Apple Time Capsule Dead Hard Drive Swap (802.11ac Model)

[@ifyoulovedogs]

I just replaced my Time Capsule’s 2TB Seagate drive with a 6TB Seagate and it was surprisingly about 1/4” thinner than the original. Thankfully I had a 2” x 2” x 1/4” piece of foam rubber which I wedged in beside the drive to take up the extra space and it fit nicely with just enough tension to keep the foam in place. I also used an old fashioned wooden pencil with a rubber eraser to guide and attach those 2 small connectors and it worked great. Thanks for this helpful video

[@archangelsean]

The time capsules Apple make I find so much better than other NAS/Router solutions, i still use a pair of the old A1254 time capsule units, modified with a 4tb drive in each and replaced power supplies (the old psu's cant fire a 4tb drive up for some reason but the replacement ones can ), only ten quid for a psu for them, and i use one of them as my main router, it connects to my VDSL broadband via a separate ZYXEL vdsl modem , and since using the time capsule as a router aswell it just works flawlessly and . using the "back to my mac" functionality when i add my apple ID to the time capsule, i can access the hard drive on it anywhere, which proved useful when on holiday as could access my music library remotely (yes i have great upload speed luckily). Very solid units, and the first thing to go is the drive, mine came STOCK with WD Blue apple branded ones oddly. Looking forward to part 5 tom, if you ever wanna chat apple and networking stuff , you got me on fb :)

[@raydeen2k]

I always use the little Dixie paper drinking cups to store screws. I just plop the first round of screws into a cup, then stick an empty cup into that cup, rinse and repeat. That way, I can just work from the top down when re-assembling (and if you've ever tried to work on an old iBook, you need LOTS of screw holders.) And if the stack of cups for some reason gets knocked over, they should be packed enough that no screws go spilling out as long as there's at least one empty cup on top of the stack.

[@gibsonlespaulspecial]

Great video!!! I'd put off updating mine for 2Yrs and finally did it and it was relatively easy. Last cutting of rubber was difficult!

[@adodaro]

Just used your video to add a 18TB drive to an old Time Capsule - this was incredibly helpful, thanks!

[@FRANCOMK]

18TB??? I didn't think it could even support 8TB, however, could you tell me if it works well with 18TB, so I can do it too, thanks

[@adodaro]

@@FRANCOMK​​⁠ it does work well! I’ve noticed that writing significant data during Time Machine backups makes the unit warm so make sure it’s well vented. Beyond that, having a wired Ethernet connection will make things much faster, even on WiFi 6e mesh networks. Good luck!

[@tipsyttp]

What is the reference of your HDD pls?

[@adodaro]

@@tipsyttp the exact drive I ordered on Amazon - Seagate IronWolf Pro, 18 TB, Enterprise NAS Internal HDD -CMR 3.5 Inch, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7,200 RPM, 256 MB Cache for RAID Network Attached Storage (Renewed)

[@adamhopper68]

You're a legend. Just revamped my old 2GB time capsule (that died) with a Seagate 4GB drive. Instructions and video were spot on. Thank you Very much! :)

[@StarfighterJohansson]

My beer just hit the right temperature so I took one out of the fridge, sat down at the computer and opened up youtube. I thought "well, there might be _something_ new in my subscription feed". And sure enough. A new ~30 minute video with one of the few youtubers that can make me smile simply by rambling on about this and that. And you are tinkering with an Apple product. The sun is shining in through my pint, the window is slightly open to let some of that warm spring air in and I just don't think I could feel better this afternoon. Cheers! :)

[@norkshit]

6 years later and you just amazed me with the ice cube tray screw holder. Holy DIY!

[@dash8brj]

I was given two of these with failed 2 tb hard drives. I killed one taking it apart, tore the sata cable. The second went well, thanks to this video. I'll keep the first one for its power supply.

