store and you state that you need OS X 10.6 or higher and OS X Server 4.1 or higher.

When I went to purchase this the Apple Store stated that it is only available to run on OS X 10.10.4 or higher. I have an old Mac Pro running 10.7.5 and I would love to use it to run Server so I can back up all the Macs in my office but I can’t find the correct software anywhere. I’ve gone on forums and apparently one has to contact Apple and ask them for the exact url to locate a copy of this version. I’m prepared to do this but I think you have made a bad error in the aforementioned article and I think you need to put it right. Any further information you can give me to locate the correct version would be gratefully received. Stephen James Alan Stonebridge says… You’re right Stephen we should have made it clearer in those system requirements that the tutorial was written with OS X Server 4 (the version for Yosemite) in mind, though much of it is relevant to recent versions. The separate requirement we listed, which should have been listed second and with a caveat, was to indicate that client Macs can back up to the server even if they’re running an older version of OS X. In fact, even client Macs running Leopard should work with OS X Server’s Time Machine service.

Although Lion Server has been delisted on the Mac App Store, telephone sales staff for the Apple Online Store told us that you can still purchase Lion Server by calling them. In the UK, the number to call is 0800 048 0408, and the line is manned between 8am and 9pm on weekdays, and 9am and 6pm on weekends. Explain that you specifically want the older version of the software for your Mac Pro. We were told that Lion Server will cost you £14.99, which is the same price as the latest version.

We can immediately recall that one difference in older versions is that you can’t cap the space that each Mac’s backups can take up. Our tutorial should be enough to get the service working on your Mac Pro, though it’s worth checking under Other services > Time Machine service in the Advanced Administration guide for Lion Server (http://apple.co/1SJJvR2) to see if there’s anything about that version’s behaviour that might be relevant to you.