Time Capsule and multiple hdds

I have just bought a 2tb time machine but want to attach 2 other external HDDs to it and a printer.
Is this possible to do using a usb splitter.
I want to use one of the drives as a backup drive (1tb external) and another as external storage (2tb tiem machine) and the 3rd is a portable half tb drive that i use for work and home so travels a lot with me.
for backup i only want to back my macbook pro so the smaller drive is good for that (1tb)
Any advice or thoughts.. to be honest i never thought to check how many usb ports it had before i bought it lol..
Thanks for any advice in advance.. (sorry if its a dumb question i only recent switched from pc to mac)

Is this possible to do using a usb splitter.
The Time Capsule only has one USB port, so you will need to look for a powered USB hub with 3-4 USB ports for devices.

Similar Messages

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 machine, time capsule and multiple back up drives

ok--I'm a little dumb, so please bear with me:
Been using Time Machine for months using a WD 320 gig drive. Bought Time Capsule, when they came out and have been wirelessly backing up my Macbook Air ever since.
Had the bright idea today to plug the WD usb drive in and use time machine for the first time since March, as a redundant backup--it worked fine.
When I got home tonight, I switched the hard drive from the WD 320 gig to the Time Capsule drive, and later noticed was doing it's usual thing, backing up automatically with time capsule and time machine. But then I realized that it was doing a complete backup--not just an update.
When I entered time machine, all my backups were gone.
Have I lost all the backups I made since March?
Can you only back up to one hard drive?
Did I delete all my backups without even getting a warning that that would happen?
Really?
My Time Capsule shows that I am using 120 gigs, but I can't account for 80 of those gigs...
I hope this makes sense...
thanks so much either way,
andre
Did I lose months of backups by changing my

...even so, its odd that without your authentication information that the files in the FileVault image would be accessible and actively copied to another location...it appears to defeat the purpose of FileVault
The TM backup of the FileVault protected Home folder does require the password to be restored so it is protected.

Poor network speed with 1st generation time capsule and multiple airport express 5Ghz. My network speed slows to a crawl when not close to the time capsule. I get the range that I need, but the speed is painfully slow.

Hello,
I have a first generation time capsule running 802.11n (b/g compatable) and the airport expresse's are the newer 5ghz models. I have 3 airport express's and I have the range that I need. I can run the time capsule using 802.11n 5ghz, but I loose the range and can't connect to all of the airport express's. My computers and mobile devices run 802.11n. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to increase the network speed. Would the new airport extreme fix the problem?
Thank you

Unfortunately, you are experiencing one of the downsides to 5 GHz. That's because the higher frequency 5 GHz signals are much weaker than 2.4 GHz signals.
After all, you always have to give up something to gain something else. In the case of 5 GHz, you gain potential speed but in return, you must give up penetration power and distance capability.
In order to work well, 5 GHz signals need to almost have a line-of-sight relationship between devices. Unless you can achieve this, you will do much better to leave the Time Capsule running at the 802.11n (b/g compatible) 2.4 GHz Radio Mode and allow the Express devices to "extend" that network.
As for the location of the AirPort Express devices in an exended network, that is critical for best performance. That's because the Express can only "extend" the quality and bandwidth of the signal that it receives. Post back if you need a few more tips on how to find the best location for the AirPort Express devices.
Would the new airport extreme fix the problem?
Unfortunately, no.

Time Capsule and Thunderbolt HDD very slow access via wifi enabled MacBook Air

I have a Q-RAID thunderbolt external drive attached to the Time Capsule. I use it to archive movies for viewing via a media server around the house (mostly via WIFI). Using my MacBook Air to access the files, performance is very spotty. Sometimes it's very fast (monitoring the "Data Received" via Activity Monitor typically > 3MB/sec) and sometimes it's very very sluggish (Data Received < 200kb/sec). Any idea? It's not a home network issue b/c when it's slow, i test it immediately against a networked iMac and i can access large files just fine (Data Received > 2MB/sec). Thanks.

I have a Q-RAID thunderbolt external drive attached to the Time Capsule.
You are killing it.. The connection on the TC is USB2. USB is slow.. slow .. slow interface. It is very CPU intensive.. and depending on what the TC is doing it can slow it down like crazy.. the fact is, the TC was designed to plug in a simple drive.. not a raid array. The access to files in the array .. frankly it is a wonder it works at all. But you should move the Q-RAID to a computer with thunderbolt port and share the disk to the network.. it will go at 10times the speed. or maybe 50times or 100times when you have slow speed. TC is not suitable.

