Time Capsule 2 Tb as external hard drive

I am about to switch from my old MacBook Pro (8 years old) with a 500 Gb hard drive to my brand new MacBook Air with just a 128 Gb hard drive. I need an external HDD to house my iTunes and iPhoto libraries as well as a lot of music projects (Garage Band and Logic Pro) and HD movie projects (most editing done in iMovie).
Earlier today I was convinced by my local Apple Store that a Time Capsule 2 Tb would solve my problems and I fell for it and brought one home with me.
Is this really the best solution? I guess the transfer speed is enough to stream music and photos but will the speed of the wireless transfer be enough to actually WORK on my music and films in say Logic and iMovie without any lag? What speed can I expect from a wireless connection to the TC compared to an external HDD connected through USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt?
Backup and wifi via Time Machine is not an issue as I've already got that covered.
I haven't unpacked and installed the TC yet. Should I return it and buy a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt external drive in stead? Or should I keep the TC and use it for streaming music and photos and buy a separate USB or Thunderbolt drive and use that for my music- and movie projects?
A lot of questions but I hope someone has the answers!
Cheers!

Earlier today I was convinced by my local Apple Store that a Time Capsule 2 Tb would solve my problems and I fell for it and brought one home with me.
The interesting thing is apple themselves say DO NOT do this at least for iphoto.
See
iphoto network no no.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
It's recommended that you store your iPhoto library on a locally mounted hard drive. Storing your iPhoto library on a network share can lead to poor performance, data corruption, or data loss.
The store (noun) that recommends you store (verb) your libraries on the TC is telling you to do what Apple says explicitly not to do.
Good for sales though.
Kappy.. thanks for this..
I don't think it's that obvious, although I suppose it is if you think about it long enough, hard enough, and know what to think about. I've thought about a lot of things I don't know much about, and I still don't know much.
You have summed up life.

Similar Messages

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

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

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

Can I simply just use my Time Capsule as a normal External Hard drive? A wireless external hard drive?

Can I simply just use my Time Capsule as a normal External Hard drive? A wireless external hard drive?

I am not sure what you mean by normal external but yes, it is a network hard disk drive.. and you can use wireless.. the only trouble then is, if there is no ethernet connection and internet is by wireless to a different router, then you cannot do both at once.

Is it possible to sync time capsule data to a external hard drive

Is it possible to sync time capsule data to a external hard drive connected to time capsule via usb. (as an precaution just incase time capsule fails)
Thanks

Yes, if the USB drive has been previously formatted correctly in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
Open AirPort Utility - Click Manual Setup
Click the Disks icon
Click the Disks tab below the icon
Click Archive
Allow plenty of time for the copy process to occur. You will not be able to make Time Machine backups from your Mac until the Archive process has completed.

Can I use Time Capsule 1TB as an external hard drive tos tore my music library(but with cable connection,not WI-FI)

Can I use my Time Capsule 1TB as an external hard drive to store my music library but with a cable connection(Ethernet or USB) and not Wi-Fi.

Yes, with the following warnings.
1. A 1TB TC is a Gen3 or earlier and can die at a moments notice.. So backup is essential.
2. A Gen1 or 2 is slow.. even over ethernet they were processor bound and so transfer speeds are not great.. a USB2 plugged into the computer will be faster. Gen3 is about 50% better as the processor was upgraded by 50% speed.
3. TC has no built in backup.. TM cannot backup network drives.
4. TC is designed to spin up slowly and spin down quickly.. you will have issues with itunes constantly losing the library.
5. You cannot use USB to the TC.. it is a network drive. If you want to use USB directly on the computer buy a USB drive.. but buy as fast a drive as your Mac supports.. Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2
USB3 is cheap and very good.. but the port is only from 2012 so check your Mac specs.
Thunderbolt whilst being super fantastic and around since 2011, has a bank account clearing price although there are Thunderbolt to esata converters.. for around $160. esata falls between usb3 and fw800.
FW800 from WD is no better than USB2 but other brands it can be twice the speed of usb2.
USB2 is the worst. But still faster than a TC.

Can Time Capsule support an additional external hard drive?

A friend of mine is using Airport Extreme and has both his printer and external hard drive hooked through it accessing both wirelessly. The Apple site says this works great with Extreme but does not say you can do the same thing with Time Capsule. I called our local store and she wasn't sure. Both Extreme and Time Capsule have one USB port so no matter what, you have to split the USB(I know this works with Extreme). All my music is on an additional hard drive and it would be great if I could access it wirelessly. If anyone has done this with time capsule please let me know. I want to purchase it but if not I will go with Extreme.

