Question on Time Capsule and external USB HDD

Hello everyone,
I have a 500GB Time Capsule that is working wonderfully. I recently have been downloading a number of large .iso image files that are taking up a lot of space on my internal drive on my Macbook Pro. I do not back these files up on the Time Capsule as it is getting full and i want it to backup other more important things.
I do however wish to backup these files. My current desk is rather full and really will not allow me to purchase a large 3.5" HDD and plug it in USB.
Is it possible to plug an external drive into the back of the Time Capsule and have it be used as a wireless disk as well?
I would prefer to have that drive not be part of the Time Capsule disks, i just want to be able to access it wireless over my network.
I would be grateful if anyone can help me out. If this solution will not work, is there some sort of NAS disk solution i can get to work with my TC?
Thanks

All you need is an external USB HDD. It needs to be formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended - Journaled), if you plan on a future Time Machine Disk on this drive, or FAT/FAT32. You could get a NAS, but you don't need to if you already have TC. Can I assume the USB port is free or do you have a USB printer hooked up to it?

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Please Help - Time Capsule and External hard drive Issues

Recently, I switched from Comcast to AT&T uverse as my internet provider and I started experiencing problems.
(1) I have a 4th generation Apple Time Capsule which I am using as my router.
(2) Connected to the Apple Time Capsule - USB - is an external hard drive (not for backup with Time Machine.)
(3) I have a 2011 Macbook pro which I use to access my file on my time capsule and external hard drive.
(4) I had been using my AT&T portable Hotspot from my cell phone to get internet access on my MacBook pro from remote locations to gain access to my external hard drive which is attached to the time capsule.
(5) On August 2, 2014, I switched from Comcast to AT&T and had the AT&T turn off the router function. (I have been using the router from my apple time capsule)
(6) Under Network I switched to bridge mode.
(7) And since August 2, 2014 my time capsule has not been backup.
THE PROBLEM - I need to be able to use the hotspot function from my cell phone to gain access on the external hard drive using my MacBook Pro which I was able to do before. Now it is showing time capsule under finder but unable to connect.
Do I need to reset my Time Capsule since I have a new service provider. Everything else works fine - meaning able to get internet signal but unable to access my external hard drive and backup my time capsule. Please HELP.

(5) On August 2, 2014, I switched from Comcast to AT&T and had the AT&T turn off the router function. (I have been using the router from my apple time capsule)
(6) Under Network I switched to bridge mode.
(7) And since August 2, 2014 my time capsule has not been backup.
If you got ATT to turn off router function in their modem..
Then 6. is wrong.. You cannot have the Network switched to bridge mode..
You must have it set to dhcp and nat.
That is also why you cannot backup.. the TC is off the network.
Please change back to router mode in the TC.
Ensure the internet tab shows dhcp and you create a wireless network.
Then power down the TC... power down the ATT modem.. wait about 20min (you can try 5min.. but it might not be long enough).
Power up the ATT modem.. wait 2min for things to flash lights in de right blinkin order.. then start the TC.
Open the airport utility and make sure your TC captured the public IP and is now working as the router.
That should fix that end of it.. the hotspot end??
Tell us what happens.

About time capsule and external hard disk

I have got rMBP. I also have got time capsule. External WD hard disk is connected to time capsule.
I have got 3 users in my rMBP:
(1) Admin : Administrator
(2) User A : I normally do all my work from this user.
(3) User B: I recently added this new user.
Here, using Finder tabs, User A can see time capsule and External WD hard disk. But, Admin and User B cannot. I also want User B to have the ability to see WD hard disk (and time capsule). For User B and Admin, time capsule does show up, but it shows as not connected. How can I provide User B the ability to see External WD hard disk (since User B needs to store large different files there)? Any permission issue on hard disk?
(Amazingly backup does take place automatically even if I am connected as User B or Admin).
I will appreciate your feedback. Thanks.

