Why did apple discontinue the time capsule? It’s such an amazing tool for backing up over Wi-Fi; automatically

Hi all,

I’ve got a 2TB Apple TimeCapsule - which I can not use for it’s intended purpose, as I don’t own a Mac anymore…

I tried to use it as a secondary NAS/backup for my Unraid Server (only the important stuff like document scans and family pictures) but as it only supports SMBv1 it is not mountable from Unraid either…

Any suggestions here how to make use of this still nice piece of hardware for data storage/backup purposes?

Thanks a lot!

My Time Capsule died today (RIP), and I'd love to continue backing up wirelessly to a local device from my MacBook.

What do people currently recommend as the best way to do this?

Hi folks!

I just realized that my Time Machine settings page says that future versions of MacOS will no longer support Time Capsule disks for backups.

Anyone here knows what's going on? And more important: how to back up a laptop without having to carry a SSD dongle thing everywhere?

I went to check on my time capsule settings, and found this message waiting for me. This really sucks.

I know it’s old but it works like a bomb, not only that, I have three of them… WiFi works perfectly for my needs, streaming video in high res, Teams, etc. Anyone know if there’s a workaround for it? Yes I saw I can get a strawberry but that’s too complicated for this old geezer. Your help is appreciated.

I got my first MacBook about 2 months ago and so far I love! Only problem is that through times there has only been windows computers at home so that means I had to rebuy some software and still need to buy a couple of adapters.

I'm still looking for the perfect accessories for my Mac and something that has caught my eye is the time capsule, I've got some questions about it though.

• What can a time capsule do besides back up Macs?

• Will I actually need it?

• Are there significantly cheaper alternatives?

• What (if existent) are the alternatives?

Seen an A1409 2TB Time Capsule in my area for pretty cheap. Wondering if these are still ok to backup a couple of MacBook Airs (1TB & 128Gb)

Thanks!

Hey there!
Yesterday I was checking on Vinted whether there was something cool from apple for cheap-ish when I found a 2013 2TB Airport time capsule for 100-120€ , and watching some review from when it was released i find it very interesting, since it could theoretically work as a NAS, but I'm worried that it might not communicate with my 2015 MacBook Pro (running Monterey).
Also, I managed to find the Airport Utility app for iPhone working (and on win 10 as well) but on Monterey isn't supported (or at least it doesn't finish to install).
My doubt now is, is it worth it to buy and try to tinker with it or should I pass?
Thanks in advance!

Yes, I know they stopped making them in 2018 but for NASes they are quite cheap. I've tried to explain it to him but all I can muster is a very complicated way of saying "wifi router and cloud storage but the cloud is inside your house".

For the people who don't know: the Apple Time Capsule (2008-2013, rip) is basically a hard drive strapped to a wifi router. Most importantly, the hard drive part works really well for smooth Apple Time Machine backups for anyone with a Mac. Just come back home... when your macbook automatically connects to wifi, backups automatically start.

Well, Apple's trying to kill it off with the next version of MacOS next year. Apple is removing AFP support from MacOS, which means the computer can no longer connect to the Time Capsule (which only supports AFP and SMB1). ^{Apple already removed SMB1 support from MacOS many years ago; SMB1 was notoriously insecure and caused the WannaCry worm}

A few months ago, I started this project, got it halfway done... got frustrated because cross compiling stuff for NetBSD6 on a Mac was painful, and stopped working on it: https://github.com/jamesyc/TimeCapsuleSMB

I'm finally finishing it up the past few days, and it's 95% done. It works! It's running Samba 4.8 with SMB3 on my Time Capsule. I can use it as a network drive in Finder, and macOS uses SMB3 to connect to it (not SMB1).

It's almost at my long term goal: hacking the Time Capsule enough that anyone who can copy some terminal commands can spend 10 minutes, and get their Time Capsule working with future versions of MacOS.

Unfortunately, due to sheer bad luck, Apple broke macOS Time Machine backups in 26.4 recently: https://www.cultofmac.com/news/macos-tahoe-26-4-breaks-time-machine-network-backups There's a workaround, but it doesn't work for everyone, and it's not working for me.

This means I can't actually properly test it. Also, I only own a A1470 generation Time Capsule, so I can't test the code on other generation devices as well.

I'm asking for some people who are a bit more on the technical side (translation: comfortable with using the terminal) who have a spare Apple Time Capsule to help out with some testing.

• If you only have a little bit of free time, feel free to read the README in the repo and try it out. File a github issue if you run into any problems: https://github.com/jamesyc/TimeCapsuleSMB/issues

• If you're willing to volunteer more time, especially if you have a mac that is NOT on 26.4, comment below what specs you have for your Time Capsule and Mac and I'll try to figure out the best strategy to quash the last few bugs.

Hi, I wanted to ask you for an opinion. I’m looking for a convenient home backup solution, and I found several apple time capsules in sales. I know that after mac os tahoe the support will turn off to use it as a disk for time machine, but would it be possible to use it as a home server to access from all devices? Around are at attractive prices, and changing the internal hard drive with a new one would still cost much less than buying a NAS server. In addition, the time capsule integrates the internet repeater function from the ethernet cable coming from the modem: would it be safe to use it again today? Thank you very much!

Since r/apple hated my "Reality Distortion Field 2.0" so much, I thought I'd also post this note, that I wrote shortly after I acquired a Time Capsule, and shortly before that product was wisely discontinued. Less of a global take, more of a detailed catalog of the many design flaws stuffed into the compact Time Capsule enclosure. It's sort of fractally bad -- every time I ran into a problem, my attempt to fix the problem uncovered even more problems. Time Capsule sort of looks like an Apple product, but is so bad that it just cannot be. It's as if Rolex farmed out the design of one of their watches to Rolax, the company that makes the $5 knockoffs you can buy on the streets of New York.