I have question about hooking up an external hdd to a time capsule and still have my printer hooked up as well. Anyone got any tips for me, how to do it and what brand of harddrive that will work best for me 1 or 2 TB

i have question about hooking up an external hdd to a time capsule and still have my printer hooked up as well. Anyone got any tips for me, how to do it and what brand of harddrive that will work best for me 1 or 2 TB

You just need a powered hub.. if you already use one then fine.
Plug in just about any external hard disk will work fine. Format has to be readable by the TC.. ie fat32.. or much better HFS+.. plug it into a Mac to prepare the drive.
Pick whatever size suits.. nowadays 2TB are most economical.
WD, Seagate have goobled up all the minor players.. so pick one.
Whatever suits your budget and asthetics.
NOTE.. The USB on the TC is fine for printers.. IMHO it is the wrong way to go with USB disks.. use the internal disk of the TC.. USB is less than half the native speed plugged into a Mac.. TC to USB is slow.. far slower than internal drive.. or using external drive as external.

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?

Behaviour's difference between Time Capsule and Airport Extreme + Ext HDD ?

Hello !
I would like to know if there is any behaviour's difference between a Time Capsule and an Airport Extreme base station + External HDD ? For instance, once Time Machine configured, have I to mount manually the drive connected to the Airport Extreme to trigger the backup ? Or once my wifi is up, TIme Machine detects the Airport Extreme base station, the hard disk, and triggers the backup ?
Regards,
Mr Lejeune

Theoretically there is no difference between the two. In reality there are two differences. First, Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups on a drive connected to the AEBS. If you run into technical difficulties you'll get no help from AppleCare techs nor from an Apple genius. Second, my experience suggests that it is a fragile backup backup system. My wife is using a TC at work whilst I have a base station and hard drive connected to it at home. Both of us have MacBooks, have the same software, and have the same basic habits. In a three month period I experienced frequent stalled backups - the last one fatal. After numerous attempts to get the backup going again I was forced to format the drive and start over. When I started over, having verified that the backup was working again, I abandoned TM and began backing up wirelessly using ChronoSync. My wife had fewer stalled backups (not none, but fewer) and thus far, nearly a year later, she has never had to format and start over.
In theory, wireless backup with TM is a great idea but its execution presently leave something to be desired. Frankly, while I am using TM to backup to a tethered hard drive and I'm beginning to trust it despite being a version 1 product, I wouldn't rely on TC and TM as my sole backup scheme.

Time Capsule and iTunes working with external HDD

Hello all.
I have a situation I would to share with you and see if there is a solution.
I have a PC and a Macbook Air. I had a Time Capsule which had my iTunes library but the drive failed and I lost everything. However when it was running things weren't going great. Because the Time Capsule was a bit clever, it only spun the HDD when TIme Machine was backing my MBA.
This meant that I had trouble accessing my iTunes library because it wasn't always available. So I would have to locate the library on most occasions and on even more occasions iTunes lost the links with my media files and had to go through the time consuming 'Find files' process.
I was wondering if an answer to my problem would be to store all my music and other media on an external HDD (like the GoFlex). The I could plug it into my PC, then my MBA and if I wanted to make it avable to both I could plug it into Time Capsule and it would 'broadcast' it to both.
I was wondering if anyone had tried this and how it worked, Would iTunes see the HDD plugged directly into the MBA as the same as the HDD being plugged into the Time Capsule?
I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Scipio7 wrote:
it shows 3GB out of 3GB instead of 3GB out of 40Gb total.
Where are you seeing those values?

I recently purchased a time capsule and thought I would put my itunes on it as an external drive as my mac book air only has 120gb. However I can not be connected to the internet and the TC at the same time in order to download the files to the TC. Help?

I recently purchased a Time Capsule and put my iTunes library on there so that I wasn't using up my hard drive space. Only 120gb on my mac book air. However when I download songs from iTunes I can not be connected wirelessly to the internet at the same time. Can I hard wire my TC in to my mac so that I can treat the TC as just an external hard drive? Thanks

Initially, you asked if you can hardwire your MBA to the TC. The answer is yes, by using the optional USB Ethernet adapter that Apple provides. However, in order for your MBA to access the TC's internal or USB-attached HDD, it would need to establish a network connection to it. This would be true of any NAS device on an Ethernet network. Therein, lies the problem. Your MBA cannot connect to two networks simultaneously.
One option then, would be to have two separate iTunes Media folders; one on the MBA & the other on the TC. This way, you can download the music to your MBA when connected to the Internet at the AirPort lounge, and then use iTunes Consolidate Library feature to transfer the audio files to the TC's iTunes Media Folder location. A great program to help maintain multiple iTunes Librarys and/or Media Folders, that you may want to consider, is PowerTunes.

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.

Migrating to a new iMac, Time Capsule and external drive involved.

