Time Capsule HDD Upgrade Steps

[BenKentzer]

Hello!

First post from a fairly novice Mac user, so be gentle

Over the last 6 months I've built up a collection of Mac based hardware:

• Late 2012 Mac Mini (i5 2.5GHz, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD - bought new from Apple)
• Mid 2012 13" MacBook Air (i5 1.8GHz, 4GB RAM, 128Gb HDD - bought refurb from Apple)
• Time capsule 1st Gen 500Gb (non-original drive - bought as empty "unknown" box from eBay and managed to get it up and running)

I'm planning to upgrade the drive in the Time Capsule to a WD Red 2TB in the next month or so before the TC backups get too large. Both the Mini and the MBA back up to the TC - total footprint of the sparse bundle files is apparently 70Gb so far.
The Mini is used as an iTunes server for the MBA, as well as a file server and is connected to the TV for Skype so the kids can talk to their grandparents easily. The MBA is just for surfing and for learning how to develop iOS apps in Xcode (I don't think I'll ever get anything published, but it's the current challenge).
Hence the small sparse bundle files!

The steps I'm planning to take to upgrade are:

1. Turn off TM backups on both machines
2. Copy sparse bundle files to Mini (plenty of space) over ethernet
3. Swap the drives over
4. Copy the sparse bundles onto the new drive on the TC over ethernet
5. Turn on TM backup on the MBA to prove it all works
6. Remove the sparse bundle files from the Mini
7. Turn on the TM backup on the Mini

Does this all make sense? i assume it would be much quicker to get a couple of USB to SATA connectors and copy the files across direct, but if I can do this without paying out too much for hardware I'll never use again, then that would help.
The Mini is ethernet (cat 5e) connected with the slowest switch on the network being a 100Mb. I'm not bothered about the length of time it takes to do the copy over, I just want to make sure it's an approach that will work.
To be honest, it wouldn't be the end of the world to start from scratch, but it would be nice to retain the history.

Thanks

Ben