Time Capsule with External Drive

I really want to buy a Time Capsule since we have a few Macs in our house now. However, we already use a Hitachi external drive as our Time Machine back up. Can I connect it to Time Capsule so...
1. I can access the back up files wirelessly just like it is a part of Time Capsule.
2. Add more space to Time Capsule.
One more question. What is the make of the hard disc drive inside Time Capsule? Is it Seagate? Hitachi? Or else?
Thank you!!

If you plug the existing external drive into the TC, you may not be able to access the existing backups.. they could be copied to the internal TC drive, and then copied back.. so all kinds of things are possible but just a warning .. the remote network backup is dealt with differently to local hdd backup.
It will be accessible via wireless plugged into the TC.. it will exist as separate space.. not more space on the internal disk.. ie not JBOD.. it will be two separate drives.
The Disk in the TC is generally WD but at the moment supply is so short I am not sure.. Apple have used samsung, seagate and hitachi drives.. so it depends on flavour of the month I suspect. Price and availability.
You might find the review interesting.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Note his internal drive speeds seem high.. and the USB drive speed attached to the TC is really low.. ie speed over wireless will be fine.. because wireless is limiting factor.. over gigabit the internal drive is much much faster than the USB.. and even copying to the USB locally is about twice the speed as over network using gigabit.

Similar Messages

Back up from Time capsule to External Drive

I want to move all of my media from my hard drive on one macbook to my time capsule. i currently use the time capsule with time machine to back up my hard drive. but, i have multiple computers. at home, i have a macbook and a macbook air. at work, i have an imac. i'd like to keep my photos, videos and music on the time capsule's hard drive, so i can access it from each computer. i have the time capsule registered with mobileme, so i can see the contents of it from each computer. presumably, then, if i put the media on that disk, i can access it from each location.
but, now i want to have a back up of all of that media. i have an external hard drive i can plug into the time capsule. my question is this: is there a way to use the time capsule as i have described and then have the time capsule's contents backed up to the external hard drive? if not, is there a way to put everything on the external hard drive, connected to the time capsule, access the content from all three computers, and then have the external harddrive back up to the time capsule?
any help would be really appreciated!

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
No, Time Machine cannot back-up any network drive.
Your options are limited. See #Q6 in the Using TIME MACHINE with a TIME CAPSULE *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Backup Time Capsule to External Drive

I have AirPort utility 6.1, and am not able to backup the contents of my Time Capsule to an external HD plugged into the USB port on the Time Capsule. The airport utility recognizes the external drive but I cannot back up the Time Capsule to the drive. Is this feature no longer available? If the feature is available, how do I access it?

Why would Apple remove that feature?
As you know, we are all users here, just like you....and cannot answer for decisions made by Apple.
If you want the feature back in AirPort Utility 6.x, you might want to let Apple know.
Apple - Time Capsule - Feedback

Time capsule with external hard drive

My wife and I just recently became an all Mac family and I am looking into backing up our files. We have approximatly 1 TB of Photos and 1 TB of Music/Movies. We are photographers (well, my wife is, I just take blurry photos) and so we expect the size of our Photos to grow.
We both have Macbook Pros and a mac mini (1 TB of storage). Connected to our mini is a an 8 TB external hard drive currently set up as a Raid 10, so I have effectivly 4 TB storage with 4 TB of back up. My plan was to buy an Air Port Extreme to replace our 4 year old wireless router, and I see some of the Air Port Extreme's have time capsul storage built in.
My question is, our photos, music and movies will be kept on my EHD, which is mirrored and will make its own back up. Is it worth buying an Air Port Extreme with time capsule to back up everything? We will primarly be keeping programs word documents and home school stuff on the Mini and everything on our Macbook Pros will be files we take from the EHD.
Also, should I plug the EHD into the Air Port Extreme or the Mini?
I formated the EHD on the mini, so it is set up as journaled, not FAT32.

