3TB Time Capsule

Hello:
I'm helping this Senior friend who bought a 3TB Time Capsule to replace the older one (1 or 2TB, don't remember). The old TC is connected to an IMAC with OS X El Capitan. I searched Apple's help pages but I'm not sure about them. Since I want to transfer all the old backups from the old Time Capsule, I'm not sure how to proceed. Do I need to setup the new 3TB TC on the machine and then connect both TCs using ethernet cables? Or do I need to connect both TCs before setting up the new TC to the computer? Or do I setup the new TC on the computer and later transfer all the old backups from the old TC? I'm lost, the instructions from link https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204078 seem ambiguous to me.

Thank you,

iotriton

I don't have a Time Capsule, but it sounds easy enough to follow.

Original TC leave connected to network and add ethernet from Mac to Original TC. Add ethernet from Original TC to New TC. Turn off Time Machine on all Macs. Now start copying backups to New TC.

You do not have to set up anything first. Plug them into power and follow the directions.

The only thing I see as ambiguous in the directions you linked are the terms WAN and LAN. WAN is the Wide Area Network and is the Internet side of your connections. If you have a cable provider, the Modem provided from them has a WAN port and there should be an Ethernet cable from that WAN port to the WAN port on your current TC. LAN refers to all the connections from the TC to all your internal devices, including the new TC. Basically, you leave the old TC connected to the modem, connect the new one to the old one by cable, stop backups, copy files from old to new, configure TM to use the new TC (Maybe moving the WAN cable to the new TC at this point, but certainly after configuring it), and you're done.

Thanks Bob.

BTW, I'm Mike

Thanks, Jake. I'll try all those suggestions.

Mike

A follow up question:

How do I add another PC, a Macbook to the new Time Capsule? Unlike the iMac, we don't need to transfer any old backups since they all became corrupted. All we need is to start anew with the new Time Capsule.

The TC should show up as a network drive to the PC, but it's been a long time since I tried that in Windows, and you didn't say which Windows, but if you look for Network Drives a TC is just another one of those, AFAIK.

Are you saying the Macbook is the new PC you want to start backing up to the Time Capsule? You would only have to turn on Time Machine and then you can select the Time Capsule disk to back up to.

Bob, I never read it that way until I saw your post. Makes sense, if the "PC" is a Mac laptop. Generally don't refer to them as PCs but I guess they are in a very generic sense.

Thank you, Bob.

Sorry for the confusion, it's a Macbook (Yosemite). To me, a PC is a Personal Computer, whether it has MS Windows, Apple OS X or Linux.

To me, a PC is a Personal Computer, whether it has MS Windows, Apple OS X or Linux.

Click to expand...

Technically you are correct. However in common parlance, PC is the term for Windows machines, with Mac as the generality for all Apple systems. That's what confused me. I was using parlance, you were using technically correct and precise language.