Emma1609 wrote:
Hi,
hi emma, and welcome to discussions
Once the external HD is turned on my Time Capsule is not longer recognized. I can't connect to Time Capsule and make any backups. It is also no longer appearing in the Airport settings.
you could try a power cycle on your devices. turn off modem, TC, and HD for, say, 10 minutes. turn the modem back on for 2 minutes, followed by the HD, followed by the TC.
then go airport utility > manual setup > disks. see if your HD is showing beneath the TC

1st Gen Time Capsule and External Hard Drive Issues

I have a 1st generation Time Capsule and have never had any luck connecting an external hard drive (both Western Digital MyBook and Seagate FreeAgent Pro) via an USB hub for an extended period. They will connect for a few hours or up to a day or two before they lose the connection and look up the wi-fi connection (although the internet and connected printer don't seem affected). Thought it might be an issue with the powered hub, but have same issue with both (Belkin and APC). I have read that others have had similar issues.
For laughs, I connected a dinky personal drive (WD My Passpoert 750gb) to the USB hub and it came up instantly and had no issues for the 12+ hours it was connected. Question #1: can I run a portable drive for an extended period of time (weeks, months, years) via USB hub without killing it?
Also, I would like to house my large iTunes and iPhoto libraries to be accessed by 3 different MacBooks. Question #2: is a NAS drive connected directly via ethernet to the TC is the best answer?
I am spoiled by the simplicity of the plug-and-play connectivity of Apple products. Is there a mysterious sequence of procedures that I need to follow to get the Time Capsule to play well with the USB connected HDs?
Thanks in advance for your help.

To answer the general question, a drive that is constantly spinning is both more likely to be damaged and less likely to give issues of access to the USB.. the one fights the other. Feel the small passport drive and see if it is continually spinning.. if so that could account for it maintaining connection.. although according to your testing 12hrs is not long enough to know for sure. Feel the other drives. If they spin down and then when you try to access them, do they spin up? Or is it the spin down time that dictates the time they are available on the network. It may simply be a case of usb connected to a router is not getting the correct spin up info.
IMHO a NAS is the right way to do this.. especially if you have multiple computers accessing it. USB is not a fast connection. Especially hanging off the TC series 1, were not renowned for speed. A NAS is not that expensive now and using a mirrored raid you at least have some protection. Remember to always have the source files in mulitple locations. A NAS can also work as an itunes server, which the TC cannot. And the connection from gigabit ethernet to sata is not made via usb.
As a secondary option.. open your series 1 TC and put in a 2TB hdd.. this is well documented.. larger sizes give trouble but the series one can easily be updated to 2TB.. remember also the power supply in a series one can go at any moment. Get ready for it, plan for it.. one day it will happen.

Time Capsule and External Drive Options

I wanted to inquire if I can use my Time Capsule as an external drive. Reading some of the questions submitted I am still a little unclear. Here is my issue, I have a macbook pro and I am reaching my maximum capacity on my hard drive space. Most of the data is iMovie, Photos, and iTunes. Now I do not need all this data all the time, it just sits on my macbook pro as if it is being stored. I would like to move this to a external drive and I assumed the Time Capsule functions as a external drive. But reading all the posts in the communities it seems like that the Time Capsule can hold some space as an external drive but then if the TC starts to reach its maximum capacity it would delete the stored data. I am interested in doing the following, please guide me if this is possible:
1) The videos/music/pictures that I do not need anymore but would like to archive it, can I store it on the Time Capsule and treat it like an external drive?
2) I got a 2TB TC which I know only 250GB space would be utilized maximum by my MacBook Pro and the remaining space would be utilized for nothing. Unless for instance my Macbook backs up everyday to the TC and it stores 250GB each day then it would reach its maximum capacity on the TC really quickly and will delete the latest version of back up automatically. Is that true? Or does the TC only creates another back up of the changes found. I am just trying to figure out if I can somehow utilize the space on the TC for storage especially if I know that I probably wont have enough data for 2TB.
3) What are my options if I want to store the data and want to retrieve it at my disposal. I just want to make more space on my MacBook Pro.
4) What is the return policy on the TC if opened?
Thank you

