I have a 1 TB Time Capsule on a wireless network with my iMac and my wife's MacBook Pro. The TC is almost full. What is the best way/device to increase storage capacity?

Replace the Time Capsule with one that has a larger hard drive. Or erase the one you have and start a new set of backups or backup one of the computers to a different backup drive.

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Can I use Time Capsule to both wirelessly back up 2 Macs and as a file storage device that both Macs can access wirelessly?

In a perfect world I’d like to be able to download movies and music to my computer, both through iTunes and other ways, but rather than transfer everything to a portable hard drive and then plug the hard drive into a media box to get it on the TV, simply be able to wirelessly move it to the TV, or in the case of music the airport express or some such system.
I’d even like to take this one step further and have a central drive that the home computers are networked to, or at least can access files from (wirelessly), have it backed up to the cloud, and have it be the ‘hub’ for files, music and video.
Can Time Capsule serve this purpose?

Can Time Capsule serve this purpose?
No .. it cannot.
Here is why.
The TC can be pressed into service.. it is not designed for it.. and in fact is really poor mainly due to no backup..
You can plug in a USB drive which is slow but does work fine for wireless access.. ie wireless is even slower than the slow disk.
Take the following into account.
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.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
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
A much better albeit slower device is the WD MyCloud.
It has no inbuilt wireless but you will just plug it into your wireless router.. hence wireless access.
You should still not use it to store iphoto library.
And the idea of streaming wireless from a central store basically is not going to work. Wireless networking is too slow, and has many limitations.
Buy a Mini and use that as a HTPC or media computer and use it plugged directly into the TV.

Can time capsule be used to back up an imac and macbook?

I use time capsule with my imac and I have recently bought a macbook. Can I add the macbook to the time capsule so that both devises are backed up on it?
Many thanks
G

Yes, that is fine. .the two devices automatically setup different backup sparsebundles.. a disk image in effect.

Adding Time Capsule to existing wireless network?

Hi all
I have been reading the existing posts on this subject but cant really find the answers I need.
We have just bought a Time Capsule to back up our MacBook Pro.
We have a Netgear wireless modem/router which already has a wireless network set up.
My parents use a Windows laptop and access the internet via this network. We do not need this laptop to be backed up with the time capsule.
I am just wondering what is the best way to set up the Time Capsule? Add it to the existing network or create a new network? What are the benefits of each?
We also have a 5GHz wireless network - would it be better to connect the Time Machine to this instead? And if so is it possible for the Mac to run off the 2.4GHz while it backs up to Time Capsule via 5GHz? Sorry not sure how this all works!
thanks

bushwacka2603 wrote:
Thanks.
So just so Ive understood correctly.....
I connect the TC to my Netgear via ethernet and this means the TC acts as a wireless router to connect my Mac and the laptop to the internet?
Bridged the TC is an AP only not a router.
Wireless can be on or off.. it is entirely up to you.
What OS are you running?
If you are unfortunate enough to run Mountain Lion. please install a real utility.. this is tricky because Apple like toyland version for toyland OS>
How to load 5.6 into ML.
1. Download 5.6 for Lion.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Click to open the dmg but do not attempt to install the pkg.. it won't work anyway.
2. Download and install unpkg.
http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/
Run unpkg on the desktop.. it is very simple.. drag the AirPortUtility56.pkg file over to unpkg.. and it will create a new directory of the same name on the desktop.. drill down.. applications utilities .. there lo and behold is Airport utility 5.6 .. drag it to your main utilities directory or just run it from current location.
You cannot uninstall 6.1 so don't try.. and you cannot or should not run them both at the same time.. so just ignore the toyland version.. the plastic hammer.. and start using 5.6.. a real tool.

Connecting the time capsule to a wireless network (university)

I just purchased my first mac computer, and the time capsule. I am a university student, and my housing has wireless network, so i would need to configure it to that network (which requires registration). When I first opened everything up, I could see the time capsule in the airport utility, but now I cannot. I dont really know where to go from here, because all of the manuals go from being able to detect the time capsule. On top of that how do I connect the wireless to the registration required network? Any help is much appreciated.

how can I use the time capsule as a "wifi acceptor" to connect with my wireless network, and then boardcasting wifi signal to my devices?
Unfortunately, this is not possible.
In order to broadcast a wireless network with Internet access, the Time Capsule must be provided with a wired Ethernet connection at its WAN "O" port.
Check wtih your Internet Service Provider to see if they have an adapter or other device that will provide a wired Ethernet connection to the Time Capsule.

