Is it possible to use the Time Capsule only as a backup station.

I am interested in purchasing a Time Capsule to backup my Macbook Pro and other Mac items. I am going to a university next year where the internet usage fees are quite high, i was wondering if it is possible to link the Time Capsule and Macbook by a Cable without using it as a WiFi Station, to backup?

i was wondering if it is possible to link the Time Capsule and Macbook by a Cable without using it as a WiFi Station, to backup?
Yes, it is.
The problem with this approach may be that the MacBook can only support one active connection, so if you have the MacBook plugged in via Ethernet, you will not be able to use the wireless on the MacBook until you physically unplug the Ethernet cable from the MacBook.
Frankly, I would not recommend the Time Capsule for you. Half of the price of the product is tied up in a wireless router which you would not even use. A much simpler, better (and less expensive) approach would be to add a USB or FireWire hard drive to the Mac. Then, the Mac can be using wireless or Ethernet and backups will occur just fine.

Similar Messages

Can I use the Time Capsule strictly for system backup and continue to use my Airport Extreme for all my wireless needs

I want to use the Apple Time Capsule as an external drive and continue to use my Airport Extreme for all my wireless needs. Can I do that? The reason I ask is that my Time Machine utility cannot find the TIme Capsule - it only shows me the Airport Extreme, even when I "Rescan". SO I am unable to use the Time Capsule.

You will need to connect an Ethernet cable from one of the LAN <-> ports on the AirPort Extreme to the WAN "O" port on the Time Capsule.
Perform a "hard reset" on the Time Capsule by holding in the reset button for 9-10 seconds, then give it another minute to restart to a slow, blinking amber light.
Open AirPort Utility, select the Time Capsule, and click Manual Setup
Click the Time Capsule tab located below the row of icons to assign a name to the Time Capsule, a device password, and adjust Time Zone settings.
Next, click the Wireless tab located to the right of the Time Capsule tab
Change the setting for Wireless Mode to Off
Click the Internet icon, then click the Internet Connection tab
Connect Using = Ethernet
Connection Sharing = Off (Bridge Mode)
Click Update at the lower right to save the settings and allow 30 seconds for the Time Capsule to restart to a green light.
You are all set

Can I use the time capsule connected to my linksys wireless hub

I just bought the Time Capsule to use as storage and use my printer remotely. I already have at home a Linksys wireless hub, can I use both, the Time Capsule, and the Linksys ? With the Capsule connected to the Linksys.

I just bought the Time Capsule to use as storage and use my printer remotely. I already have at home a Linksys wireless hub
So, you want to use the Time Capsule only as a backup device and continue to use the Linksys router for your wireless network, is that correct?
If yes, are you able to connect the Time Capsule to the Linksys router using an Ethernet cable?

How do I use the time capsule to share itunes music between multiple apple devices? Also, is it possible to control the music on one device using another, and how do you set this up?

How do I use the time capsule to share itunes music between multiple apple devices? Also, is it possible to control the music on one device using another, and how do you set this up?

unless i'm missing something, i think you got mixed up, this is easy google for walk throughs
i'm assuming this is the new 3tb tc AC or 'tower' shape, if so, its wifi will run circles around your at&t device
unplug the at&t box for a minute and plug it back in
factory reset your tc - unplug it, hold down reset and keep holding while you plug it back in - only release reset when amber light flashes in 10-20s
connect the tc to your at&t box via eth in the wan port, wait 1 minute, open airport utility look in 'other wifi devices' to setup the tc
create a new wifi network (give it a different name than your at&t one) and put the tc in bridge mode (it may do this automatically for you, but you should double check) under the 'network' tab
login to your at&t router and disable wifi on it
add new clients to the new wifi network, and point your Macs to the time machine for backups

Can I use the time capsule as backup and hard disk at the same time?

Hi.
I want to buy a time capsule.
I wondered, if I can use the time capsule as backup (over time machine) and as a hard disk at the same time?
If I buy the 2TB time capsule, I wanted to use 1TB for the backup and 1TB for hard disk.
Is this possible?
Best wishes
Sophie

It is not recommended.. the problem being anything stored on the TC only is not backed up and cannot be backed up by the TC itself or Time Machine. So what are you going to do about back.. the TC can and do die suddenly.. and the cost of recovery can be huge.
See Q3 here for the semi-right way to do it if you must.
http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html
You can plug a USB drive into the TC and use that for files.. but note, its speed is poor.. fine for wireless as wireless is even slower but you will really notice it if you expect the drive to be as fast as the internal.. it will be a fraction of the internal drive speed. 1/2 write and 1/3 read aprox.
See http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/7

Is it best to use a basic (ISP supplied) router just as a modem and use the Time Capsule for everything else?

