Will Time Capsule back-up an external hard drive that is connected to it directly via USB?

I'm considering a macbook air, but I have ~200GB of music and photos that currently lives on another laptop (and is manually backed up to a 500GB ext. hard drive). Ideal set-up would be as follows:
1. MBA (128GB) with just the OS, applications and ~ 5GB of .doc, .xls, .pdf, etc.
2. The 500GB hard drive (loaded w/ music and jpegs' and permanently connected to Time Capsule so that I don't have to plug it into the MBA everytime I want to use music/jpegs)
3. Time capsule (constantly backing up the MBA and hard drive via time machine).
Does anybody know if this is possible (i.e. will the TC back up an external hard drive that is permanently attached to it, rather than attached to a Mac?)
Does anybody have other suggestions (without having to buy any more gear) for storage/back-up that don't require that I plug that external HD to a computer every time I want to access the data?

sixschlitzes wrote:
Does anybody know if this is possible (i.e. will the TC back up an external hard drive that is permanently attached to it,
No, sorry, Time Machine cannot back up from a network location.
Does anybody have other suggestions (without having to buy any more gear) for storage/back-up that don't require that I plug that external HD to a computer every time I want to access the data?
The 3rd-party apps CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSync (and probably others) can back up from a network location.

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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.

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.

Does the time capsule work as an external hard drive that you can access from multiple lapttops

I have a mac desktop, a macbook and a pc laptop. I also purchased the time capsule. Will that functional as an external hard drive that I can use to save a share documents between. Trying to figure out the best way to work on documents between devices. new to max and trying to make the full switch but still working with toshiba laptop for a while too.
Any help is appreciated.

Hello jhettenhausen,
Yes, it can function as an external drive for all the devices. As for Windows, you just need to make sure that
it is Windows Professional or XP, as they support mapped network drives. Windows 7 Home Premium doesn't is not capable of mapping network drives. At home, I have a ubuntu laptop, Windows 7 Profesional laptop, and Macbook Pro and they all backup to the Time Capsule 1 TB. Hope this helps!!
Best Regards,
freesparks

Will Time Machine Back up an External Hard Drive Attached to my Mac Pro?

Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up? So, I'd like to have Time Machine back up my Mac HD and the external HD. If Time Machine won't do this, is there a good back up program for Macs that is very turnkey?
Thanks in advance!!!

GregT wrote:
Apple TV is GREAT, but it quickly filled up my hard drive. My thought is to take my folder that contains all of my personal files and put it on an 1TB external hard drive. I'd then "point" iTunes to where this new folder is. First, is that the right approach? Will that mess anything else up? Second, can I have Time Machine then back this external hard drive up?
If the drive is formatted +Mac OS Extended,+ yes. While it's connected, go to TM Preferences > Options. If it's listed in the exclusion box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
If it's listed in gray, however, it's either formatted wrong or corrupted, and you can't remove the exclusion.

Issues with time capsule back ups when external hard drive is connected/not connected

I have a 2TB Airport Time Capsule (ATC) (tall tower type) purchased a few weeks ago and initially wanted it to back up a Seagate FreeAgent 500Gb external drive (formatted extended journalled) as well as three Macbook Pros. The Seagate has a single partition called Lib and is not used for Timemachine backup; it just contains my iTunes library and lots of scanned and archived documents. I want the Lib folder to be accessible to all three Mac users in the house and I've set up all of the Macs to connect and back up to the ATT. They can all see the 'Lib' folder when it is connected to the ATC.
After a bit of searching on the discussion boards I realise that the ATC will not back up 'Lib' when the Seagate is connected by USB directly and that ATT will back it up if it is connect to my Mac and set not to exclude Lib BUT I am encountering some problems with this scenario when I activate time machine.
When I disconnect the Seagate by using 'disconnect' in the ATC viewer in Finder I shut down the drive before disconnecting the usb and reconnecting to the Macbook Pro just as a precaution. When i connect and then activate back up using Time Machine selecting the ATC data folder, it is showing no previous back ups and never backed up. When I had the Seagate connected to the ATT I was seeing back ups as far as 6th May when I bought the ATC. I know that the Time Machine backups are not on the Seagate as I had to reformat it a few days ago and use Data Rescue 3 when I lost the ability to see any files on it after disconnecting it from the ATC. I saw the 6th May backups in Time Machine before I disconnected the Seagate a few minutes ago so they must be on the ATC - just not showing after the Seagate was disconnected.
Can anyone talk me through what may be happening here and advise on the best way of managing this. I'm already planning to buy another external drive as the Seagate is getting a bit old now and I realise I should have secondary back up. I should just say that the reason for bothering with the shared external drive is so that we can all access the photos and household files over the wireless network using ATT. I would just like it to be backed up with minimal fuss if possible.
Many thanks in anticipation of some help with this
I