Benefits of Time Capsule on existing wireless network

I have a generation 1 time capsule that I have never used. Recently, since purchasing an apple tv and ipad, while also have multiple PCs running on my network, I thought I should retire my old netgear (IEEE™ 802.11 b/g 2.4 GHz) and replace it with my time capsule as the main wireless router to support all my network traffic.
I was thinking should I just use my time capsule as an extended base station to my network? I live in an apartment and don't need to extend my range so I'm not sure what the point of that would be??
And can you have the time capsule as an additional base station to just handle n-band traffic? How will my apple tv and ipad know what to talk to if both routers are near?
Any advice?

I read from an apple support guide that "Adding Wi-Fi base stations when it is unnecessary can reduce Wi-Fi throughput because the Wi-Fi network will require more data management overhead.
All this is saying is that if you have 2 Apple wireless devices both configured the same way and they are too close together, it's possible that interference may slow down the connection just a bit.
This is not your situation at all. You are using different devices, configured differently to provide two different networks. If anything, performance will improve because the "n" devices will be using one network and the other devices another. It's like having a dual band wireless router.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Time Capsule on Existing Wireless Network

My niece will be going to college this fall, and her dad bought her a Time Capsule. Her dorm will already have a wireless network. How can she use the Time Capsule on an existing network and still have some security?

Using an Ethernet cable, she should connect the Time Capsule directly to the Mac's Ethernet port and backup files that way. The Mac will not be able to connect to the Internet when the Ethernet cable is connected and backups are running.
If the Time Capsule is configured to "join" the campus wireless network using wireless only.....which is not supported by Apple..... then backups must occur very slowly over that "public" network. Definitely not recommended.
If is not too late to return the Time Capsule....there are better, and less expensive options here.

About connecting my time capsule to a wireless network

I have bought a time capsule but as my place isn't ethernet-able, how can I use the time capsule as a "wifi acceptor" to connect with my wireless network, and then boardcasting wifi signal to my devices? I have tried the extending a network option, after it restarted and I can't even search any base stations. Can anyone suggest me a solution to that? I really need to do so although I know that this isn't a purpose of using the timecapsule. In other words I'm trying to make the time capsule as a wireless modem to connect to another wireless network, in the mean time boardcasting wifi signal to my devices.
Thanks guys.

how can I use the time capsule as a "wifi acceptor" to connect with my wireless network, and then boardcasting wifi signal to my devices?
Unfortunately, this is not possible.
In order to broadcast a wireless network with Internet access, the Time Capsule must be provided with a wired Ethernet connection at its WAN "O" port.
Check wtih your Internet Service Provider to see if they have an adapter or other device that will provide a wired Ethernet connection to the Time Capsule.

I have a 1st Gen Time Capsule 1tb. It turns on, boots up and turns green for 5-10 mins, but then turns solid orange and then blinks orange. I have removed the hard drive and replaced the power supply . . . still the same problem. Suggestions?

I purchased a used 1st Gen Time Capsule with a 1 tb hard drive.
When I plugged it in and did the initial setup, it worked fine, but gave me a hard drive error. A few minutes later the green light turned solid orange, then blinking orange, then the status light went off. The lights in back stayed on.
I removed the hard drive and rebooted, it turned green for 5-10 minutes then reverted back to a solid orange, blinking orange, then went off.
Next I purchased a remanufactured internal power supply, and installed it (without the hard drive in). It turned green almost immediately. After about 15-20 minutes, I decided to try to install the hard drive again, booted it up, and tried to erase the hard drive with was working properly according to the software. It stopped erasing the disc after about 20 minutes and turned solid orange again, then blinking, then no status light (but back lights were still lit).
I'm a bit flabbergasted at this point, any suggestions on what to do next? I think i've pretty much replaced everything except the logic board, but can't seem to find any information on the symptoms of a logic board malfunction.
Thanks!!!!!!!