Enjoy!

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I bought a 3TB Time Capsule to back up my family's collection of Apple computers. The box is beautiful. The case is beautiful. Removing the white adhesive material wrapping the TC, and the black material protecting the bottom is a sensual experience. And then it all went to shit.

For the most part, this is not chronological. You know how it is, when you have trouble configuring something. You try things, back up, try other things, reset, start over, and basically explore the search space. It is a bit chaotic and the chronology doesn't actually matter much.

My ageing eyes had some trouble reading the very tiny manual included with the TC, but I managed. My first choice was to Create or Extend a network. I already have a network, which I wanted to continue using, so Create definitely seemed wrong. I chose Extend. Skipping ahead a few factory resets and a long support phone call, I'll note that when Apple says Create a network, (at least in the context of this product), they absolutely do not mean that a network will be created. No, this is the way to have the TC join the existing network. I confess that I am still unsure what Extend does.

The next puzzlement regarded connecting the TC to my network by an ethernet cable. First, it isn't clear to me whether this is required, nor is the choice of port clear. From TFM:

- Connect the Ethernet cable that's connected to your DSL or cable model (if you'll connect to the Internet) to the Ethernet WAN port.

- ...

- Connect an Ethernet cable from any Ethernet device to any of the Ethernet LAN ports.

How to choose? Well, just above this in the manual: The WAN port is "For connecting a DSL or cable modem, or for connecting to an existing Ethernet network." And the LAN port is "For connecting Ethernet devices such as printers or computers, or for connecting to an existing Ethernet network." I picked one arbitrarily because my attempt to read the documentation with more care than it was written was getting me nowhere.

When you do Create (i.e. join) a network, there is no dropdown of SSIDs, as on every other Mac product. That's OK, I happen to know my SSID. Also, you are asked to provide a password. The first time through, I didn't realize that they were asking for the wifi password, I thought it was a password for the TC itself. There is an option for having a distinct TC password, but it was not at all clear that the default was to enter the wifi password. Wasted more time there.

Moving on.

I think I got things set up right, and the backup seemed to start. (The estimated time remaining on the control panel never did fill in, it remained a 1990s Microsoft style aspirational thing, in which the promised estimate never actually shows up.) However, something was happening, as TC disk space was being consumed, but then 1) the backup stopped, and 2) the disk was apparently empty, showing 3TB of 3TB available. I went to sleep.

The next morning, I decided to wipe the thing and start over. So I wanted to do a hard reset. Which is not easy on this machine. You need to unplug the device, poke a paper clip into the reset hole, and hold that there while you plug in the device again, and hold the paper clip down until the LED on the front starts flashing ten seconds. Sounds simple, but: the bottom of the case isn't very grippy, so it's sliding all over while you are poking the reset switch, and plugging in the plug -- both in the same direction. So I came up with the idea of placing the other side of TC against a wall, but then I couldn't see the LED. Oh, and plugging in the power cord requires more force than you'd think, so things went south later when the power cord just fell out. That's not a risk normally, but plugging in the cord while doing the reset dance proved to require more dexterity than I could muster.

Now while doing all this, I was interacting with the Airport Utility, which runs on my MacBook Pro. There are some extremely confusing UI oddities. First, you occasionally get messages, indicated in the usual way, by a number in a red circle. Great. Except that when you actually go to look at the messages, there are none. No, as I learned from support, the messages refer to the number of buttons enabled on the dialog box that comes up when you click the red circle. I saw 2 "messages". In my case, this turned out to correspond to 1) a button for obtaining a firmware update, and 2) a button permitting the editing of the TC to resolve problems. No messages at all.

The other UI invention (again, taught to me by support) is a text field that is clickable! I forget what the text field was communicating, but there was black text on a grey background. Purely informative, if it had been on any other dialog box in any other application. But no! This text field is clickable! And led to another dialog box that I could use to solve my problem. (Sorry, I don't remember exactly which problem this was). Thanks, friendly support person! (Really, he was patient and extremely helpful.)

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Yes, I finally gave up and called support. Now to call support, you have to get the serial number. The serial number is on the bottom of the TC, in an extremely tiny font, in black, on a black background. The Airport Utility would provide the serial number, but only once setup was further along. Which it wasn't. Which is why I needed to call support. Perhaps you see the problem here.

Anyway, I finally got the serial number by pointing a very bright light at the number, angling it just so to avoid reflection, taking a picture, and then blowing up the picture. And I finally reached a very helpful support guy, who passed me on to a more senior very helpful support guy, who finally got me past all of my problems.

I should say: I am not a newbie. I have a PhD in computer science. I have worked as a software engineer and architect for almost 30 years. I have owned many Apple laptops, phones, iPods, iPads and peripherals. The AirPort Time Capsule defeated me, in spite of all of this. Well played, Apple, well played.

I'm having difficulty understanding the full functionality of time capsule and time machine. As I understand it, the point is to continuously backup your computer in case of a hard drive failure, etc.

So - can you store additional files on your time capsule that are not stored on your computer to free up hard drive space? (If this is not possible using time machine, could you use the time capsule as a simple wireless hard drive for extra storage space?)

Also - are the contents of your time capsule limited to your home network? For example, if I back up to my time capsule at home, could I access any of those files on my WiFi at work?

Thanks for helping me!

I’m backing up my MacBook Air with time machine and I straight up have no idea what I’m doing