Just feeling my way into using a Time Capsule as the main networking device for two macbooks, two iPhones and occasional vistors including an iPad. Right now the basic ADSL router provides, internet conection, Firewal, DHCP and NAT. The Time Capsule provides WiFI and backup to the MacBooks. The MacBooks and iOS devices all use WiFI and a couple of media devices use ethernet (a hub is part of the network).
Would it be better (i.e. more effective in performance or management) to limit the router as much as possible so for instance turning off DHCP and NAT then reconfiguring the Time Capsule to do that - sort of part way to a situation where the router would be replaced by a modem? Or am I just wasting effort to no good purpose?

There is no simple.. yes or no to your question.
Often modems cannot be bridged.. or if they can the TC does not have the ability to provide the correct services to connect.
What is the broadband type and what is the modem router you are talking about?
Generally the supplied modem is perfectly adequate to the speed capability of the service provided.
In some cases we do say bridge it.. eg alot of cable modem routers supplied here are very poor, Have terrible NAT tables and pathetic abilities.. so we encourage them to be bridged or replaced. Most DSL type modem routers seem to be ok.. and are easily replaced anyway.
Time Capsules are far from being giants in the router world btw.. they have absolute min of controls possible. Lots of good things might be supplied on your normal modem which are missing in the TC. eg QoS. Decent logging, NAT table connection lists.. along with all the other lists.
Overall the gain.. I think for most people will be small.. try it out.. that is the only way to know.

Can i use the time capsule also as shared harddrive?

I want to use the time capsule for both backup and shared harddrive is this possible? I do want to store music and films

Using the TC for both will also cause conficts. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for an explanation and some possible workarounds.

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on what other external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and how to configure that disk

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on
what other
external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and
how to configure that disk.
A complication that I need to resolve is the fact that I am using Vmware
Fusion to be able to use Windows on my Mac. Now it seems that Time
Machine is not backing up my files
on that virtual Windows without additional configuration and my question
is whether you can advise me here or whether this is only a matter for
the Fusion virtual machine.

If you want to use Time Capsule you can.. you simply bridge it and plug it into the existing router.. wireless can be either turned off or used to reinforce the existing wireless.. eg use 5ghz in the TC which is much faster than your 2.4ghz.
You can also use a NAS.. many brands available but the top brands are synology, qnap and netgear readynas series. These will all do Time Machine backups although how well always depends on Apple sticking to a standard. There are cheaper ones.. I bought a single disk zyxel which was rebadged and sold through my local supermarket. It actually works very well for TM at least on Snow Leopard. Major changes were made in Lion and again ML so do not instantly think it will work on later versions. I haven't tried it yet with those versions.
Any external drive can be plugged into the mac. Use the one with the fastest connection or cheapest price according to your budget. USB2 drives are cheap and plentiful. But no where near as fast as USB3 or FW800. So just pick whichever suits the ports on your Mac. Interesting Apple finally moved to USB3 on their latest computers.
TM should exclude the VM partition file.. it is useless backing it up from Mac OS side.. and will slow TM as it needs to backup that partition everyday for no purpose.. TM cannot see the files inside it to backup just the changes.
You need to backup windows from windows. Use MSbackup to external drive.. if you have pro or ultimate versions you can backup to network drive. But MSbackup is a dog.. at least until the latest version it cannot restore the partition without first loading windows. There are about a zillion backup software versions for windows.. look up reviews and buy one which works for you. I use a free one Macrium Reflect which does full disk backups and is easy to restore.. to do incremental backups though you have to pay for it.

Can you use the Time Capsule as a wireless drive to share music on multiple computers

Does anyone know whether you can use the time capsule almost as a nextwork drive of sorts (i.e. to share Music etc amongst a few computers)?