But reading all the posts in the communities it seems like that the Time Capsule can hold some space as an external drive but then if the TC starts to reach its maximum capacity it would delete the stored data.
When space is tight on the drive, Time Machine will automatically start to delete the oldest Time Machine backups to make room for newer backups.
But, Time Machine will leave any regular files or folders that you might have stored on the drive untouched. Those files will never be deleted unless you delete them yourself.
1) The videos/music/pictures that I do not need anymore but would like to archive it, can I store it on the Time Capsule and treat it like an external drive?
If you move any files from your Mac, then the only copy of those files that you will have will be on the Time Capsule drive. You have no backups for these files, so you might want to think about this a bit. If your attitude is such that if the files are lost due to a Time Capsule drive problem, and it is of no great concern, that's one thing.
If losing thes files would cause you grief, you would want to think about having a backup plan in place for the "original" files that you move to the Time Capsule drive. For some reason, users seem to forget that if they move a file from their Mac to another drive, they only have one copy of that file....unless they create backups manually.
Unless for instance my Macbook backs up everyday to the TC and it stores 250GB each day then it would reach its maximum capacity on the TC really quickly and will delete the latest version of back up automatically. Is that true?
Sounds like you are confused about how Time Machine works. The Time Machine application will back up everything on your Mac on the first backup. After that, it only backups up any changes that you make to the Mac.
If you do not anticipate making a a lot of changes or adding a lot of new data, your backups will remain very small. If on the other hand you regularly add a number of new large images from your camera, or new movies, Time Machine will be backing up each new set of images or movies that you add.
3) What are my options if I want to store the data and want to retrieve it at my disposal. I just want to make more space on my MacBook Pro.
You can move files from your Mac to the Time Capsule if you want to, as long as you remember that when you do this, you are moving the "original" files to the Time Capsule disk. You will have no backups in the evernt of a problem with the Time Capsule.
It sounds a bit harsh....but the truth remains that all drives will fail. If your Time Capsule fails , you lose the Time Machine backups, but you still have the "original" files on your Mac.
If you move an "original" file off of your Mac to the Time Capsule and the Time Capsule fails....you have no backups of these files.
The whole idea about a good backup plan is that you have "originals" on one drive and "backups" on another.....in case one drive fails, you still have a copy of everything. Make sense?
4) What is the return policy on the TC if opened?
Best to ask the store that you buy from about their return policies in advance. We can't speak for any stores, or for Apple here.

Time Capsule and external Hard Disc

Hi,
I have a problem with my Time Capsule (1 TB) and External Hard Disc (1 TB). The external HD is connected via USB. The idea is to have use the device as a shared HD in my network. First it worked perfect. After upgrading to Snow Leopard i have following problem.
Once the external HD is turned on my Time Capsule is not longer recognized. I can't connect to Time Capsule and make any backups. It is also no longer appearing in the Airport settings.
Can anybody help?
Thank you.

Emma1609 wrote:
Hi,
hi emma, and welcome to discussions
Once the external HD is turned on my Time Capsule is not longer recognized. I can't connect to Time Capsule and make any backups. It is also no longer appearing in the Airport settings.
you could try a power cycle on your devices. turn off modem, TC, and HD for, say, 10 minutes. turn the modem back on for 2 minutes, followed by the HD, followed by the TC.
then go airport utility > manual setup > disks. see if your HD is showing beneath the TC

Time Capsule and external 2 tb drive

I am trying to connect a 2 tb seagate free agent desk external drive for mac to my time capsule through the USB port. I would like to have additional memory available for the three macs on the home network. Everything works fine for 15 mins or so and then the drive and the time capsule seem to hang. I can no longer see the external dive or connect to the time capsule. I have to restart the time capsule and the drive. (the network stays connected however).
I talked to apple support they tell me that they only support the time capsule not what is connected to it. Seagate says that they only support direct connection to the Mac pc not a network device......any help would be greatly apreciated.

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Be sure the drive is formatted right (it sounds like it probably is, but double-check it). It's usually best to completely erase and reformat an external, to get rid of the often-problematic software that comes with them.
That drive has it's own power supply, doesn't it? It should work without a powered USB hub, but that's a possibility.
WD's don't have the best reputation here; among other things, some of them have a built-in sleep or "spin down" mode that doesn't always wake or spin back up properly. We see this mostly when they're attached directly, but it's quite possible you're having the same problem.
You might want to try using the drive temporarily while connected directly to your Mac; if the problem persists, then it's something to do with the drive's hardware or firmware.
Also check WD's site for any driver or firmware updates for it.