The family has gotten a lot of use out of the good old 2.16 iMac Core 2 Duo but it was time to upgrade. So now we have a 27” 3.2 iMac, 2x 4Gb, 1Tb of storage to migrate to.
The mess is this...
There are 4 users on the old iMac.
The old iMac is full to the brim, no room left on the HDD.
Some time ago I hooked it up to a WD 500GB external drive and moved each users music to the WD. In addition I moved the iPhoto libraries to the WD too.
Now it’s time to migrate and I’m not sure where to start. I do know where I want to end up though.
I want to move all the information that is spread across the old iMac HDD and the WD external drive to the new iMac...consolidate it back. To back things up I have a new 3Tb Time Capsule which will also wirelessly back up a Macbook Pro and a Macbook Air. For additional back up I also have a 2Tb G Tech external drive.
My thoughts are these.
Use the G Tech as a temporary bridge. Partition the drive, and back up the iMac to one side and the WD external to the other.
Then migrate the old iMac to the new iMac.
Then from the G Tech move the iPhoto libraries and the iTunes to the new iMac.
Questions I have:
There is a back up of the old iMac on the WD external that may have important information not stored on the old iMac internal drive. Is there a way to merge the files and keep the newest information and dump the redundant?
How do I ensure that my iPhoto libraries don’t get messed up? It seems that when even installing updates that now and then some thumbnails disappear.
How do I partition the Time Capsule for multiple machines?
What is the best use for the G Tech? Storage of photos and music or redundant back up of the Time Capsule?
I’m sure my post will generate as many questions as answers so I’ll stop here and see what shakes out. Thanks in advance for the input and responses.
Stuart

I'm ready to use Setup Assistant now but connectivity may be an issue. Pondini's recommends Firewire. The issue is I don't have a FW400-FW800 cable. USB is all I have that is common to all my devices. Is that even a consideration? Ethernet is an option between the two iMacs but Pondini seems to elude to Migration Assitant over Setup Assistant when using that connection. Am I confused on that issue?
Sources options
2006 iMac                         G-Tech
USB 2.0                            eSATA
Firewire 400                       Firewire 800
Ethernet                            USB 2.0
Destination
2013 iMac
USB 3.0 (2.0 compatible)
Thunderbolt
Ethernet

ITunes sometimes won't see media on my time capsule, and I have to remind it where it is !!

Hello,
I use a MacBook Pro to run iTunes, and my media sits in two locations.
1 Music, books, Apps etc are locally on the MacBook
2 Movies and TV Shows are on my Time capsule.
iTunes never has a problem with finding local hard drive content, however it only seems to find 50% of the time capsule media.
I get the apostrophe that suggests iTunes cannot find it, however if I select "get info" it knows where it is. (and will work fine from there)
It has become very frustrating, as it is never the same files it cant find, always different !!
When speaking to Apple (in-store) he was convinced it was a network speed issue related to the time capsule, however after speaking to Apple Care, they say it is not a recognised configuration (to store files away from the local Mac) and hence wont help me !!
Im convinced I cannot be the only one with this issue as we download more and more content our local hard drives are just not big enough to cope.
In summary, I just want to open iTunes and all my content be visible !!
Thanks

Your Time Capsule is on and running well before starting iTunes?
Although I think the AC person was going a bit by the book in the configuration comment, the person does have a point and it is not recommended you keep content other than backup files on a Time Capsule. If for no other reason you do not have a backup for your content you are keeping there.
Since you are saying this is happening with different files each time, but iTunes is able to find them when you get info on the file, I think it could well be a network issue and because you are using your Time Capsule for multiple purposes which includes large files. When you are starting iTunes it is trying to do something with the files and there isn't enough capacity for iTunes to do it and it is reporting files as missing. When you do it more leisurely one-by-ne by getting info it is having time to find them and is reporting them as okay. Which files this happens with may just be am atter of slight differences in what is happening each time you start iTunes and your network drive.

Is there any downside to using a reference type library if I use Time Capsule and will do file management only from within Aperture?

Have done a lot of reading to get prepared to convert to Aperture 3 and have this question regarding setting up my library type.
I'm not a professional -just a heavy user hobbyist.
It appears that the major factors in using reference style is to backup the images with Time Capsule and always do moves or deletes from within the Aperture application.
If my architecture matters here's what I have that may be involved in photo management and editing:
iMac (latest 27" high power version with lots of memory)
Internal 2TB HD where the library is stored
External (FireWire) 2TB HD where the images are stored
External (FireWire) 6TB HD backup drive
In the future an iPad for remote work on images (when/if available) and a Mac laptop (for same remote use)
I see major downside issues to letting the library manage my files - such as inaccessibility (or awkward accessibility) to the images for other programs, and performance issues when the library gets large (thousands of images or 100+ gb in size)
The chief complaints I've seen regarding using a reference mode is the broken link issues created if file management is done outside of Aperture (adds, deletes, moves of files) and the inability to use the Vault function for backup.
One feature that I imagine I'd like to have is maximum integration with Final Cut Pro X and that's one area I haven't seen much on and would be interested to hear about if that integration is affected with the choice of managed vs referenced library types. (I like to produce film clips that are combinations of pics and video and want to be set up so that is done in the easiest fashion when working in FCP X)
I'm sure I've not seen all sides of this issue and would like to see some discussion around this question.
Thanks to everyone contributing!
Craig

