Can you extend Time Capsule with an external drive?

Hello, I was thinking of purchasing a 500 GB Time Capsule. I know that one day this size will be too small for my stuff, so my question is if I was to then plug in my external 750 GB USB drive to the Time Capsule, would I then have a second drive available for me to do my back ups? I am not expecting some sort of RAID where I'd have a 1.25 GB drive, just want to know what happens when a second drive is connected to the Time Capsule, does it show both drives as possible Time Machine drives?
Cheers and thanks,
Andrew.

Hello, thanks for your reply, but as I mentioned in the posting, I am not meaning of extending the capacity. What I am asking is if Time Capsule allows you to select both the internal (Time Capsule) drive and the externally connected drive to use as a back up. And the reason that I am thinking of the 500 GB version is that I cannot afford the 1 TB version at this time, but know that I will need more capacity later. So in the Time Machine Preferences can you press the Change Disk button can you select the Time Capsule drive or the Externally connected drive to the Time Capsule?
Cheers and thanks.
-aj

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Can I extend time capsule by adding external drive connected TC via USB?

Hi,
I use my TC drive for backups, i's now full. Can I extend time capsule backup drive by adding external drive connected TC via USB? If yes, how do I his? I have 1TB WD external drive connected via the TC's USB, I can see the WD drive in the finder and the TC set-up...but I don't know where to go from here...
Thanks for your help
Steveru

Welcome to the discussions, Steveru!
I think what you are asking is can you simply continue Time Machine backups by adding the new USB drive, correct? The answer is not exactly. See below for details.
To use the new USB drive for Time Machine backups, you'll need to Open System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock and open Time Machine. Click on Select Disk and click your USB drive to highlight it, then click Use for Backup. Here's the rub....Time Machine will make a new full complete backup of everything on your Mac's hard drive. There's no way to avoid this. After that, it will continue to make scheduled incremental backups just like it did before on the Time Capsule.
If you ever need to go back to your original backups on the Time Capsule, you'll need to right-click the Time Capsule icon on the dock and choose Browse Other Time Machine Disks.
When the USB drive start to fill, you may decide that you no longer need all the old backups on the Time Capsule disk since you should have a good history of backups on the USB drive at that point.
So, you could erase the Time Capsule disk and then start backing up to the Time Capsule disk again. At that time, it will also make a complete backup on the first pass and then normal incremental backups from that point forward. When the TC begins to fill again, then you could erase the older backups on the USB drive and start backups again on that drive. Then switch to the other drive in the future to keep things going indefinitely. If you go with this type of flip flop plan, you should always have a solid history of many months of backups at any given time.
Will a plan like this work? I don't answer a question on the forum unless I've done it myself. This has been working well for me for almost 3 years.
Pondini, the resident expert on Time Machine and Time Capsule affairs, may have some comments on this as well. If you haven't already seen his excellent guide, Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule or +Time Machine FAQ+, these are the best available sources of information on this subject on the Internet.
Or, if you don't want to erase any your backups, you could of course keep adding a new USB drive when the current drive is about to fill.

Can you use Time Capsule with any wifi extender?

Can you use Time capsule with any wifi extenders?

No, since Apple designed their routers to only work with other Apple routers.
I suppose that it is possible that another brand might work, but since you won't know this until you try, it would be a good idea to have a clear understanding of the store's return policy before you decide to gamble.

Can I use Time Capsule as an external drive to store iTunes files, photos and to back-up my MacBook Air?

I need an external drive to back-up my MacBook Air. In addition, my iTunes library of music, TV shows & movies is pretty enormous and I'd like to move it from my MacBook to an external drive to free up space on the laptop.
I will need to access my iTunes library from my Apple TV and the MacBook. I also have an iPad which will need to sync with the external drive.
I would prefer the external drive to be wireless as I am very rarely docked when at home.
Is the Time Capsule the right piece of kit for the job?
Thanks.

Is the Time Capsule the right piece of kit for the job?
Not really, no.
TC is a dumb as board hard disk in an airport extreme router. It has no media servers.. no backup.. it is slow and designed for TM target for laptops. The major one here is lack of backup. Any files you put on the TC can and will be lost at some point.. and to backup you need to have a computer connected to it with an external hard disk.. and a 3rd party backup because TM is too dumb to back up network drives.
TC is designed to spin up slow and spin down quickly at the end of backup. You will have issues when you stream media from it.
ATV needs to connect to itunes server.. not the library. You will still need a computer running. Same for lots of things.. since apple designed their system to be dependent on itunes.
The best idea is a media computer.. a mac mini is ideal. Don't need the latest greatest.. but an actual mac running itunes. Unfortunately it doesn't have large internal drives.. so it is still a bit kludgy in needing a fast external drive.. but at least you have automatic backups.