Can Time Capsule support an additional external hard drive?
Yes.
(41832)

Will time capsule back up an external hard drive

Will time capsule back up an external hard drive?

Time Machine will backup the drive to the Time Capsule if it is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and it is connected directly to your Mac by USB or FireWire....and it is not "excluded" from backups in Time Machine Options.

Does Time Capsule works as a External Hard Drive?

Does Time Capsule works as a External Hard Drive?

The Time Capsule works as a network drive.
An external drive connects to your Mac using either the USB or FireWire ports.
If your real question is to ask whether you can store other data on the Time Capsule drive....you can.

I have a macbook air and need additional storage should i consider a time capsule or a simple external hard drive?

I have a macbook air and need additional storage should i consider a time capsule or a simple external hard drive?

If you move live files (files you don't want to lose) to an external drive, you need to back them up. Any files not backed up are at risk of loss. Hard drives and SSDs can fail at any time. It is hard to backup a Time Capsule so a TC should be used only as a backup device.
Do you have a Time Machine backup now? If so, and if it is large enough, you can backup your internal and external disk to it using Time Machine. If not, you all need to purchase an external drive or TC as your backup device. (I recommend an external hard drive for backup instead of a TC.) Ideally the backup drive should be twice the size of what you are backing up but 50% larger will work so if you have an external 1 TB disk and an internal 250 GB SSD then a 2 TB backup disk will work well.
By default, Time Machine will not backup the external disk. You need to remove it from the exclusions list:
To have Time Machine backup your system disk and your external offload disk up onto your Time Machine disk:
 > System Preferences > Time Machine > Options… > Remove the offload HD name from the exclusions list.

Can time capsule back up an external hard drive attached to my imac and the iMac internal Harddrive

Can time capsule back up an external hard drive attached to my imac and the iMac internal Harddrive

In addition to Kappy's comments, the external drive must be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in order for Time Machine to be able to back it up.

Will time capsule also back up external hard drives?

will time capsule also back up external hard drives?

Yes. If you're using Time Machine, open its preferences and ensure the drives aren't excluded; Time Machine can't back up drives in some formats, such as FAT32.
(71818)

HT1175 Apple Time capsule to backup my external hard drive - on exclusion list???

I want to set apple capsule to backup my external hard drive, but it is currently in the exclusion list.
I can't remove it from the exclusion list, because I can't select it and the - option is greyed out.
It is a WD Passport, used for document files only.
With thanks.
D.

Time Machine can't back up drives in some formats, such as FAT32.
(75713)

Time Capsule also backup an external hard drive connected to Mac?

My internal hard drive on my iMac Intel 2.4 20" is filling up so I'm looking at getting an external Firewire 800 hard drive to connect directly to the iMac. Can my Time Capsule back up my internal hard drive as well as an external hard drive connected directly to the iMac? I've searched for the answer but can't find a clear yes or no or how to set this up.
Thanks...

Yes, it's pretty much automatic. You can also control what gets backed up, as follows:
o In Time Machine preferences, Choose Backup Disk, then click Options. A list of locations that are backed up appears.
o To add a new "do not back up" location to the listing, click the "+" button below the list, navigate to the location you want to exclude and click Exclude.
o Click Done to return to Time Machine preferences.

Time Capsule backup to an external hard drive.

I'm trying to back up a computer to an external hard drive via my time capsule. I have tried everything I can to backup to the drive, but it keeps giving me sparse errors. My intent is to have backups both on the time machine and on 2 external hard drives that I will change out monthly to take off site to keep my data safe. Is there some way that I can set up such a system?

Bruke53 wrote:
I tried that; they are working properly. They are also brand new.
Not all USB drives will work plugged into the apple routers. In fact a fairly large percentage just don't work.
What is the brand and model you are trying?
What is the disk format and partition type?
Have you tried a powered hub on the TC?
Not all powered hubs work either but there is more hope to get a disk working from a powered hub. You do not want self powered USB.
What model TC might also help??

How do i set my time capsule as a wireless external hard drive?

it is currently doing regular automatic back-ups of our system, but we want to set it as our hard drive as well.

If Time Machine backups are occurring correctly, then you already have the Time Capsule set up as a hard drive on your network.
Although not necessarily recommended, that means that you can manually drag/drop or copy/paste data directly to the Time Capsule disk.
Are you asking how to do this, or how to locate the drive? Please clarify.

