Chosen Solution
I have a 500GB Time Capsule and I’d like to upgrade it with a 2TB hard drive. Where can I find clear instructions on how to safely do this? What would be the best replacement drive in terms of reliability, quiet operation, and performance? Also, is there a way to migrate my data and settings to the new drive, or will I be forced to configure it from scratch?
Hi, I’m including an article on upgrading a a time capsule HD. Hope this helps you. Ralph http://www.hardmac.com/articles/79/
Looks like this is a slightly old topic, but maybe it’s still live, here’s an even better repair guide for upgrading the drive: http://www.applefritter.com/node/23907
These instructions left out the part about how to transfer my old backup data to the enw hard drive…
Hello all, I am presently on the process of finding a solution to my 1TB Time Capsule not having enough disk space for the incremental backups. Since my Time Capsule allows for and external drive via USB, I connected a 2TB external drive and Time Machine immediately recognized it as an available separate volume (this means you can’t spawn the first drive into the second in ordem to have a unique and bigger volume). Too bad Time Machine can’t treat each volume separately (that would allow me to, say, backup images to one volume and the Documents to the other). But since it can’t, I used the external drive as a new volume (with enough capacity) to hold my Time Machine backups. I also stopped making backups on the original Time Capsule internal 1TB drive which I now use as a network drive for manual copies, backups, etc.. I suppose this thread goes back to a time where there was not the possibility of connecting an external drive, since I have not seen mention to this option - far more practical, though you end up with both drives on the Time Capsule…
before you remove the old drive, just copy the files on it to your internal drive, and then after the upgrade, copy them back to the new TC disc. otherwise, put the old disk into an external case and copy from there to the nw TC before you do any backups should be ok.
Ok - there are some questions open. How big may a replacement drive be? I’d like to replace it with a 2 TB drive. Also what drive do I need in order that the drive got into sleep mode when not needed. I read in one of the tips that the 1,5 TB Western Digital did not go into sleep mode. Which is bad.
Now there are repair guides here on ifxit. =)
Man, I wish I’d known that I would have to copy the files off before removing the hard drive. Who’d have thought that the drive wouldn’t be readable connected to another device! Problem with the “just copy files onto your internal hard drive” is that when you have Time Machine backup files for several machines, it’s very likely you won’t have a hard drive big enough to copy the files onto… Catch-22! So I’ve just started backups from scratch… Once it’s done successfully then I’ll wipe the old drive and use it for something else.
You have to be slightly careful with the WD Caviar Green drives, sometimes the firmware on them isn’t compatible with the Time Capsules and so they don’t spin down during idle time. They may have solved this problem now, but it was a problem with the older smaller capacity drives. That’s why I ended up with a Samsung EcoGreen. Would be interested in finding out how you get on with your 3TB WD drive! http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.p…