Connected to our mini is a an 8 TB external hard drive currently set up as a Raid 10, so I have effectivly 4 TB storage with 4 TB of back up.
I would quibble with you on the use of the word backup.. Mirror yes.. you have a mirror.. but that does not represent a backup. But you also suggest later that you have a separate backup as well .. if so you have not listed what exactly this is.
The issue is if you delete a file.. it is deleted from the array.. if you manage to corrupt a file.. it is corrupted in the array.. worse yet.. if you corrupt a library.. very real possibility with the way apple stores files.. and I do hope your are storing original RAW versions.. so the library will then be corrupted in both sections of the array.
How is this connected to the mini? I hope it is a recent mini and using thunderbolt??
The best backup imho is a 4TB drive plugged into the array by usb or whatever is the fastest port it has.. esata would be great.. expensive but thunderbolt even better. Does the software with the array have some inbuilt backup?? They are usually the best way to do it. I would even consider a second cheap USB stored offsite.. friends house. Thieves love those big disk arrays.. they are worth a lot of money.. and they collect your TC/AE along with the rest.
Now all this might be already part of what you are doing so please take it simply that you didn't list it.
My question is, our photos, music and movies will be kept on my EHD, which is mirrored and will make its own back up. Is it worth buying an Air Port Extreme with time capsule to back up everything? We will primarly be keeping programs word documents and home school stuff on the Mini and everything on our Macbook Pros will be files we take from the EHD.
Also, should I plug the EHD into the Air Port Extreme or the Mini?
I formated the EHD on the mini, so it is set up as journaled, not FAT32.
You can use Time Machine in the notebooks to do a backup of the current configuration of them. Without needing to do the backup of the EHD which is really too big to do effectively. TM is very good at keeping incremental backups.
A Time Capsule is good value considering the price of the hard disk now.. so you can buy an Extreme and run it with USB drive.. but the TC with inbuilt drive is a better option in that the drive speed of the internal far superior to the usb2 drive.
The new AC models are still somewhat buggy.. I think I would wait a bit for Apple to get their act together.. a few months probably. Of course I only see the people with issues here.. but the firmware is still immature.
I read a review recently by a guy I respect on our local forum.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2125865
Compared to the Asus N66U model.. the AE wasn't even in the same class. And that is not AC but just 900mbps (so called) N wireless. That the AE was totally outclassed is somewhat of a surprise.. they are basically identical.. the chipset both use is standard broadcom. That means Apple has tried to do funny stuff instead of sticking with the broadcom OEM linux firmware.. they have to rewrite it in NetBSD.. and this is going to take some time to debug.
For now you can use TM to network drive,, just as easily as to a TC.
See http://code.stephenmorley.org/articles/time-machine-on-a-network-drive/
This is plainly opinionated.. and others might be in better position to post.. so go ahead and tear me to shreds.. but I would take great care.. before leaping at new edge technology.. unless you like the bleeding edge.

Can I use Time Capsule as external drive with a Time Capsule?

I have a Time Capsule set up with AirPort and it works well for backups. Can I buy a second Time Capsule and plug it into this TC with ethernet and use it as an external drive?

jshafer wrote:
So, you are recommending using a USB drive into the TC or using an NAS plugged into the ethernet port...is that correct?
Yes, correct. USB drive is not fast but it is still mostly going to be faster than wireless.. it is of course slower than ethernet.. so what you are using on your clients dictates what is the rate determining step of the network.
Am I correct in thinking that an NAS using ethernet connection would be faster than USB?
Does a true NAS have its own internal backup system?
Yes, to both.. but remembering the client has to be able to make use of it. ie is also ethernet.
True NAS is faster than TC as they use RAID systems.. more reliable.. you can replace disks in the raid.. TC is sealed.. and all decent NAS will be able to back themselves up to a USB drive.. on incremental basis.. which is major shortcoming when people try and use the TC in this role.

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 Drives

I just converted from Dell to Mac with purchase of a MacBook Pro. At the advice of two salespeople in my local Apple Store, I bought a Time Capsule 1TB for use as a wireless base station for my apartment and to back up my laptop and my two external hard drives, which have 400 GB and 250 GB of video files.
I just bought and hooked up the computer last night and this am. I am using the TC as my wireless base station without problem. I have attached the two drives to the TC with a USB hub, and I can access files on those external drives wirelessly throughout my apartment.
I now want to back up my files onto the TC. Since the MacBook Pro is new, I have almost nothing to back up from the laptop. But I want t do be able to backup the stuff on the external drives to the TC.
How do I do that? I cannot seem to find the answer anywhere. For that matter, I cannot even seem to move a file from one of the external drives to the TC. I can only move them to the Documents folder.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Of course you can back up your external drives, providing that they are formatted in HFS+ (it is also known as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". Just connect the external drives to your Mac, go to System Preferences -> Time Machine -> Options, and remove them from the excluded items list. You may have to press the padlock at the bottom left part of the Time Machine window in order to do that.

HT201250 How can i use Time Capsule as External Drive

Hey Guys,
I just have query about time capsual , How can i use time capsule as my external drive as i have 2TB with me i can take the Backup as well i can put all my pic and music in time Machine if i can use as External HD ! Can some one Please help me in this will be highly appreceate.
Thanks
Monal Thakkar
Amrapali Group

You need to get an external HD for the "overflow" of stuff that won't fit on your Mac.
Format it for a Mac (see #1 in Using Disk Utility), even if it says it's compatible.
Then copy what you want to the external HD. Most things you can just drag and drop; but for iTunes and iPhotos see: Moving your iTunes Music folder and Moving your iPhoto '11 Library.
Then let your Time Capsule back up both your Mac and the external HD. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for info and details.