A Gen3 is identical board to a Gen4 although they have some differences in firmware and wireless card was updated on every model.. but a Gen3 is substantially faster than Gen1, Gen2 which also have identical boards.
You can with careful shopping get a Gen3 pretty cheap.
Most use a delta power supply which I think is a lot better than the flextronics used in most Gen1/2
You can sell back the parts to ebay.. people still would buy the power supply etc. Even just the case can be useful to a repairer.
But if the board is gone.. it is hard to repair.. not impossible.. but hard.
Gen 3 and Gen 4 are not without faults.
See this page.
https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair/new-issue-with-a1355-gen-3-tc
I have fixed it a different way.. by using the small converters you can buy in bulk from ebay for $1 each.. KIS3R33 .. they produce 3.3V at 2A peaking at 3A.. amazing.. I keep using them to replace onboard power converters by removing the inductor and simply power directly.. the end result has worked great. You can simply change the resistors around and get any output from 1v to 20v depending on input.
Is it worth doing it .. no of course not.. it will waste many more hours than $50 is worth.. but it is kind of fun that you can actually make things work again.
Here is a pic of the Gen 3 totally powered by me. All onboard power removed.
This was to track down the fault in the Gen3.. but I am kind of pleased that it ended up neat enough and reliable enough to work for more than a year.. the Gen3 still serves as a way to get Netflix via network for a friend running 24/7.
The units supply (from left to right)
1v, 1.1v, 3.3v, 5v, 1.8v
It is feed by 12v supply which is also directly connected to the hard disk.
So it is possible to fix.. !! Only got to be a bit crazy.

What's the best way to use Time Capsule through Extended Wireless Network?

I am operating four computers, three Apples and a PC. All the Apples use Snow Leopard. I have a large house where the cable company's modem and internet access is located downstairs at the far back of the house. That is where I have a 2Tb 802.11n Time Capsule (TC) connected to the modem by ethernet cable. My iMac is there, connected to the TC by ethernet cable. In the middle of the house, also downstairs, I have an Airport Extreme (802.11n) operating as a wireless bridge. Upstairs in the front of the house (very far from the TC and closer but not very close to the AE) I have a home office. That is where my other two Apples--a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air--are usually located. The PC is located in a bedroom directly above the TC and wirelessly connects to it. At all locations, I get four radio signal strength bars. However, I am not sure that the AE is doing anything, because I get four bars regardless of whether the AE is plugged in, or not. When it is turned on, Airport Utility on all computers shows both the TC and the AE, but I have not been able to find which Airport ID I am actually connected to.
From my home office I do temporarily lose my internet connection from time to time each day, but the connection recovers usually within seconds. I assume this reflects occasional interference or other loss of wireless signal in the distant home office, although I do not see the radio bars diminish to less than the four bars.
All three Apples are set up to use the same TC for backup into Time Machine. However, I have been getting errors on the laptops operating in the home office (a long way from the TC and perhaps connecting directly over wireless or perhaps wirelessly through the AE bridge. Some messages are to the effect of being unable to backup, and others more recently report errors. I think that either due to connection interruptions or merely by suspending or turning off the computer while in the middle of backing up, errors in the Time Machine files were created. I have been unable to delete more than a few of the 8Mb sparsebundle bands so that I can completely get rid of one of the sparsebundles for the MacBook Pro. I was able to get rid of the other sparsebundle for that computer and also the sparsebundle for the MacBook Air. I am reluctant to erase the entire TC, because it has been working for the directly connected (by ethernet cable) iMac sitting right next to the TC.
So, I am wondering what is the experience of others who are trying to use TC successfully from computers located a long distance from the TC with either a direct wireless connection or a bridged wireless connection through an AE or other bridge.
And does anyone have good ideas about how to delete the sparsebundles effectively? I read the various questions and answers in the support community, but so far nothing that I have tried based on those messages seems to work. It seems that when all the Time Machines are set to "Off" and the sparsebundles are expanded to show the individual bands, we ought to be able to delete them fairly expeditiously. Sometimes, I can delete one band fairly quickly, but then the second band will hang forever. More often, I can't even delete the first band.

