Can Time Capsule be used just for backups -- without being connected to a wireless network?

I have a second-generation Time Capsule that I no longer need as a wireless router. However, I'd like it to wirelessly (and automatically) backup our family's iMac and MacBook Pro. Is that possible?

Thanks very much, Bob and LaPastenague,
I ended up replacing the wireless Netgear Router (which Time Warner installed last May) with my older (second-generation) Time Capsule -- and it works flawlessly.
I guess I was afraid that since it's a few years old that it wouldn't work -- or work as well, as the new Netgear wireless router.
In fact it works better - the range is much better. And the issue my new iMac had, of losing connection with the network (though the little wifi icon never indicated it had in fact dropped) has evaporated.
Thanks for the help! Just shows that Apple rocks in every way.

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HT201250 can a time capsule be used as just a backup for data without being connected to a home network?

This is the explanation for my my question about whether a time capsule can be used as a backup without being connected to a network. I had to disconnect my time capsule when I upgraded my landline to a wireless home phone in order to go to a wireless security system that would work with my 2WIRE router. The time capsule blocked the usage of my camera on my security system, not allowing the camera to connect to the 2WIRE router. Once I disconnected the time capsule, the camera was able to connect wirelessly to the 2WIRE.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
See > https://discussions.apple.com/message/16717724#16717724
As you can read, you can do what you want. You just have to set up the Time Capsule network in AirPort Utility without connecting it to the router and ignoring the messages, and connect to the Time Capsule network. You will have to switch between the Time Capsule and the other router's networks

Can the Time Capsule be used just to back up on an existing wi-fi network?

Can the Time Capsule be used just to back up on an existing wi-fi network? We just set-up a new Xfinity wireless modem which is supposed to be very fast, but Time Capsule set-up instructions indicate we need to use the Time capsule as the primary internet connection. True?

My mistake. Meant to reply to snorris3. Text is repeated below:
Can I still use it as a back up device? My new modem is also the router.
Yes you can.
The best way (and really the only way) to set up the Time Capsule would be to connect an Ethernet cable from your modem/router to the Time Capsule.
The Time Capsule will produce a wireless network by default, but if you don't want to use that network, it is a simple matter to turn off the wireless on the Time Capsule and use it only as a hard drive for backups.
I would be very surprised if the Xfinity modem/router would even come close to the wireless performance of the Time Capsule, but that may be another discussion.
If you elect not to use the wireless on the Time Capsule, then you will be backing up over the existing wireless network that you already have.
That would be a shame, since a third to half of the total cost of the Time Capsule is tied up in the wireless router portion of the Time Capsule. If you want to use the existing Xfinity wireless network, you could save yourself quite a bit of money by simply connecting a USB or Firewire hard drive to your Mac for backups. But, it's your call.

Can time capsule be used on windows7

can time capsule be used on windows7

We have Macs and PCs in our house. The mac is set up and running fine on TC/TM.
Questions is - what is the best way to also use TC to back up the windows 7 machines?
The windows machine is set up on the wireless network - but not currently sharing files.
If not practical I'll stay with the Windows external hard drive to back up that laptop.
Thanks.
You can just connect to the TC and use a backup software.. I backup to TC using Macrium Reflect which is free for disk image.. paid for version does incremental.
Make sure you have plenty of space though on the TC for all the computers hdd usage.. with about 2x or 3x that space spare. TM uses a lot of free space and gets slow and unreliable deleting old backups if there isn't sufficient space.
An NTFS formatted disk makes good sense for a pc.. if you want to see and use the files you backup.

Can time capsule be used with windows programs

can time capsule be used with windows as a wi fi router? or dose the disk that came with the time capsule work with windows program?

The wifi router side will work fine.
The disk that came with the TC should have windows version of airport utility but you can download it.. that is important if you want to setup the TC or use the shared disk.

Can time capsule be used with one computer?

Can time capsule be used with one computer?

Time Capsule can serve one or more Macs:
https://www.apple.com/airport-time-capsule/
Ciao.

Can i use my time capsule to extend my wifi signal without physically connecting it to my router?

