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A couple of Time Capsule related questions.

128keaton

128keaton

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 13, 2013
2,029
419
Hey guys, I am designing a network as a job and I have a couple of questions.
On site, we already have three 3TB Time Capsules. Now, we want to have one directly connected to a switch as an NAS.

Can we just disable SSID broadcast and plug an ethernet cable from the switch into one of the client ports in the switch?

Second, we want to setup the two other Time Capsules as one (same SSID) and connect it to a Mac mini as an NAS, is this also possible and how can we do that.
 
128keaton said:
Hey guys, I am designing a network as a job and I have a couple of questions.
On site, we already have three 3TB Time Capsules. Now, we want to have one directly connected to a switch as an NAS.

Can we just disable SSID broadcast and plug an ethernet cable from the switch into one of the client ports in the switch?

Second, we want to setup the two other Time Capsules as one (same SSID) and connect it to a Mac mini as an NAS, is this also possible and how can we do that.
Click to expand...

Any TC is a router/WIFI with integrated hard disk. You can use them with router/WIFI disabled just as a NAS, however there are better/cheaper solutions for this use case.
TC's can be plugged in to any ethernet port of a network switch/router.

For your MAC mini - why don't you just use a USB 3 disk - cheaper and faster. The TC cannot directly connect to the mini!

What are the objectives for this "network design"?
What are you using the TC's for? Backing up MAC's? Data storage? Roaming WIFI Network?
 
128keaton said:
Hey guys, I am designing a network as a job and I have a couple of questions.
On site, we already have three 3TB Time Capsules. Now, we want to have one directly connected to a switch as an NAS.

Can we just disable SSID broadcast and plug an ethernet cable from the switch into one of the client ports in the switch?

Second, we want to setup the two other Time Capsules as one (same SSID) and connect it to a Mac mini as an NAS, is this also possible and how can we do that.
Click to expand...

Yes. You must put the Time Capsule into Bridge Mode and disable the wireless. You can still use the File Sharing features like Accounts in bridge mode.
 
128keaton said:
Second, we want to setup the two other Time Capsules as one (same SSID) and connect it to a Mac mini as an NAS, is this also possible and how can we do that.
Click to expand...

How is the mac and TCs connected? Do you use the MAC on a network and do you have two network port?
 
eduardrw said:
Any TC is a router/WIFI with integrated hard disk. You can use them with router/WIFI disabled just as a NAS, however there are better/cheaper solutions for this use case.
TC's can be plugged in to any ethernet port of a network switch/router.

For your MAC mini - why don't you just use a USB 3 disk - cheaper and faster. The TC cannot directly connect to the mini!

What are the objectives for this "network design"?
What are you using the TC's for? Backing up MAC's? Data storage? Roaming WIFI Network?
Click to expand...
Actually, this is older hardware not being used. We are upgrading their APs, so these aren't needed as APs. Basically, they want to use the Mac Mini running OS X Server for TM backups, since it offers per-user 'partitioning'. I guess I'll just put all three TCs on the switch.

Altemose said:
Yes. You must put the Time Capsule into Bridge Mode and disable the wireless. You can still use the File Sharing features like Accounts in bridge mode.
Click to expand...


Awsome. That means if I just put two of them in bridge mode and connect the single (WAN?) port to the switch and have that show up as one drive. The other won't be linked and will just sit as a separate drive with other users.
 
128keaton said:
Actually, this is older hardware not being used. We are upgrading their APs, so these aren't needed as APs. Basically, they want to use the Mac Mini running OS X Server for TM backups, since it offers per-user 'partitioning'. I guess I'll just put all three TCs on the switch.









Awsome. That means if I just put two of them in bridge mode and connect the single (WAN?) port to the switch and have that show up as one drive. The other won't be linked and will just sit as a separate drive with other users.
Click to expand...


Each Time Capsule will show as a separate device and hard drive.
 
If you are using the MAC mini with OS X server to run Time Machine backups it is much better to use USB3 or Thunderbolt attached hard disks. They are much cheaper, faster, easier to setup and more reliable.