Thank you, Bob. I followed the procedure you stated. My AE is working. I did register its BSSID when I put my laptop next to it. This is also the BBSID I am getting when in my home office at the far end of the house from the TC. This means I am using the extended bridge AE when working and trying to use the automated backup feature in Time Machine. Do you think I should turn off Time Machine on these laptops when they are in the home office, and bring them into the room with the TC occasionally to have a better connection (wireless to TC or by connecting an ethernet cable) when trying to make Time Machine backups for them?
Interestingly (in contrast to the exact match of BBSID's for my AE), when I compared the BSSID for my TC in Airport Utility to the BBSID of the TC using the option key and the fan shaped Airport icon, the BBSID's matched except for the last two digits. In Airport Utility, they are 2F. In the fan shaped Airport icon they are 30.
Also, the AE signal, being centrally located on the first floor of the house, seems to be the one most in use. When I walked my laptop away from the AE all the way back to the TC, the laptop automatically switched over to the TC only once. Most of the time, the laptop is still connecting wirelessly with the AE. To switch back to the TC, I have to turn Airport off, and then turn it back on again.
I don't know how efficient or inefficient the Time Machine is when connecting to the TC indirectly through an AE bridge.

How can I add a Time Capsule 3TB to a network with an older Time Capsule 2TB?

I have a 2010 Macbook Pro with 500 GB HD and a 2013 Macbook Pro with 1TB HD. I am using Mavericks and will migrate to OS X Yosemite when it becomes available. I tried backing both up with my older Time Capsule with 2 TB of space but it isn't enough. So, today I bought the new Time Capsule 3 TB to add on to my network. I want to use both TCs in order to have 5 TB for backup.
I have a Brother printer and my Comcast Cable Modem connected to the old Time Capsule. I also have an Apple TV with 1080p HD that uses the internet wirelessly through the old Time Capsule.
My first question is what should connect to what and in what order? Should the new TC connect directly to the old TC and if so, with what cable?
My 2nd question is: Can I move several 100 GB of old data that I rarely use onto the 3TB TC so that I could access the data from either computer whenever I need it, without having the data on either computer?
Thank you.

This is a pretty easy setup.
Basically just plug the new TC WAN port into the old TC LAN port.
Run the airport utility on the computer and it should recognise that the new TC is plugged into another one.. and setup bridge mode and create a wireless network.. if not you can jump in and edit it at the end of the setup.
You could also swap things around with the new TC as the main router.. and the old one as the secondary.. but people are experiencing some issues with WAN connection to some cable modems.. so you need to be prepared if you have issues to go back to the original setup.
You will use an ethernet patch cable to connect them. I recommend if you have them in the same area place them at least a couple of meters apart.. so buy a 2-3M patch cable at least.. (8-9ft). Even better would be to install the new TC closer to the clients that will use it.. to improve wireless in dark corners of your house.. but all that can come later.
My 2nd question is: Can I move several 100 GB of old data that I rarely use onto the 3TB TC so that I could access the data from either computer whenever I need it, without having the data on either computer?
This is a lot harder question.. not in how to do it.. it is simple.. copy and paste files onto the new TC.. that is not the issue..
The problem is backup of the files that no longer exist on the computers. Ironically the TC is problematic for one major reason.. it cannot back itself up.. nor can Time Machine (TM) backup network drives. Even though TM uses the TC to store the backup it cannot actually work to backup the TC. The problems are not insurmountable.. you can use a third party backup.. eg CCC but it will be extremely slow. A better strategy if one of your computers is a desktop is to install an external drive and share it to the network. The data rate will be hugely better.. and TM can backup as per normal.

Using time capsule to extend a network with security

I have a time capsule and my roommate and I use the same wireless network. I want to add my time capsule to the network we both share but want to be sure only I will be able to access data on my time capsule i.e. external hard drive, back ups etc. Is this possible?

The Time Capsule can only extend a network wirelessly if it connects to the wireless signal from another Apple router.
So, the first question here would be whether or not the existing wireless network there is being provided by another Apple router.
If yes, what model of router would this be?
If no, then the Time Capsule will need to connect to the existing wireless router using a permanent, wired Ethernet cable connection.
If you do it this way, you have the option to have the Time Capsule produce a separate wireless network, or you can turn off the wireless on the Time Capsule and use it only as a wired hard drive.
No matter how the Time Capsule is set up, you would want to set up a separate Disk Password for the Time Capsule, so only those users who had the password could access the Time Capsule hard drive.