I currently have a BT Homehub connected to a modem, which is connected to the ethernet port in my wall (which is downstairs). I bought a timecapsule to wirelessly back up my computer. It is connected via ethernet cable to my router. I have recently been having trouble getting a wifi signal in one room in my house (upstairs). To fix this i was wondering whether it is possible to move my time machine somewhere upstairs, to a location closer to this room, and have it transmit a wifi signal without it being connected to my router via ethernet. And if so how would i go about doing this?
cheers
jadidev

Can i use my time capsule to extend my wifi signal without physically connecting it to my router?
Yes, if you have an Apple router.
No, if you have a BT router.
IF....your Time Capsule is currently set up to provide a wireless network signal, you could add another Apple device...like an AirPort Express....to extend the Time Capsule wireless signal.

I have connected my time capsule to motorola SG6580 modem via ethernet. I have a wireless network on the motorola and a wireless network from the time capsule. I get duplicate IPs error messages sometimes. How do I fix?

I have connected my time capsule to motorola SG6580 modem via ethernet. I have a wireless network on the motorola and a wireless network from the time capsule. I get duplicate IPs error messages (no connection) sometimes when trying to connect devices to the wireless network. How do I fix? Sometimes devices cannot connect to the network because of conflicting IPs. I look on the Motorola and every device has a unique IP assigned but occasionally a device has taken the IP of another device. I have been writing down all the devices and the IPs they have been using. It happens more with PCs than Macs, ipads or iPhones.

If the Time Capsule is set up correctly in bridge mode, then it is the responsibility of the Motorola modem/router to provide the correct IP address assignments for all devices on the network.
Check to insure that the Time Capsule is correctly set up to operate in bridge mode as follows:
On your Mac, open AirPort Utility
Finder > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon, then click Edit in the smaller window that appears
Click the Network tab at the top of the next window
Insure that the setting for Router Mode is configured to read "Off (Bridge Mode)"
Once you have confirmed that the Time Capsule is configured correctly, everything else is the responsibility of the Motorola modem/router as far as network routing and IP address assignments for devices.
If you continue to have IP address issues, then you should contact the Internet Service Provider (ISP) that provided the Motorola device to you and ask them to fix the issue.

Can time capsule be used for wireless backup without serving as a router?

can time capsule be set and used for wireless backup without serving as a router?

Not if you want it to work.
If you do want stand alone .. ie a TC sitting all on its lonesome with no internet connection.. then reset to factory and start over..
The TC has to be in router mode so it can handle dhcp and addressing.
Ignore all the problems.
BUT then you can connect your computer to TC for backup
OR
you can connect to main wireless router for internet..
You cannot do both.. at the same time.
UNLESS you have ethernet connection.. to either main modem or TC.. if you have two networks and two different network clients, then you can do both at once but the setup is tricky.

Can Time Capsule be used for Backup of Iphone

Can Airport Time Capsule be used for Backup of Iphone & ipad

The iPhone and iPad cannot back up directly to the Time Capsule.....they only back up to iTunes on your Mac or PC....or....to iCloud.
If you are using Time Machine to backup your Mac to the Time Capsule, then all of the backups of your iOS devices in iTunes will then be backed up to the Time Capsule.
See this Apple support document for more information on iOS backups.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1766

Can time capsule be use simultaneously as a wireless hard drive and time machine backup?

Hello, I currently have a macbook pro retina and have about 600 gig of content. I am tired of hauling around an external hard drive with him to hold it all. I was thinking of getting a Time Capsule but wanted to know if it can serve as both an external hard drive for my content as well as the destination disk for a time machine back up. If not, can I attach an external hard drive to the time machine to use as the backup drive. Oh one more thing, will I only be able to see the content if I connect to the same home internet network or will I be able to access it with any internet connection regardless of where I am??

