Using an external hard drive connected to Time Capsule for Time Machine

[Knifey-Spoony]

Hi, I recently purchased a Time Capsule and love it. However before getting the Time Capsule I used an external hard drive for Time Machine. My question is how do I get Time Machine to work on the external hard drive while it its plugged into the Time Capsule? When I connect the external hard drive to Time Capsule, it recognizes it and I can access the other data I have on the drive. However, when I try to access the Time Machine backups I get The alias ... could not be opened, as well as getting a failed message when I try to do a backup. I've been trying to find a solution online but haven't had much luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[skorpien]

You'll need to start the backup from scratch. Time Machine backs up to network attached drives, including the Time Capsule, by creating a sparsebundle image. It backs up to a locally attached drive by copying the files directly. AFAIK, it's not possible to continue a backup to a drive when switching it from being directly attached to networked.

 

[Knifey-Spoony]

Okay that was what I was afraid of. Is there a way to copy my existing backups from my external drive to my Time Capsule and just continue that way, maybe using SuperDuper to clone it? Or is because if it's a NAS it copies using sparsebundle image and I can't clone my existing one.

 

[skorpien]

It won't work. You can copy sparsebundle files and continue them, but you can't copy the backup from a USB drive to the Time Capsule. You'll run into the same issue whether your current Time Machine backup resides on the external or the Time Capsule. If you need to keep the old backups, I suggest keeping the drive safe somewhere and use the Time Capsule for a new backup, connecting the old drive only when you need an older file. And if you need additional storage, purchase a new drive and connect it to the Time Capsule or computer.