I would fix the problem by simply installing a more flexible backup software. Carbon Copy Cloner costs US40. And it is licensed so you can load it on all the computers in your house.
It can backup the external drive while connected to the TC, although if you are using wireless it will be sure slow.
Including the external drive in your backup with TM, is just messy. It will work.. and although you are not seeing the previous backups, they are there.. but TM cannot see them until it reconnects with the external drive in place. Once it reconnects it will need to deep scan the previous backup.. you are going to find a simple backup takes far longer than you want. It is also difficult to recover from.
See Q5 here http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
And several other comments in Pondini's KB will be helpful to understand. Sadly the guy who wrote it died before Mavericks came on the scene.. but it has more bugs than ever. TM has become less reliable for a lot of people.. and that is not doing any swapping of disks.
TM is honestly great for simple backups of your OS and particularly for incrementals but getting a clone of the disk like your external is far better for your setup.
See http://pondini.org/TM/Clones.html

Will Time Machine back up and external hard drive connected to my TC?

Here is my desired set-up: older Powerbook G4 whose iTunes Music is saved on an external HD (WD MyBook offering USB, FW, and ethernet connections); backup wirelessly to a Time Capsule using Time Machine; connect the external drive to the Time Capsule either using USB or ethernet (whichever is faster); have Time Machine backup everything, ie, the laptop and the external drive connected directly to the Time Capsule.
Right now, the external drive is connected directly to the Powerbook using Firewire and everything is working as desired. I would like to have the external drive networked, however, so that I can enjoy music on the laptop without having it connected to the external drive. Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
Is this possible?
If so, which connection method is best between the external drive and the Time Capsule, USB or ethernet?

f.bomb wrote:
Seems like I could connect the external drive to the TC to provide a networked iTunes library, but I also want Time Capsule to back it all up together with my Powerbook.
Is this possible?
No. Time Machine will not backup a network share such as you describe. Sorry.

Time machine back up of shared hard drive that is connected to AE

I have 1TB MyBook external drive that I want to use as storage connected to my Airport Extreme. Naturally, this allows anyone connected to the wifi to access the files on there. I also have a second drive connected to the Airport Extreme. That one is for my Time Machine Backups.
My question is this:
Am I able to use that second 2TB hard drive to back up both my iMac and also the shared storage drive that is attached to the Airport Extreme and not directly to my iMac?? That would make me a very happy man if it could do that!
I appreciate any help!
Thanks

span98 wrote:
Am I able to use that second 2TB hard drive to back up both my iMac and also the shared storage drive that is attached to the Airport Extreme and not directly to my iMac??
basically yes. you should get a powered USB hub.
however, using TM to back up to a drive connected to a AEBS is not supported ! it may work, even for a while, but eventually corruption of the backups may occur.
here's what Apple says about such a setup: _*Disks that can be used with Time Machine*_.
JGG

Will Time Machine back up my external hard drive as well as internal one?

I am considering upgrading my Macbook to Leopard. All of my photos, movies and iTunes music are stored on a 250G external drive and as these are the files I work with most frequently I need to back them up regularly. Can I use Time Machine to do this, in other words does the back up include drives other than the main internal one? If not it would be of little use to me.

yes HFS+=mac os extended. I would check the format of the drive. most factory formatted drives are formatted for windows not Mac and hence are formatted FAT. FAT drives are also read+write from OS X. select you drive in finder and enter command+i. read off the format in the resulting info window.

Can Time Machine back up an external hard drive plugged into a Time Capsule

I have iTunes and iPhoto libraries that have outgrown the hard drive on my laptop so I've moved them on to an external hard drive. Since I'd like to move around the house with the laptop, I've plugged the external hard drive in to the Time Capsule so that the files on the external hard drive will be accessible on the network. Now that my really important files live on an external hard drive, I want to back it up.
Time Machine is backing up my laptop's internal hard drive to the Time Capsule drive, but I can't seem to figure out how to make Time Machine also back up the external hard drive that's plugged in to the Time Capsule.
Is this possible?

I understand that [Chronosync|http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html] ($40 U.S.) can do that, but I've never used it.
If you do that, you'll want to back it up to a disk image on the TC's internal HD, or a separate HD. See #Q3 in [Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/TimeCapsule.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum) for details.

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.

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.

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??

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.

Will Time Capsule back-up an external hard drive that is connected to it directly via USB?

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