Hello, I currently have a macbook pro retina and have about 600 gig of content. I am tired of hauling around an external hard drive with him to hold it all.
Who is him?? The MBPr.. interesting choice of pronoun if it is.
Do you really need 600GB of content.. ??
You can buy a 1TB 2.5" drive in a tiny holder now. In terms of the amount of lugging.. I doubt you will feel that much extra.
I was thinking of getting a Time Capsule but wanted to know if it can serve as both an external hard drive for my content as well as the destination disk for a time machine back up. If not, can I attach an external hard drive to the time machine to use as the backup drive. Oh one more thing, will I only be able to see the content if I connect to the same home internet network or will I be able to access it with any internet connection regardless of where I am??
We do not recommend the TC as an external hard disk to store your files. It has no.. repeat NO ability to back itself up.. it is a sealed unit without spare parts available.. If it dies.. apple will replace not recover. Say goodbye to all your files.. and frankly that are not that reliable.
TM cannot backup a network drive.. and you cannot backup without using a 3rd party software and another USB disk or NAS.. so.. to cut the long story short.. buy the right box.. a NAS.. QNAP and Synology make real NAS, with fully integrated backup that can do TM backups.
If you do decide on the TC for your files.. you can access it locally no problems.
From WAN over the net using BTMM and iCloud.. remember every file movement is restricted to the slowest speed in the network.. usually your upload speed at each end.. try doing anything at 800kbps which is all most people get. If you have high speed fibre then great.
A real NAS will be accessed by SFTP directly using dynamic dns or static public IP .. even better.. but the same limitation applies.. speed of the convoy is the speed of the slowest ship.
A dropbox in the cloud is often a better way although accessing 600GB is still not easy.. and getting it up there.. harder still. But download speed is a lot better than upload.

Can Time Capsule be used to access video files for editing? Or do I need a wired hard drive using USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt?

MORE INFO ABOUT WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO:
I'm using Final Cut Express 4 and would like to store my video clips on an external hard drive so the internal hard drive in my MacBook Pro 13 doesn't have to work so hard. I heard from a reliable source that it might be impossible to access the files wirelessley though, meaning that I might need to get a wired external hard drive that uses USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot.
-Rick

The experts in the iPhoto, Aperture and iMovie support areas all strongly advise against trying to locate a "working" library on a network drive, like the Time Capsule, even if the Mac is hard wired to the Time Capsule. Things would be a lot more dangerous with a wireless connection.
Apple does as well:
“Additionally, storing the iPhoto (or other image) library on a network rather than locally on your computer can also lead to poor performance or data loss.”
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168
You might want to post in the Final Cut Express support area to see if the folks over there feel the same way.
Final Cut Express HD
Your best best....if you do not have the space on your Mac's hard drive.....would be to add a USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt drive directly to the Mac to establish a "local" connection. This is much better and more reliable setup that trying to use a network drive, like a Time Capsule.
Use the Time Capsule for its designed and intended purpose....your backups.....not "working" files. Time Machine on your Mac can back up both your Mac and the attached hard drive to the Time Capsule.

Time Capsule best to dedicate for backup and usb external for other data or partition TC for dual

I have lots of video and photo and have 2TB drive on my iMAC and want to use TC for backup.
1) Since alot of video and photo, can plug in via ethernet or "cable/usb" vs. wireless to back up my main iMAC? Otherwise very slow via wireless and perhaps better to get Seagate Go Flex or WD and go Firewire right?
2) I do need and like to share other data shared vs. just TC to Time Machine Backup, reading this community input, can I confirm that best practice is to let TC have as much dedicated space as possible for Backup and mix partition to do 500GB per say for data on the TC?
Here's my use case:
1) Time Machine tied to TC for the 2TB via wired to main machine iMAC - I only have this 1 iMAC.
2) Like to share data with iPhone and iPAD some pictures, etc... so do this with USB port and see data on the shared drive via iPhone and iPAD - no need to backup - just viewing - but need wireless - how does iPhone and iPAD detect this device - do I need app or something to view shared drive stuff?
3) Like to share and light backup for couple PC Win7 laptops just to get files back and forth or share things between family member - nothing intense - but can PC win7 laptops see the shared drive via IP setup or something like that?
Sorry for multi questions - my first iMAC so still stumbling around to see what works best for me.
Thanks,
///don

don1217 wrote:
1) Since alot of video and photo, can plug in via ethernet or "cable/usb" vs. wireless to back up my main iMAC?
If I understand your question, depending on the signal strength, backing up over Wi-Fi can be rather slow. An Ethernet connection would be much faster, particularly for the first backup, which will the the largest. Backing up to a locally-connected disk will be faster still.
2) I do need and like to share other data shared vs. just TC to Time Machine Backup, reading this community input, can I confirm that best practice is to let TC have as much dedicated space as possible for Backup and mix partition to do 500GB per say for data on the TC?
I'm not sure what you mean by "mix partition to do 500GB per say for data on the TC". It's not recommended to share the same volume for Time Machine output and other things.
need wireless - how does iPhone and iPAD detect this device - do I need app or something to view shared drive stuff?
If you mean that you need wireless to give an iPhone or iPad access to the Internet, a Time Capsule would do that. If you want to give those devices access to content on a Time Capsule, that's still an immature technology, although things may improve with iOS 5 or updates beyond that.
3) Like to share and light backup for couple PC Win7 laptops just to get files back and forth or share things between family member - nothing intense - but can PC win7 laptops see the shared drive via IP setup or something like that?
A WIn7 computer will be able to see files on the drive(s) of a Time Capsule. I haven't tried that, but instructions are available.