Goody, Goody, you hit a few of my favorite subjects! Herewith some comments, with the usual caveats - true to the best of my knowledge and experience, others may have different results, YMMV, and I could be wrong.
I run Aperture on two machines:
-- 2007 Mac Pro with 2x2.66 GHz Xeon, 21 GB of RAM, a 5770 GPU, and multiple HD. I have about 11,000 images, taking up 150 GB. (Many are 100 MB TIFF, scanned slides)
-- 2006 Mac Book Pro with 1 2.0 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB of RAM and a 240 GB SSD.
Two very different machines.
-- Aperture Libraries are all the same - Managed or Referenced. If Managed, then the Master image files are inside the Package, if Referenced, they are outside, and you can have any combination you want. Managed is easier, but Referenced is not hard if you are the least bit careful.
-- While the sheer size of an Aperture Library is not a big issue, the location on disk of the different components can have a tremendous impact on performance.
-- Solid State Drives (SSD) read and write faster than regular Hard Disks (HD) and, what is more important, empty HD read and write much faster than full HD.
-- Aperture speed requires a combination of RAM, CPU, graphics processing unit (GPU) speed, and disk speed. The more RAM you have, the less paging you will see. With enough RAM, the next bottle neck is CPU (speed and cores) and GPU speed. But even then you will still have to fetch an image (longer if you pull the full resolution Master, read and rewrite the Version file, and update the Preview and Thumbs.
So what works?
-- RAM, RAM, and more RAM. 4 GB will work, but you will page a bit. 8 GB is much faster. On my old MacPro the sweet spot was about 16 GB of RAM.
-- Keep your Library on your fastest (usually internal) drive. Keep that disk as unloaded as possible. How do you keep it unloaded? Either buy BIG, 1 TB+ or move your Masters off onto another disk. The good news here is that as Master files are written only once and never rewritten, speed of this disk, as opposed to the disk that holds the Library, is not important. There is a one second pause as the Master is read into memory and, if you have enough RAM, that is it - the Master will never be paged out. If, on the other hand, you do not have enough RAM, and you do a lot of adjusting at full resolution, then the speed of the disk that holds your Masters will become very important due to paging.
-- I found that I picked up a tiny bit of speed by keeping the Masters on a dedicated disk. Thus, in your configuration, if you can dedicate that 2 TB FW HD to your Masters, you should see very nice performance.
Final notes on backups and archives:
-- One conventional wisdom is that you should make an archive copy of every image file before or as you load them into your system. (Aperture in this case.) This archive is then never touched or deleted.
-- An alternative approach is that you do not keep such an archive, but only the images that you have in your Aperture Library. And when you delete from the Library, you no longer keep a copy anywhere.
I do the following:
-- Card to Aperture. Card is then kept at least 24 hours until all of my backups have run. (I use three - Time Machine, Clone, and off site.)
-- I do not keep archive copies. If I decide to delete a file, my only recourse is to recover it from Time Machine during the six month cycle of my Time Machine backups. Thereafter, it is lost.
There are merits to both approaches.
Hope this is clear, correct, and responsive to your needs.
DiploStrat

HT1449 Can I move my iTunes library onto Time Capsule and share it across my devices (similar to a NAS drive)?

Hi
Would anyone know if I can I move my iTunes library onto Time Capsule and share it across my devices (similar to a NAS drive)?
This would give me some hard drive space on my iMac and more importantly mean my iTunes library is available all the time. Although I have Home sharing I need my iMac on and if not I use iTunes on iCloud I always seem to be downloading the tracks I need.
Current configuration / devices:
iMac 20-inch, Mid 2007 - nearly full!
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
OSX Mavericks
Time Capsule (1TB)
iPad
iPod Touch
Apple TV
iTunes 11.1.5 (5)
Many thanks

What "devices" are these? By devices I normally understand i-devices and not computers. How many computers?
If you put the whole library on the Time Capsule (TC) you can only use it with one computer at a time because the iTunes library file can only be opened by one copy of iTunes at a time. If you put only media on the TC but have a copy of the library files on each computer you can use media by multiple computers but you then have the headache of trying to make sure that any changes done to the collection by one computer are mirrored by the libraries on the other computers which will be more or less independent.
I hope this TC isn't also your backup drive. When the TC drive fails (and it will someday) then your whole collection is gone. Don't rely upon Apple to always have copies for you to download. For one, if a distributor puylls an item then it is gone period. Additionally, Apple only keeps media, not the actual organization that is your set of library files. If you do this, buy another backup drive.

Time Capsule and multiple hdds

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