The TC is a dumb hard drive inside an apple extreme router.. with a couple of knobs on.
It has no media servers.. and very little flexibility.. indeed it serves files.. AFP or SMB.. and that my friend is that.
So if you want a media server in the network..then a mini is a better proposition. At some point, with sales of ssd laptops soaring and space on these devices at a premium, Apple is long overdue on a revamp of the TC.. it is really either time to drop it or to create something a lot more powerful.. the mini might be a cheap computer but it is not really a file server.. having so little internal disk space and lacking external connectors unless you are rich enough to buy thunderbolt.

Can I use the Time Capsule as a storage device for my Ipad?

I want to get an Ipad for my wife because all she does is surf the net, email, and photoshop pictures. Can I get an IPAD and a Time Capsule and use the Time Capsule as like a shared drive to push pictures from the Ipad to the Time Capsule?
I do not want to store the pictures on the Ipad

It is difficult unless you tell us what format the movies are in and what player you are using?
iTunes library will not really work. The TC is not a Media Player or Media related in any way at all.
But if you store movies in one of many different formats that are available and use a player on the ipad that can read and play those files, it can work.
So we cannot help you without info.. what source are the movies from? What format are they in? What player are you using?
How flexible are you?
Can anyone recommend what I need
In the apple world with itunes you need a computer (Mac or Windows) running iTunes with a disk available to it big enough to hold your library. And some sort of router to connect the ipad and the computer in the network.
Apple intends you to use itunes in homeshare.
iOS: Setting up Home Sharing on your iOS device - Apple Support

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data in addition to backing up the hard drive?

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?

Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?
Yes, but if you move the "original" data on your iMac to the Time Capsule....then the "original" data is now on the Time Capsule disk.
When...not if...the Time Capsule disk has a problem, you have no backups for this data.
Perhaps a much safer plan might be to add an external hard drive attached directly to your iMac. Then, move the data to that drive from the iMac.
Now, Time Machine will back up both your iMac and the external hard drive so you have "originals" on one drive and backups on another. Would that plan work for you?

Can i use the time capsule as just an external hard drive for music or does it have to be used soley as a backe up?? im thinking for music and photos

Can I use the time capsule as just an external hard drive for music or does it have to be used soley as a back up? I'm thinking for music and photos

Nickles96 wrote:
Hello friends.. I have a similar question, in that I would like to purchase the 2TB TC for use as a NAS device, in addition to taking advantage of the Air Port extreme.. Then I could dump my Linksys router.
I was originally looking at a Synology NAS solution, but the TC seems like it can meet my needs.
I have a Synology NAS as well as the Time Capsule. If you look at the 3.2 beta program, the Synology actually attempts to replicate TC functionality in that you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac.
I must say, Airport on the TC is definitely a nice feature!
Nickles96 wrote:
In addition to the obvious feature of the backup, can I indeed also use the TC as a NAS drive to access from remote locations (example from the office)?
I'm surprised more people aren't using the TC as a dedicated NAS deviced.. I've searched high and low on forums around the web, and don't seem to see many people trying to use it as I've outlined.
I can't see why this wouldn't fufill my needs, and take the place of a separate NAS solution (like the Synology, or iOmega, Seagate, etc....)
Has anyone used this TC as such?
Yes, you can do this and it's something I've been trying to do, but I'm currently having issues. I have another thread stating I consistently get "connection failed" messages. I'm basically storing my music/photo/video files on the TC and keeping my Mac hard drive fairly lean. In terms of NAS functionality, the TC is very basic. Synology/QNAP and others have a lot more features so don't rule them out.

How can I use the Time Capsule in only 802.11b/g?

I think I am getting interferences on my 5GHz phone from the time capsule, which I have running in 802.11n mode with b/g compatitibility. I assume if the Time Capsule was running in 802.11b/g mode I would not get the intereferences?
The Airport utility does not seem to have a setting to use the Time Capsule in 802.11b/g only. Is there a way to accomplish this?
Message was edited by: Karl R.

Duane wrote:
Then the Time Capsule's 5 GHz network should not interfere with the phone since it operates a long way from the phone's frequency.
Not necessarily. In the US 802.11n channels appear to go up to at least 5.805 GHz, if I interpret this chart
http://www.networkdictionary.com/Wireless/Wi-Fi-Wireless-LAN-Frequency.php
correctly.
It would seem that the best way to avoid interference with 5.8 GHz cordless phones is to avoid channels above 153.

Is it possible to use my Time Capsule as an iTunes Media Server?