Moving Time Machine backups from Time Capsule to External USB Drive

Hi all,
hoping someone out there can help I'm trying to move my time machine backups from my old Time Capsule to my external USB drive. I've already used the Airport Utility to "archive" my Time Capsule to a USB connected WD MyBook Elite.
Right now my WD MyBook Elite has both the archive, and recent (roughly 5 backups) of both my MacBook & MacMini. I've tried to follow the seemingly simple steps located in the FAQ's here [URL="http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/18.html#id22"]Copy NETWORK backups to be used LOCALLY[/URL] , but I cannot past step 1.
[Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
Any advice?
I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
Mac Mini & MacBook.
Thank you in advance.

Dark Heart wrote:
[Quote]Right-click the new volume on your desktop or Finder sidebar and select Get Info. If the Ignore ownership on this volume box is checked, click the padlock at the lower right and enter your Admin password at the prompt. Then remove the check mark from the box and close the window.[/Quote]
There is no option to "Ignore Ownership" in Snow Leopard for the Spars Bundle or when expanding it to see its folders.
That's not referring to the sparse bundle you're copying FROM, but the new volume you just formatted on the USB drive you're copying TO.
If you didn't just format the partition, that box may not be shown -- it not, there's no problem and you don't need to do anything in that step.
I'm basically trying to combine my backups to unit them into one seemless backup each for:
Mac Mini & MacBook.
I'm not sure what you mean by that: you cannot combine the backups of two different Macs. You can put them both on the same hard drive, either in two different partitions, or, if any are going to be backed-up over a network, in a sparse bundle.
If I've misunderstood, please clarify exactly what you're trying to do.

Trying to move backup from Time Capsule to external USB drive

As per the title, I'm getting rid of my Time Capsule and am trying to move the backups to an external USB drive instead.
Initially I used AirPort Utility 5.6.1 to archive to the USB drive. However, when I switched TM back on, it wanted to do a full backup rather than incremental.
I then found Pondini's very useful page at http://pondini.org/TM/18.html and decided to try it this method instead. It also made me realise that I'd incorrectly formatted the new drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) when in fact the TM backup was case sensitive. So I thought this could have been the issue, but still persued Pondini's method. I formatted the drive again, this time in the correct format, and followed Pondini's guide, copying the Backups.backupdb folder from the sparse bundle to the new drive, which completed fine. But unfortunately, TM again wanted to backup everything from scratch when I turned it back on.
Any ideas what I might be doing wrong?

So it looks like I was wrong on both counts.
I misunderstood AirPort Utility's archive feature. I failed to realise that archiving actually puts the sparse bundle in a separate folder called "Data Archive" on the new drive, so of course TM won't continue using that existing backup.
It would also seem that I was incorrect in thinking that Pondini's method didn't work. When I tried it again, I realised that TM was in fact continuing the backup. Initially it looks like it's going to do a big backup, but actually only backed up a few hundred megabytes, then everything was back to normal.
Incidentally, I've also found that if you do use AirPort Utility to archive the backup, you can effectively using Pondini's "How can I copy my TM backups to a different location?" by mounting the spare bundle in the "Data Archive" folder, then dragging Backups.backupdb to the root of the drive.
I just wanted to post this for completeness and in case it helps anyone in the future.

Time Capsule and External HD as Network Attached Storage

I was wondering if I can
a. Attached and external hard drive to my Time Capsule and access is wirelessly?
b. Back up to that external hard drive using Time Machine?
c. Access that external hard drive and Time Capsule from a remote place off site?
Thanks

a. Yes
b. I think so. But why not just use the TCs hard disk for TM backups?
c. Apparently so based on these instructions I have found: (Haven't tried it myself)
In the Finder preferences check the box "show server" to mount to desktop.
Under Airport Utility:
Disks - check over wan and check file sharing and write down the ip address
Under the Finder, use the GO function to find your server ie the hard drive on the TC. In the window provided type afp://ip address then password if applicable. The hard drive should mount and be shown on the desktop.

