ZyWall 20W-VPN down when backing up using Time Machine

alehzn · March 2018

Hello,

I am using Mac (High Sierra) and set up Time Machine to use a shared drive which is configured on my Windows Server as a destination, following this guide: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-nas-windows-share-time-machine-backup/

Server is connected via ethernet.

So far everything is working fine (mount the drive, configuring Time Machine etc.) however when the backup process starts it takes a couple of minutes (+/-) and then the ZyWall just stops working. All of a sudden. Sys and WLAN start blinking. No traffic is passing.

In the logs I see only an alert "Device starting up". Nothing more. In the dashboard I saw that the CPU usage was about 99% but there is no equivalent message in the logs.

Using ethernet and/or WiFi shows the same behaviour.

After couple of minutes the device recovers itself and everything works fine and stable until I start the backup process.

Firmware: V4.30(ABAR.0) / 2017-11-23 21:23:44

Any ideas what the root cause could be?

Thanks in advance.

Cooldy · March 2018

It looks like backup process generate a large amount of traffic.
Is it working fine if you setup BWM for those backup traffic?

alehzn · March 2018

I will check this out and let you know.

alehzn · April 2018

Hello Cooldy,

I have checked and realized that even during the mounting of the sparsebundle (Apple Disk Image) the ZyXel sporadically goes down. Tried BMW however it is not usable as it slows down the whole process (mounting, copying files etc.) in a way where Time Machine becomes unusable. IMHO it is the firmware. I will wait for an update and retry. Downgrade is not an option.

Thank you.