iMac & Time Capsule: Use as External Hard Drive?

[Dream.Finder]

Hey there,

I am trying to edit some things in iMovie and it seems as though there is not enough space left on my iMac's HD to do so. I received a Time Capsule as a birthday gift a few birthdays back and was told by my father that the salesman at the store told him that it could be used as an external hard drive. The question I have is... is how to do this so that I will be able to edit my iMovie project on the external HD?

Since I got it a few years ago, I have it running as a Wi-Fi Router and it has been backing up my computer ever since. I have used a friend's external HD before for editing large iMovie projects in the past but never actually learnt how to use the Time Capsule as an external HD. Can anybody please explain how I can begin using the Time Capsule as if it were a regular external HD? Because as of right now, all I know is that the Time Capsule makes periodic back ups of my computer and that I can access it by clicking the "Enter Time Machine" command from the drop-down menu on my iMac's toolbar. Is there a way to get the HD to show up as a desktop icon and be useable just like an ordinary external hard drive??

I'm a bit confused when it comes to this whole Time Capsule business...

 

[rkaufmann87]

Hey there,

I am trying to edit some things in iMovie and it seems as though there is not enough space left on my iMac's HD to do so. I received a Time Capsule as a birthday gift a few birthdays back and was told by my father that the salesman at the store told him that it could be used as an external hard drive. The question I have is... is how to do this so that I will be able to edit my iMovie project on the external HD?

Since I got it a few years ago, I have it running as a Wi-Fi Router and it has been backing up my computer ever since. I have used a friend's external HD before for editing large iMovie projects in the past but never actually learnt how to use the Time Capsule as an external HD. Can anybody please explain how I can begin using the Time Capsule as if it were a regular external HD? Because as of right now, all I know is that the Time Capsule makes periodic back ups of my computer and that I can access it by clicking the "Enter Time Machine" command from the drop-down menu on my iMac's toolbar. Is there a way to get the HD to show up as a desktop icon and be useable just like an ordinary external hard drive??

I'm a bit confused when it comes to this whole Time Capsule business... :roll eyes:

If you are using the Time Capsule now as a backup using Time Machine to back up, DO NOT, repeat DO NOT use the Time Capsule to store additional data. Simply buy another EHD to store your large libraries on. EHD's are relatively inexpensive. Using the Time Capsule to store data that will not fit on the internal HD is foolish because eventually the Time Capsules internal HD will fail, taking your data and it's backup with it!

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote above:
[[ I am trying to edit some things in iMovie and it seems as though there is not enough space left on my iMac's HD to do so...]]

Very first thought I had is -- your internal HD is "too full".

Clear stuff off of it, so that you DO have "room to work".

My guess is that it will run better after doing so, as well...

 

[Weaselboy]

Can anybody please explain how I can begin using the Time Capsule as if it were a regular external HD?

This will work, but very very poorly.

If you want, just open Finder then look at the lower left under shared and you will see the TC listed there. Just click the TC and the drive will mount and show in the main Finder window. You can then double click that and you will be looking at the disk in the TC just like any other disk. You can right click and make a folder there then store things in that folder by dragging them in.

The big problem with this is that is now the only place that file exists, so if the TC disk dies that data is gone forever. If this is just temp. storage for a file you don't care about losing, then have at it.

What I just described is how you would simply store a file on the TC. But to actually launch the file while it is on the TC to work on that file in iMovie is not really how network storage like this is intended to work. Each time you open the file iMovie will need to pull the whole file over the network into iMovie and this will be very painful and slow. You don't want to do this.