How do you use time capsule with an external hard drive

I would like to use time machine to back up to my external hard drive.
When I tried to set it up it said it would wipe out everthing currently on it to start using it.
I do not want it to wipe our what I have currently have on the hard drive. Any suggestions?
I do have icloud. Can I back up using time machine to that?

Purchase another external drive. Time Machine will only back up to a drive formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
(63322)

How to handle upgrading a time capsule with an external drive?

My Time Capsule recently filled up. I have 2 computers I'm backing up - a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro. I purchased a larger external hard drive and connected it to the Time Capsule, and it appears to be backing up the Mac Pro just fine. I was thinking that it might be useful to have the MacBook Pro back up to the older smaller drive, since its drive is smaller than the Mac Pro's. So my question is - now that the Mac Pro is completely backed up on the new drive, can I just get rid of the old back-ups on the smaller drive and start backing up the MacBook Pro to it? I don't have a lot of need to find old files or go back to older revisions at this point. I'm mainly concerned with catastrophic failure (as recently happened), so as long as I have the latest backup, and can restore from it, I'm happy with that.
I'm curious what others do when they add a new drive after one fills up? I'd like to be able to continue to use the older drive, since it appears to still be good, but unless I delete the old backups, it looks like Time Machine won't make much use out of it.

That is correct procedure.. if the TC is older than 3years.. begin to be suspicious of the TC's continued longevity.. they do become unreliable and hard disks do not last forever,, especially if it is older one, running in an oven effectively all its life.
What model TC do you have? A1xxx model number from the base please.. molded into the rubber rather than on the label where it should be.
If it is gen1 or gen2 both power supply and hard disk is already well past the useby date. Consider a replacement or using USB drive so you are not caught with the backup gone when it fails.. although it usually isn't bad.. if you only have backups on the TC. It is people trying to use them as a NAS who really hit the brick wall.

Can you use Time Capsule as an external hard drive?

I want to use it as both a back-up drive and an external hardrive for movies etc that I dont want to keep on my Mac so I can have more free space. I was just wondering if this is possible with this device or if I need a separate portable hard drive/external hard drive to do this.

I have an external HDD that I use for backups once in a while, BUT to be honest with you I last backed up my iTunes stuff (around 30K songs) over a year ago. Maybe it is time for another backup.
In all fairness, the whole time I have been using Mac's (since 2001) I have never had a major crash (knock on wood) so it has not been high on my priority list tbh. This said, how Apple have been acting lately I feel they have become a little too big for them selves and I have started to notice errors here and there, something that was unheard of earlier
Anyway, in most cases it is never the HDD that causes problems and extracting data from these are not a major hinder so I'm good...
EDIT: Oh, maybe I misunderstood the question

Can you use time capsule as a hard drive

Can i use timecapsule as a external hard drive to store pictures and access them but not as a back up

Yes it can be mounted as an external HDD in finder and you can drag and drop on and off.

HT1178 Can you use Time Capsule when your computer is partitioned with bootcamp?

I know that if you attach a hard drive to "Airport Extreme" that you can not use the hard drive to back up a partitioned computer. Can you using "Time Capsule" ?

Time Machine will back up the Mac OS X partition to the Time Capsule, but cannot back up the Windows one. This is the same with a regular external drive.
(77240)

Using AirPort Time Capsule as an external drive with access to files by guest account

Is it possible to use my AirPort Time Capsule as an external drive with access to files by a guest account?
I would like to store a large number of folders containg photographs on my AirPort Time Capsule and allow anyone with a password to access the photographs - at the time of viewing the Time Capsule would be connected to the internet but I wouldn't want users to actually access anything other than the files on the Time Capsule - is this possible? if so any help in configuring it would be really helpful.

No it is not possible.. Guest is just that.. a guest that is allowed permission to access the internet but none of the local files.
To give a person access to the TC they must have password to access your normal network..
From there it is up to you how you do this.. people cannot actually access files on your computers unless you give them share and password permissions for that.. you can even setup accounts on the TC although I recommend against it.. if you want shared photos anyway. All security on a TC is illusion.. merely pressing the reset and it is all blown away.. so if you are concerned about security don't put stuff on the TC people should not access.. or like your TM backups ensure they are encrypted.
A person can then access you TC and the photos.. but what else on the network??