Setting up Time Capsule and external hard drive

Hi,
In the past i've been using Time Machine for backing up all my data from my Mac Book Pro to a 120GB lacie external hard drive.
I've now purchased a Time Capsule and want to know the best way to transfer my backup data from the External HD to my Time Capsule.
Once that is done, i want to mount my External HD to the Time Capsule so i can use it as external storage for music, photos etc. and access it from my laptop when required.
Is this possible and recommended.
I've also got a PS3 and was wondering whether i can hook this up to all of the above as well.

read these hypertexts and then you'll determine its a no no...different file system.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/04/04/exploringtime_capsule_feature_and_suitabilityreview.html

What is the best configuration with Mac Book air, time capsule and external hard drive?

Hi, I just bought a MacBook Air with the new Time Capsule and I was wondering what is the best set up:
Option 1: use the time capsule as my main drive and back it up onto an external drive plugged at the back of it
or Option 2: use the external drive as the main drive and use the time capsule as the back up? in that case, would the ext drive need to be plugged to the MacBook Air?
Many thanks

Option 2 is far superior.. and actually the only one that works.
That is without killing yourself or having continual issues accessing your files.
You do need to plug the external disk into the MBA.

Question about Time Capsule and Spotlight

I have a simple question about using Time Capsule and Spotlight. Is everything that goes on to Time Capsule indexed into Spotlight? It would appear so but when I search for something (that is still on my hard drive and also backed up to Spotlight) only the local copy appears. Would it be that it finds the closest copy and if that were not there it would point to the Time Capsule copy? Thanks in advance for clarifying this for me.

The automatic setup in the airport utility has changed something.
Is the line down to the TC from the express dotted.. in other words is wireless??
Funny stuff happens.
Please post the screenshots of the 3 pages from the airport utility setup for both airport express and TC..
Make sure wireless is set to off in the express.
Both should be set to dhcp on the internet tab and both set to off bridge mode on the network tab.
So for example the bridge on the network tab.
The summary page can also be a help.
There is a half summary page when you click the item in the airport utility.
There is also a fully summary page, when you hold option key and double click the TC icon for example.

Time Capsule and multiple USB drives ... no show

Hi,
probably one of the Apple wizards can enlighten me here, as also the information in this forum seems inconclusive.
I have a Time Capsule, and everything is fine with that.
I can connect one drive via USB, and this drive shows.
However, I seem to be unable to connect two drives, regardless of HUB I use (I tried two powered and two passive ones fron three different vendors), and which sequence I turn these things on and off.
The first drive that is connected shows.
If I connect the hub with already spinning drives, it is nondeterministic which one will show up.
But only one will show.
Is this expected behaviour?
I find references on the Apple site and throughout this forum that multiple drives are possible.
Greetings,
- Thomas

This is not an answer, but it seemed like a good place to post my latest experience.
I got the Time Capsule and connected three drives to it via USB hub. It worked fine for awhile but then I realized that the backups were not running.
It was a struggle. I finally reinitialized the TC and then got another software program other than Time Machine to run the backups.
So that worked, but now when I plug the other drives in by USB the TC drops off. I can't connect to it.
The TC shows up on the network, but when I plug other drives in to it, it drops off the network.
I finally worked around the problem (with fingers crossed!). I plugged in a couple of the drives to one of my older macs and networked to that drive and the backups seem to be running.
The I plugged one of the drives in to my older Airport Extreme via USB and that backup is running via wireless.
Then if I leave the TC alone with nothing connected to it, I can run a backup to it.
But it is frustrating. First, I could run the backups with TM to the attached drives, no problem. Now, I cannot use the drives connected to the TC via USB. I have to connect them to something else completely.
And that is after the backups stopped working under TM.
It seems like the Holy Grail - a backup program that works.
For today, I think I have worked around my problem, but it is disappointing. I was hoping the TC would allow me to connect drives to it by USB and run the backup through TM. Now TC is basically a networked drive. (Forgot to mention that i am not using it for wireless connection.) I turned that function off and it just a networked drive.

Time Capsule and Two USB Printers via hub?

Will Time Capsule work with two USB printers attached? I was going to attach two USB printers to a Time Capsule via a USB hub. I tried to do that in the past with an AirPort Express and that hardware will only work with one printer. I was told that AE Base Stations did work with multiple printers. Will a TC?

Yes. If it's a powered USB hub, that should work and you should see two printers listed under the Printers tab in AirPort Utility (manual setup). Some users have reported issues with certain hubs, but as I have no experience with this I can't recommend one that will work.

Question on Time Capsule and external USB HDD

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