Time Capsule (Bit of a noob)

Two things, once you buy it, check its not already been opened, if its still sealed, check the serial number with apple, as they will replace any 1st gen 500gb TC that falls within the manufacturing window when they were using the shonky capacitors for free.

Dont bridge the fan, you don't need too, just install a Western Digital Green drive, i replaced my stock 500gb with a WD green 3TB and its actually running COOLER now than it did with stock.

I was the unlucky owner of a first gen TC. Mine died and took 3 Macs worth of backup files with it. It turns out my daughter's machine died while my TC was at Apple getting "repaired". It came back empty. Lesson learned. I now use an external WD usb drive to back up my real data. I treat the TC as if it was merely an AEBS and only use the internal drive for... temp files I can easily re-download.

As for mods, I like the sound of putting a green drive inside. How do you format it so the TC will use it? I don't remember seeing any settings in airport utility to format the internal drive if it gets replaced.

I'm very interested in this because I now use Synology drives for my main NAS drives. Why? Because if I ever have a problem, I keep the drives and can get the unit repaired without sending my data to strangers. The ability to put my own HDD in a TC might allow me to make the decision to start using it again. On advantage of using a TC as your router is that it can cache Apple downloads for OS updates. Since we have half a dozen Macs, this would save me a lot of time.

r0k said:

I was the unlucky owner of a first gen TC. Mine died and took 3 Macs worth of backup files with it. It turns out my daughter's machine died while my TC was at Apple getting "repaired". It came back empty. Lesson learned. I now use an external WD usb drive to back up my real data. I treat the TC as if it was merely an AEBS and only use the internal drive for... temp files I can easily re-download.

Click to expand...

Hard drives fail. Period. You'll get no better reliability out of any particular brand.

lucasfer899 said:

Thanks, I've seen those cooling mods, I think I'm just going to max out the surrent fan though, or put an in-line resistor from the PSU to the fan, as the problem with these was that the fan was NEVER on. So, if I run it about 75% speed all the time, it wont sound like a hairdryer and my PSU wont blow up.
(I don't like cutting things)
As for the pricing this is the cheapest one I've seen in a long time. Also, I'm only swapping out the hard drive, which is pretty normal.

Click to expand...

I've got a Time Capsule and several a couple 1st gen Apple TV's (both use the rubber bottom and both create alot of heat) and one sure-fire mod to help significantly reduce the high heat issue is to remove the rubber bottom. And then set it upright on its side.

With a hair dryer or heat gun, the rubber pad comes off pretty easy and clean. Just be slow, steady and patient.

For the TC, it can be mounted upright on the wall for good signal dispersion. Leave a 1/2 to 1 inch gap between it and the wall and that can vent quite alot of heat. And if you are replacing the drive, consider a WD green drive, they run with less power and thus lower heat.

sm.wilson said:

r0k said:

I was the unlucky owner of a first gen TC. Mine died and took 3 Macs worth of backup files with it. It turns out my daughter's machine died while my TC was at Apple getting "repaired". It came back empty. Lesson learned. I now use an external WD usb drive to back up my real data. I treat the TC as if it was merely an AEBS and only use the internal drive for... temp files I can easily re-download.

Click to expand...

Hard drives fail. Period. You'll get no better reliability out of any particular brand.

Click to expand...

I agree. What I mean is I'm using an external drive so if the drive fails I simply swap in a new one. If the TC fails again, I don't have to send my real data away with the TC for repair. BTW, my first "failure" was not the HDD, it was the power supply in the TC.

Nightarchaon said:

Dont bridge the fan, you don't need too, just install a Western Digital Green drive, i replaced my stock 500gb with a WD green 3TB and its actually running COOLER now than it did with stock.

Click to expand...

Just note that some WD drives don't seem to want to spin down in the TC. YMMV. This may end up giving more undue strain on the drive.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1059249/

B

Hmmm...

I use an Airport Extreme connected to a USB hard drive.

Same time machine reliability, far easier to mod, swap out, monitor, etc.

Not a solution to your issue here, but it works well for me.

sm.wilson said:

Hard drives fail. Period. You'll get no better reliability out of any particular brand.

Click to expand...

its wasnt the drive that failed in the TCs , the 1st gen ones were made with shonky capacitors that meant the PSUs fried themselves between 10 and 18 months of use. , and apples "fix" was just to send out a refurb unit, so you didn't get back your unit, your got a blanked unit back, hence the loss of data.

26139 said:

I use an Airport Extreme connected to a USB hard drive.

Same time machine reliability, far easier to mod, swap out, monitor, etc.

Not a solution to your issue here, but it works well for me.

Click to expand...

Thinking about going this route myself. How long as yours been working? Any issues?

Works great

curmudgeon32 said:

Thinking about going this route myself. How long as yours been working? Any issues?

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(tl;dr yes, it works great)

The hard drive I'm using is between 2-3 years old. Bought a green something from MacMall. Few dollars more, but it hasn't hiccuped.

First router was the last rounded base station. Backing up took FOREVER.

Second router, the first model of the newer, square base station, improved backing up speed tremendously.

The hard drive is partitioned into two parts. I use one for my laptop, one for my wife's. I've restored three times (completely), she's restored once (completely) and we've both restored files and folders here and there.

But I don't automatically back up, because the time machine process really does a number on my computer. I manually back it up every other day or so.

Be sure to mount it via the base station application, and do the initial backup over ethernet. After that, Wifi is fine, but you can't do USB and then wireless. At least it didn't work the last time I tried.

26139 said:

But I don't automatically back up, because the time machine process really does a number on my computer. I manually back it up every other day or so.

Click to expand...

Is this because you have an old computer, a lot of files changing, or is the process of backing up using the AEBS particularly taxing for some reason?

The second

curmudgeon32 said:

Is this because you have an old computer, a lot of files changing, or is the process of backing up using the AEBS particularly taxing for some reason?

Click to expand...

The second. Lots of large files. By the time it's done backing up every hour, it's almost time to start again.