Time Capsule - OS Upgrade and External Hard Drive

Hi, This is my first request and am happy to have found this community helpful so far. It has answered many of my previous questions because somebody else had already asked. However, this time I’m not able to get all the answers since I have specific questions. Please help.
I have a Macbook (late 2008 Aluminum) with 2GB memory, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GHz running Leopard. I just went and bought these to start an upgrade project–
a. CD for Snow Leopard
b. Time Capsule
c. 4 GB memory (2*2GB)
d. 1 External Hard Drive – 1 TB Seagate GoFlex (running out of space in 160GB macbook)
I will buy these applications via Mac App Store after I have the OS upgrade:
e. iPhoto ‘11
f. iMovie ‘11
I have successfully connected time capsule and configured it as my router and have set it up as the time machine backup device (what a breeze!). Also, I have taken the first full backup of macbook and am ready to go. Before I go ahead with next steps, I have few questions:
Should I install the new memory first and then Snow Leopard or doesn’t matter?
Any advice for my memory upgrade? I found the instruction manual in Apple’s site and am planning to do it myself.
Any advice for my Snow Leopard upgrade or anything to be cautious about? I believe the instructions after I pop in the CD will be self-explanatory.
After I have done the Snow Leopard Upgrade, I believe I will still have access to my files in the time machine backup in TC from before the OS upgrade? The reason I ask is I am planning to delete/move files after the OS upgrade.
FYI – After the Snow Leopard Upgrade, I will upgrade to iPhoto ’11 and iMovie ’11 from ’08. I have the latest iTunes.
After I have Snow Leopard, iPhoto/iMovie ’11, I will connect the EHD to the TC USB port and am planning to move the iTunes Media and iMovie project/events to the EHD (found the instructions on this) and delete the media from the macbook internal drive to relieve space. Say, just in case my EHD crashes in the next 2 days after I do this, will I still be able to recover the previous media/project files from Time Capsule? Or do I need to copy the iTunes Media and iMovie project/events into the Time Capsule manually before I move it into EHD? Basically, I want to make sure I have 2 copies of my media, 1 in TC and 1 in EHD, since I am deleting it from mac’s IHD.
Now say I have the EHD connected to TC via USB and have moved my all media and movie projects into the EHD. So macbook is accessing the EDH wirelessly, as the source for iTunes and iMovie media. For performance or portability, if I plug my EHD directly into the macbook, can it seamlessly recognize it as the media source for iTunes and iMovie or are there any settings involved? I am just wondering since via the TC it was a shared drive, and now it’s a plugged-in EHD.
I know that Time Machine does incremental backups. Is there an explanation on this as to what is meant by hourly, daily and weekly backups and what are the copies made? I heard the hourly are replaced by daily backups and the daily are replaced by weekly, what does that mean?
This may not impact me now, but may be soon. Is it true that once TC is full, time machine will delete copies of the oldest backup? My concern is that I want to somehow conserve today’s backup for good. Is that do able?
Should I be concerned that time machine backs up every hour, since it may reduce my macbook’s performance during the backups? I know a way to reduce the backup frequency, am just trying to understand if it’s necessary to do so?
How do I use my time capsule as an external hard drive? The reason is I have another PC from which I want to copy files and store in TC as a backup.
I know I have many questions, but am hoping to get your expert advice. Thank you.

Hello, seems like you wanted to do pretty much what i wanted to do. that is free up space on lap top. But still have instant access to your itunes stuff. I found a solution that works for me.
I have a portable WD hdd attached to my time capsule via usb, i then access both through the capsules wireless connection, using the TC for time machine.
The Apple tv then accesses my itunes lib through my MBP via TC's wireless. I did however connect the WD Hdd directly to my MBP for the initial transfer to the apple tv, but itunes seems to find the lib as long as its there, doesnt matter if its connected to MBPs usb or the TCs usb. Sometimes it might revert to the default location, but i've found that if you click on a song it still plays, then if you close then reopen itunes every thing goes back to your external hdd...
Which means if you go away or want your itunes lib on the move you just need a little WD hdd.
I'm not totally sure if its worked yet but i connected my WD hdd to my MBP vie usb and told the TC to back up that too by going to options in TM preferences, seems to have worked, not sure if it would work while connected to the TC usb connection, doesnt seem to.
NB:Before you do this do a back up of everything in you Itunes Lib on your TC incase you screw up.
(For easy transfer of your itunes lib go to preferences on itunes and create a folder called iTunes Music on your Hdd then close preferences and allow itunes to do its thing, then in itunes go to
file - library - consolidate library, itunes. Itunes then makes a copy of all music on your new hdd. I then deleted the tunes off my MBP)
Just make sure you open your finder and click on the TC to wake the drive before you open Itunes other wise you'll have to go in to preferences and keep altering the location for your itunes folder. which can take i tunes a while.
This method seems to cope with video and music just fine.
Well hope that wasn't too confusing, as i confuse myself at times.
Good Luck.........

Time Capsule 2 Tb as external hard drive

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