Can i use time capsule as a external hard drive

can i use time capsule as a external hard drive

Not plugged in by USB if that is what you were thinking.
You can store files on the TC but you should NOT.
Store files on the TC.
This is asked several times a day.. obviously people are struggling with their latest SSD being too small.
The TC is not suitable for network file server.. but many people having no choice press it into service as such.
Major issues.
1. No backup.. no way Time Machine can backup a network drive. No place to backup to.. So all your files will be at risk. And you will need to buy a third party like CCC to do backup.
2. The TC cannot be partitioned and mixing TM backups and data is not great. It was and is and ever shall be a backup device for Time Machine.
3. The drive is slow to spin up and quick to spin down.. there is no control. In fact the TC is so lacking in controls for even the router side.. that you cannot do more than the most basic of setups.
The following are controls on the hard disk side.
Reformat it. You can name the share. You can do a full archive of the whole disk. This will go at a speed of aprox. 30-50GB/Hr so calculate how long an archive of a full 2TB will take.
4. iPhoto in particular can easily corrupt its entire library with wireless networking causing a disconnection to one photo. Even if you do this;;; do not move your photo library... you have been warned!!
Even apple btw say don’t do it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32 it adds network drives.
5. iTunes can constantly lose connection to the library. The disk is slow to respond.. itunes on the computer will constantly spit out errors. Even in the midst of streaming the TC can spin down the disk due to caching.
6. Do not use any live files on the TC no matter what else you do.. if you edit files in whatever program the file must be on the local hard disk.
7. The only suitable location for most libraries is a computer. You can plug in an external hard disk.
Read pondini for some work arounds.
Q3 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Time_Capsule.html

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfully use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme? Some forums say yes, some say no.

I am trying to get an answer to whether or not I can successfuly use Time Machine with an external HDD connected to an airport extreme. Some forums say yes, some say no. I'm also curious about formatting the hard drive to work both on my wife's MacBook Pro and my PC. Any help would definitely be appreciated.

You may be going on a recollection, that I share, that at one time Apple stated this would be possible:
In fact, Apple’s Time Machine Web page touted this very capability as recently as last Tuesday, as you can see from Google’s October 16 cache of the page
Effortless meets wireless. With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine.
But if you look at the current Time Machine page on Apple’s Web site, that text is nowhere to be found.
That was a long time ago, it has never been officially implemented, and at present they specifically say it cannot be done.
In summary, it may work, but probably won't, and even if it does it may not be reliable.
Reference:
Disks that can be used with Time Machine
Time Machine can’t back up to an external disk connected to an AirPort Extreme, or...
and
Mac OS X v10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks

Can i use time capsule with iphone

can i use time capsule with iphone and ipad and how can i access my data at anywhre using time capsule

TC is not designed for ipad or iphone or any iOS device.
You should use them with cloud if you want remote access to your data do it via cloud.. you cannot easily get remote access to the TC from iOS device.

How I can configure my Time Capsule with my mobile me?

Someone know how i can configure my Time Capsule with my mobile me?... Because i need access to my documents remotely, from any place where I find...
(sorry my bad english)

I think you're referring to the Back To My Mac feature?
Follow these three articles. Most important are the second and third.
http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/mac.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1109
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3486

Can I use time capsule with a ASUS (RT-N16)router?

I will use a router with vpn. Can I use time capsule with it? And if yes, how do I connect them?

There is no vpn built into the native firmware of N16 so I presume you are going to use third party.
Just plug in the TC and bridge it.. ie go to Internet tab of airport utility and select connection sharing off.
wireless then you will need to figure out.. you can setup roaming on 2.4ghz by using identical wireless name = ssid and security but lock both to different channels.. pick out of 1, 6, 11
In a PC network make sure you use the TC with a new name.. no spaces no special characters.. same with wireless. TC also restrict wireless on 2.4ghz to only 20mhz.. if you have the N16 set to 40mhz you will have to be extra careful with channels.. 40mhz will use up two channels and only one remains.. so your household will have filled the 2.4ghz.
Someone suggested you can turn off 2.4ghz in the TC by not naming it.. When I try that it kicks up an error that it has to be named. So perhaps someone else has a suggestion of how to turn off 2.4ghz.
You can turn off 5ghz by unchecking it. Seems mighty strange that you cannot turn off 2.4ghz but you can turn off 5ghz.

Can you extend Time Capsule with an external drive?

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