I've bought a macbook air, which is awesome, but a bit lacking in space, it's already filling up.
At the same time I bought a 2TB time capsule. Although I think the back up features are great, I always had the intention that I'd be able to use the Time Capsule as a wireless, and even remotely accessible, personal cloud, to store some of my bigger files. Namely, my iTunes library and my iPhotos library.
I've been into the Apple Store, and the genius there told me it was a simple as copying the two libraries onto the TC, and then redirecting the apps to look at those libraries. Dead easy.
In theory, this creates a perfect system. I realise there might be a bit of lag retrieving stuff, especially if I'm trying to get a movie off the TC while I'm travelling. But if I've got half a day spare to download it, then it's great to have that option if I've forgotten to copy it to my Mac Book before I leave.
In practice, it doesn't work. Because the TC is being used to keep a back up as well, I can only copy the libraries into the Data folder. And I've read somewhere that this can confuse issues a little bit. Now when I try to navigate to the libraries, connection to the Time Capsule always fails.
I realise I could probably achieve this by plugging an external hardrive into the Time Capsule. But I've got two terabytes of space on the TC, it'll take forever to fill that up with just back ups. I don't feel I should have to buy another hardrive, when I've got a TB and a half of free space waiting to be used.
The only idea I can think of is if I partition the TC harddrive, keeping one half for the back ups, and one half for my media library.
Has anyone actually succedded in doing this? Any ideas or help anyone can offer, this is getting really frustrating, and if it doesn't work, I think I'll have to return the Time Capsule, or scrap the idea of backing up, and just use it as an iTunes server instead.
Thanks.

Hi Latitude Journey
Make sure you do the following if you are planning to load all your library on TC:
Step 1: make sure that you tell iTunes where your media folder is located, under preferences, advanced, chose the location of your media folder (assuming you are using iTunes 10+.
Step 2: Once you are done telling iTunes where your media folder is located (music, etc) make sure you go to users & groups under system preferences (assuming you are running Lion or Mountain Lion OSX) and choose login items, then click the + sign and locate your time capsule from the shared drive section in finder, just chose it (no specific folder) just any folder.
the reason why you should do this, is that if it happen that you restart your mac! iTunes will try to look for the drive that has your media/music that you set earlier in step 2: , and since TC is not an actual NAS drive, it is more like a shared drive, it will take few seconds for the hard drive on it to load, where iTunes will not be able to locate it before it is ready, and thus it will revert to the default location of the media folder which is under music/itunes/itunes media/, and eventually none of your songs will actually work since they are on the TC and not your mac.
doing what i told to do in step 2: will make sure that your TC hard drive is ready before your iTunes try to locate the media folder, where you will be able to play your library without any issues.
failing to do so, most probably you will face the problem where you try to play songs in iTunes and finding that they have exclamation mark next to them, which means that they are missing from the library.
my music library is all located on my Time Capsule, and iTunes runs on my Mac mini (with home sharing enabled), and my iTunes is set to lunch on start up under system preferences/users & groups/login items/.
My mac mini act as a server (don't worry about your mac going to sleep, it will wake up once you try to access your media from other devices) assuming that you have the option wake on LAN enabled under network in system preferences.
This is my setup.
- Mac mini mid 2011, running Mountain Lion and latest iTunes set to launch on startup in case of computer power on or restart so i don't have to worry about launching it manually.
- Time capsule 2 TB, used as network shared hard drive
- MacBook Pro early 2011 running Mountain Lion and latest iTunes
- 2 iPads
- iPhones 4s
- Apple TV 1 and Apple TV 2
all my devices having home sharing enabled under the same account.
i can access my music library from any of my devices easily and problem free.
hope this will help you and other users.
Many thanks

Can i just use the time capsule as back up storage

Can I use the Time Capsule as just back up storage? I am a little bit confused on why I should set up another wireless network and was wondering if this would interfere with my current wireless network? I am not very computer savvy.

You can.. but should you??
Not everything you can do you should do!!
I just posted the same thing here.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5051446?tstart=0
Do not setup another wireless network.. whatever you do. If you buy a TC for storage.. or already have one.. then it should still be part of the existing network.
Describe your network and we can tell you how to fit the TC in.
Certainly the TC can be used as a second wireless Acess Point (AP).. this is totally different to second wireless network. And you maybe confusing the terms. A network for wireless can have multiple access points but a single network. And for large file transfer over wireless keeping the TC as AP is a good idea.

Is it possible to use the Time Capsule only as a backup station.

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