Time Capsule as Additional Wireless Network and Backup

I have just purchased a 500Gb Time Capsule and I am seeking some assistance in setting it up. All this would not be a problem is Apple had just included a modem in their base stations like most other ADSL wireless routers, but hey ho! So my setup then:
I currently have a Belkin N1 Wireless Modem Router connecting me to the internet through my phone socket and also creating a Wireless Network called Apollo. Connecting to Apollo are my MacBook Pro, Vista Laptop, iPod Touch and a HP wireless Printer.
I really rather that the new Time Capsule (TC) act as my wireless router and that my exisiting Belkin just act as 'providing the internet to the TC', however I have several devices plugged into the belkin through ethernet and therefore cannot remove it completely.
So how do I set up the Time Capsule to route the internet to the house as well as acting as a backup for my MacBook through Time Machine?
Thanks

Apple has never made modems for users to connect with broadband internet services. All you have to do is plug the RJ45 cable into the Time Capsule, run through the setup and it will then broadcast a wireless signal for your devices to connect to. You can also plug your other devices into the TC via the RJ45 connector.

MacBook Pro cannot locate Time Capsule on Verizon Wireless Network

Here's what I have: both my MacBook Pro and my Time Capsule are connected to the same wireless network. (I used the "join an existing wireless network" on the Time Capsule.) But when I go to back up, it says the disk is unavailable. And when I open the Airport Utility, I don't see my Time Capsule. Any ideas?

Welcome to the discussions!
It can be a tricky proposition to configure the Time Capsule (TC) to "join" another wireless network because the settings on the TC and network must match exactly.
Try temporarily connecting an ethernet cable from your computer to the one of the LAN <-> ports on the TC to see if that will allow AirPort Utility to "see" the TC.
If this does not work after a few tries, you'll need to "hard reset" the TC by holding in the reset button until the amber light blinks more quickly. Keep holding a few more seconds and then release.
Open AirPort Utility up and it should find the TC. Try the following setup:
Click Manual Setup
Click the Time Capsule tab below the icons to assign a name, device password and adjust Time Zone settings, etc.
Click the Wireless tab
Wireless Mode = Join a wireless network. If you don't see this choice, hold down the option key on your Mac while you click on the selection box
Wireless Network Name = Exact name of your Verizon wireless network
Wireless Security = Exact same setting that your Verizon router is using. This is where almost all "join" errors occur because the settings don't match exactly. Even when they do, there can sometimes be problems.
Wireless Password = Same password as your Verizon wireless network
Verify Password
Click Update. Close AirPort Utility. The TC should restart in 15-20 seconds and you should have a green light. Log onto your Verizon wireless network and you should be able to "see" the TC now. To confirm, open Macintosh HD and look for the Time Capsule icon under the SHARED heading on the left side of the window.
If the TC is located close to your Verizon router, it is easier (and more reliable) to configure the TC to connect that way, rather than using wireless. You'll still be able to perform backups over your regular Verizon network. Post back if this is an option for you and we can go over this type of setup.

Help - My PC cant see my Time Capsule as a wireless network

hi
I have a Time Capsule (not connected to internet as yet but it is on) sitting next to my PC. My imac can see the Time Capsule but my PC cant!
Im running Windows XP. Do i need to install any software?
I do not want to hard wire my pc to it as i have to move the TC to another room. Does anyone know why my pc cannot find my TC? My PC's wireless internet is working as i am picking up other networks...
thanks.

Not too sure if I can help you with this because I am trying to do it myself but...
When I purchased my TC I asked the assistant in the Apple store if I could do this they said yes and proceeded to show me. Along the line I got a bit confused and didn't want to ask them to go over the whole thing again.
But they wrote on a business card "NTFS" partition??? I have emailed them to see if they will elaborate on this and I am waiting for an answer. But maybe you can take something for this?
If I get any more info I will post it
L

I have a 1 TB Time Capsule on a wireless network with my iMac and my wife's MacBook Pro. The TC is almost full. What is the best way/device to increase storage capacity?

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