Time Capsule with multiple drives

Hi everyone, great information here! I have a slight issue and am seeking guidance! I have a 1TB Time Capsule that is used with Time Machine to backup my Macbook Pro and 1 external hard drive. I have attached another 1 TB drive to the Time Capsule as well. I also have 2 other external hard drives that I'd like Time Machine to back up to the attached hard drive on the time capsule. Is this possible? If so, how would I make it work? Thanks!!

Sorry but Time Machine will not back up the external drives connected to the Time Capsule.

Using Time Capsule as External Drive for iTunes Music Folder in iTunes 9

First, prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard and iTunes 9, I had my 210 GB of music on a 1TB Time Capsule which I accessed wirelessly through my Macbook Black and I set my path to the "iTunes Music (External) Folder" I created on the Time Capsule as the default path for iTunes to access the iTunes Music (External) Folder. My iTunes Library and Album Art reside on the Macbook hard drive. Unless I opened iTunes when the Macbook was disconnected from the Time Capsule (e.g., not at home), it always remembered the drive path the next time it was opened and would play music fine. If I had to reset the drive path, iTunes would remember it (again, unless I was disconnected from my Time Capsule). Now, under iTunes 9.0.1 and Snow Leopard, iTunes always defaults back to the iTunes Media Folder on the Macbook each time I open iTunes even if I set the path to the Time Capsule. The TC is also used as my airport connection to the cable modem and Home Sharing is enabled. Oddly, iTunes seems to play music just fine even though the drive path to the iTunes Music (External) Folder is not being utilized, which it would not do under the old version of iTunes. A screenshot is below. Anyone know what is going on here?
/Users/seanrichardson/Desktop/Screenshot_1.png

Make sure the Time Capsule is ready and mounted before launching iTunes.
You can add it (the Time Capsule) to your Login items in System prefs -> Accounts.

Time Capsule with External HD

Can anyone tell me what happens when you connect an external HD to a Time Capsule? Does the TC recognise the new drive and treat it as more capacity and therefor continue to do backups spilling over onto the new drive? Or does it just see it as another seperate drive and therefore you need to setup a new backup to use it?

It is the latter. The external HD and the TC are recognized as a separate drives.

Time Capsule and external drive

Quick question: can I use Time Capsule to backup data automatically on an external hard drive?
I've got a Mac Mini set up as a media server in the living room. The 200 or 300 gigs of media files (music, movies, etc.) are on an external hard drive already, but aren't backed up to anything. I was considering using Time Capsule as that would solve two problems (backing up my primary "work" computer and the Mini). But what I'm wondering is, would Time Capsule only back up the Mini's internal hard drive, or would it grab the external hard drive hooked up to the Mini, too? Or would I have to back up it manually to TC?
Thanks!

Interesting. Reading that thread, though, I'm not sure he's actually using Time Machine on Time Capsule to backup his music-dedicated external drive automatically. Maybe I'm just reading him wrong, but it looks like he's trying to do exactly what I want to do but can't. Maybe I'm wrong. But it seems like what he's saying is that Tim Capsule/TM is backing up his Mac Pro's internal drive, but not the external one.

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

Time Capsule as external drive

I bought the 3TB Time Capsule and it is setuwith file saring enabled but when I drag the files I want to add over in finder it say they cannot be added because the Time Capsule cannot be modified? Any help?

So you mounted the disk in finder??
You created a new directory for the files? How did that go?
Do not add files the root directory of the TC.. make sure you create a new directory. When you make the directory you should have permissions to add files to it.
If not turn on guest account to read and write in the airport utility.
You do know, there is no backup on the TC.. and no way TM can back up files you copy over there.
See http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ3.html
Using TC for data.. if you intend to mix in TM.
Go back to the home page and look at FAQ and Troubleshooting for lots of info about how to use TM and TC correctly.

Time Capsule with external HDD as fileserver and backup

We have two mac minis running Leopard.
Today, we have an old Windows 2000 machine that acts as a file server over the network.
All files are stored on the PC.
Now, we have bought a TC. Sure it's one thing to automatically backup the mac minis, but I also want to connect an external USB hard drive (1 TB) to the TC and store all files on that disk.
Then I want Time Machine not only to backup the Mac minis, but the content on the external disk as well.
From what it looks like, this seems doable. We do not have any Macs or PC that has 802.11n capacity, so the TC will be hooked up on Ethernet via cable.
Are there any issues on what disk can be used?

There will be no problem with this, however the speed seems to be better with the internal drive. I am not sure why though.
On a wired connection I got 13MB/s, thats > 100 mbps write speed to the internal drive, but only about 9 MB/s to the USB drive. On wireless it wouldn't matter, as you can't get 9MB/s speed anyway.
I have a 500GB TC and a Lacie 500GB USB hdd.

Time Capsule with External Drive

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