Can Time Capsule act as just a network hard drive?

I need a hard drive somehow just "on" our home network. I.e. I need to be able to access files wirelessly that are too many to be on my laptop (i.e. a seperate repository).
Does Time Capsule do this, or is it really just for backup? If the latter, can anyone please recommend a solution? I, of course, would not like to have to invest in computer that is always on just to get at files on a drive.
Thanks.

Time Capsule is a NAS. You can use it as such. The advantage of TC over a regular NAS is that is is Apple-supported for use with Time Machine.
Note that TC is not easy to partition without removing the HDD from the case. Therefore, if you paln to use it for backups and other file storage, they will share the same partition and will be formatted HFS+.

Time Capsule out of space for backups - how best to proceed?

I have a 500GB 802.11n (2nd Generation) Time Capsule which I use for Time Machine backups from my late-2008 Aluminium Unibody 250GB MacBook. My problem arose because I have used 229.33 GB of my hard disk on my MacBook, so I have less than 20 GB of free space on my MacBook. My iPhoto Library is 103 GB and yesterday I dragged it to an External Hard Drive (1TB). However, I have not deleted the iPhoto Library from my hard drive yet because I wanted to 'test' whether Time Machine would back up the new location of my iPhoto library to my Time Capsule .... the problem I have now is that Time Machine will not backup at all
I have tried several times to perform a Time Machine backup today, without success. I receive a message that 'Backup requires 246.75 GB but only 170.97 GB are available.
I've checked the TM backups on the Time Capsule and the earliest, latest and ONLY backup is one performed yesterday at 10.18am prior to my moving the iPhoto Library to the EHD. The EHD is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and is partitioned into four equal partitions of 250 GB (the fourth partition is slightly less. The 1st partition has a SuperDuper Bootable Clone of my hard drive (including the iPhoto Library on the Hard Disk). The 2nd partition is the new location for the iPhoto Library. The 3rd and 4th partitions are empty.
Can someone suggest whether I would be safe to somehow (how?) delete the existing TM backup on Time Capsule and simply start with a 'brand new' TM backup tonight? I'm thinking that if I have all 500GB available then TM SHOULD be able to perform a full backup and then I'll be OK with incremental backups for a while.
Also, is it possible/feasible (I know it wouldn't be the safest thing to do) to backup the iPhoto Library on the 2nd partition of my EHD to one of the blank partitions?
i would be grateful for any suggestions as to the best way to proceed
Cheers
Tricia

Cvdk,
This is why it may not be a good idea to store other files on the same disk/partition as the Time Machine backups. consider the following:
Here is Apples’ line on this: “Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time Machine backups will be reduced.” [http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/11430.html]
This hasn't stopped some from successfully partitioning Time Machine hard disks and storing data on the other partition. As long as the Time Machine backup has its' own partition, you avoid any potential opportunities for conflict.
However, this is not an option for Time Capsule users as there is no easy way of partitioning the Time Capsules’ internal hard disk without elaborate effort. Granted, the Time Capsule is advertised as being able to perform both as a Time Machine backup destination and as a shared network drive [Apple Store (U.S.) - Time Capsule - 500 GB]
Nevertheless, some have experienced problems with maintaining files/folders occupying the same disk as Time Machine backups. In this case, they use the Time Capsule hard disk solely for Time Machine backups. Then attach an external hard disk to the Time Capsules USB port and store additional files there. This added disk will still be available to all Macs that can access the Time Capsule. (Note though, that any USB disks attached to the USB port of the Time Capsule can not then be backed up to the Time Capsule via Time Machine. Time Machine will only backup your Macs internal hard disk or any external hard disks physically attached to the Mac. Time Machine can not backup one remote device to another remote device.)
Hope this clarifies things.
Cheers!

Can Time Capsule be used just for backups -- without being connected to a wireless network?

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