If you are using multiple TC's for Time Machine backups, each computer needs to be individually configured to backup to a specific TC. You will have to set up different user accounts on each individual TC.
This will just be an organizational nightmare.

This is definitely not best practice for network setup.
 
eduardrw said:
If you are using the MAC mini with OS X server to run Time Machine backups it is much better to use USB3 or Thunderbolt attached hard disks. They are much cheaper, faster, easier to setup and more reliable.

If you are using multiple TC's for Time Machine backups, each computer needs to be individually configured to backup to a specific TC. You will have to set up different user accounts on each individual TC.
This will just be an organizational nightmare.

This is definitely not best practice for network setup.
Click to expand...

We fully understand, but this is for a small group of people. The TCs are extra and we have maxed out our budget on the APs/Firewall we need.
 
128keaton said:
We fully understand, but this is for a small group of people. The TCs are extra and we have maxed out our budget on the APs/Firewall we need.
Click to expand...

Essentially, all Time Capsules are their own entity and there is no way to make them appear as one drive. You can divvy up the users to particular Time Capsules however. Also, ensure that you periodically backup the Time Capsules.
 
Altemose said:
Essentially, all Time Capsules are their own entity and there is no way to make them appear as one drive. You can divvy up the users to particular Time Capsules however. Also, ensure that you periodically backup the Time Capsules.
Click to expand...

Ah. So I can't group two together on the same SSID and turn off SSID broadcast, and hook one up to a switch and have it show up as one drive?
 
128keaton said:
Ah. So I can't group two together on the same SSID and turn off SSID broadcast, and hook one up to a switch and have it show up as one drive?
Click to expand...


No. Each Time Capsule will show as its own entity on the network. There is no way to use a solution like RAID to make them appear as one.
 
Altemose said:
No. Each Time Capsule will show as its own entity on the network. There is no way to use a solution like RAID to make them appear as one.
Click to expand...

Okay, thanks Altemose, nice to see you outside the PPC Forums.
 
Altemose said:
Nice to see you too! I highly recommend that you wire these in with Gigabit Ethernet and also assign static IPs. If you need help with the configuration, I can write out a guide for this setup.
Click to expand...

Yup, all new switch with Gigabit. The problem with static IPs is that all of these are personal/work laptops, we only have about 5 stationary err stations. I might as well assign those to static on the safe side.
 
128keaton said:
Yup, all new switch with Gigabit. The problem with static IPs is that all of these are personal/work laptops, we only have about 5 stationary err stations. I might as well assign those to static on the safe side.
Click to expand...

What is the main router on the network? Regular computers can run on dynamic addresses provided through DHCP. The only reason why I say to assign routers, APs, L3 switches, and NAS devices static IPs is so that they are always in one location.
 
Altemose said:
What is the main router on the network? Regular computers can run on dynamic addresses provided through DHCP. The only reason why I say to assign routers, APs, L3 switches, and NAS devices static IPs is so that they are always in one location.
Click to expand...

Ugh, I cannot remember the name. Its firewalled and open source, and yes, I understand the reasoning. I run a home server setup at home. Also, one more question, we want to use a Mac Mini with OS X server on it to manage users and provide an update cache server, calendar, etc, so can I have the Mini on the switch and have it connected to the TCs over the network, and then have everyone connect through the Mini for the TCs?
 
128keaton said:
Ugh, I cannot remember the name. Its firewalled and open source, and yes, I understand the reasoning. I run a home server setup at home. Also, one more question, we want to use a Mac Mini with OS X server on it to manage users and provide an update cache server, calendar, etc, so can I have the Mini on the switch and have it connected to the TCs over the network, and then have everyone connect through the Mini for the TCs?
Click to expand...

Well... since the Time Capsules are simply in Bridge Mode, they are nothing more than regular switches/APs with a hard drive inside! In fact, inside of the Server.app you will see them show as configurable options. You can also configure RADIUS if necessary over the Mini Server.
 
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