time capsule as an external hard drive ?

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i just bought a 1tb time capsule for my backups but have a load of movies, photos and music i want to store on it to be readily accessible.

i was worried that i wouldnt be able to use time capsule as an external harddrive but the salesperson told me it's possible to create partitions to allocate space for this.

After searching, i have found many contrasting solutions, from NO ! you can't to you-have-to-open-your-time capsule manually to YES !You CAN !. all of these are pre-2010 posts however, and I'm wondering if one is able to do it now. If so, how ?
 
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Frankly I don't think you want to haul it around as a storage solution. It is best described as a NAS (network area storage) rather than an external storage solution. If you do want to haul it around with you, you will need to plug it in to get it to work and then connect your PC to via ethernet. Not really ideal....

If you are looking for portable external storage, you need to go buy a USB or Firewire (if you have it) drive.
 

bobtomay

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Anyone saying "no, you can't" simply has never used a TC.

As DaFlake, wouldn't recommend carrying the TC from place to place.

You can store other data on it right along side your TM backups - multiple partitions or a single partition - up to you.

I have 2 Macs using TM to back up to my TC, plus have about 250 GB worth of my iTunes library sitting on there and all in a single partition. TM does not delete any existing data on the drives it uses for back up.

However, if you move all your music, movies and photos there and delete them from your computer, it should be noted that you now have no backup for any of them, unless you are backing up your TC to another device.

How? Use Finder - drag and drop - the same as you do for moving any other files around.
 
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Just for an example... I moved from Germany back to the USA and loaded all my important files on the TC then hand carried it here. We then lived in a hotel for 30 days while our stuff was being shipped and we used the TC in the hotel room as a file share via ethernet cable while being connected to the Internet via the hotel via Airport. I just made sure that everything was secure and turned off. :) It can be used this way...
 
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helpful advice, thanks

I feel a little bummed because I realise I didn't really need TC as a single, one pc user at all - and therefore didn't have to spend all my savings on it.

I needed wifi access, I needed extra space as my harddrive on the macbook is maxed out and the TC seemed like the perfect solution.

I don't know what to do.
Either I take it back to the store (I've had it for less than a week) and buy a separate cost effective router and external hard drive; or keep the TC, move some unimportant files (like movies I've seen, but didn't really fancy that much, but good to have) onto it to free up the space on my notebook; then get a separate external hard drive to make a backup of important files like photos and itunes.

I hate decisions like these. The more I know, the more difficult it gets.
 
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Have a look at McBies comments here - might help you make a decision.
 
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domo arigato !

I've decided I'm going to keep the TC, just because it's so convenient, although with hopelessly too many functions for a casual user like me.

I'll just drag all my entertainment movies onto the TC, delete them from my laptop to free up space and buy a separate, smaller external hard drive to back up my important photos and movie clips. Or just burn them all onto CD's. I'm old school like that.

If I return it, I will save only about 65USD after buying the cheapest routers and 1tb External HDD I can find. Also, I have Applecare so the TC is covered for 3 years anyway.

I'm a bad shopper and never happy with my purchases anyway. I'll just have to learn to love this TC.

Thanks again !
 

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