Backing up to hard drive attached to Time Capsule

Hi all.


I have had a 1tb time capsule for around 4 years. When I first had the time capsule I found that I could not back up to a hard drive connected via usb.

After researching the new version of the time capsule, I came across this apple kb (AirPort base stations: Time Machine hard drive compatibility - Apple Support), which states that:-

Time Machine works with:
AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard drive (any model)
External USB hard drive connected to AirPort Time Capsule (any model) or AirPort Extreme (802.11ac model only)

Click to expand...

Confusingly, the article then goes on to say:-

Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device.

Click to expand...

Does Time machine now support backing up to a USB drive attached to the time capsule by USB? Has anybody tested this, both the backup and restore?

Time Machine does work now with drives attached to the Time Capsule. In fact I am using that method now. I think the Initial iterations of Time Machine were a bit spotty backink up to network drives in general.

Which version of OS X are you running?

Slydude said:

Time Machine does work now with drives attached to the Time Capsule. In fact I am using that method now. I think the Initial iterations of Time Machine were a bit spotty backink up to network drives in general.

Which version of OS X are you running?

Click to expand...

Hi Sly,

I am using 10.10.2. The time capsule is one of the older time capsules (purchase around 4 years ago I think).

One other question, can I perform the initial time machine backup over usb, then move the hard drive to the time capsule?

Cheers

I don't think that will work well. Time Machine stores files differently depending upon whether the drive is directly connected to the Mac vs. backing up over a network. If the backup drive is directly connected the files are stored as a series of folders with each backup in a different folder. If the backup is performed over a network those same folders are stored inside a file called a sparsebundle.

You might be able to do what you want by doing the backup first and then moving the files to a sparsebundle file but I'm not sure that would work and the PITA factor seems high.

Does Time Machine work with an external Drive connected via USB to an older Extreme?
That is my configuration, and it has been working for several years. However, with that quote from
Apple, I wonder if I should test restoring? I recently changed to Yosemite 10.10.2.

MacBook Pro
Early 2011, 2.3ghz
8 gig Ram, 128 GB SSD

After I posted the question, I went looking for more info, and I now see the "unsupported" config.
statements. What a bummer. Now I gotta figure out whether I give up Time Machine elegance of operation for some other software, or buy a new extreme. I was hoping to stall that purchase until
they supported USB3.

If the backups have been completing you're probably OK but It's always a good idea to test restoring files. That's true no matter what backup system you are using.

If I remember the initial reports correctly there were some issues with file corruption. This page has one example of some problems that occurred for some users early on.