[@mrook5524]

Nice video instruction. Thanks for that. *** IMPORTANT *** The little connectors do NOT pop off sideways. Doing so they will damage.... Instead lift them a little to the top and then move sideways...

[@alexbright7735]

00:25:34 Pnhub1 is back again :)

[@carsonshoe6133]

I’d been looking into buying one but due to lack of income(16 no license and no job yet) I’ve been holding back. I’m using a Mac mini right now and I love it, I’ve set up an ftp server and installed a open source operating system on a raspberry pi in my family room. I can watch any season of tv shows I have in any room on any computer/phone. I also have sight issues too(born with only one eye) but it never stops me. Keep up the great content

[@archlinuxrussian]

Awesome to hear about your tinkering with an Raspberry Pi! Those things are awesome :) Also, just for your own curiosity, there *are* ways to make a Linux box (such as a PC or even an rPi) show up to a Mac as a TimeCapsule with software called "Netatalk", though it only uses AFP (Apple Filing Protocol), which isn't really used by much anymore. Still interesting to look into nevertheless, though I have yet to get it working myself as networking isn't my area of expertise >_> Stay curious! ^_^

[@carsonshoe6133]

archlinuxrussian that sounds like something I could play around with, thanks for the heads up. I have a diverse computer setup with many Apple computers and some windows, so far the setup works wonders. However your idea sounds fun to try I’ll just want to buy another pi since I use the only one I have as a client and not a server itself. I don’t know much about networks but I use what I know from google, networking classes, and just experiments. Thanks

[@archlinuxrussian]

Yeah, the setup is basically "Have Ubuntu/Debian installed (though other Linux distributions would work too), install netatalk and avahi, make sure both netatalk.service and avahi-daemon.service are enabled/running, and set up users/configurations", so it shouldn't be too hard. You can find a bunch of resources by searching "Linux time capsule server" or something, but here's one that I came across, though I cannot vouch for its reliability. fzhu.work/blog/mac/making-ubuntu-server-a-mac-time-capsule.html :)

[@carsonshoe6133]

archlinuxrussian thank you for your very in depth answers, I’ll be sure to look into it. Thanks much

[@garyroxene]

Is it possible to find conversion hardware and install an 2.5" SSD in this? Anything difficult with the soft-firmware set up?

[@todaytech865]

You should just be able to find a 3.5 to 2.5in drive sled and use that. It doesn't have to be specifically for an Time Capsule, just any old 3.5 to 2.5 adapter. The connectors are the same, so just put the SSD into the 3.5 to 2.5 sled, and slide it in, then plug it in and you're all good.

[@DaRealSwifty]

@25:49 You can drag the menu items into any order you want, including the headings.

[@doubleuseven]

An old video, but I have one at my work that suddenly stopped working. No wifi. Would the wifi keep on working even if the harddrive fails? I interpret what you said about downtime in the beginning as it should keep on doing wifi? Thanks!

[@grumps5940]

Do you have a link to that screw driver set? I could of done with it when I installed an SSD in my 2014 Mac Mini. I had to buy the bits separately and had to use a Poundland screwdriver.

[@caerikandersson4089]

I got my time capsule today i never use it before and i got 2 other airport exstreme and 3 smaler one but any way i saw on your mac screen you had icons showing your harddrives is that from backup or is it from time caupsel ? I have no enter network every time i want to se my harddrives and that is abit boring i would like a icon showing my hraddrive/harddrives how did you do that?.....sorry for bad speling i am from sweden....Thank you

[@PaulIulianGheorghe]

Cool video mate... be careful next time with tiny wires/tiny circuits... I once dropped the tip of a screw driver in a brand new motherboard and spent roughly 4 hours with my dad repairing a snapped connection on the MB. Lucily he's good at that and managed to make a 0.5mm solder on the incomplete circuit. Saved the MB.

[@chiphn1]

Thanks for posting your video. I'm getting ready to upgrade my Time Capsule soon. I'll definitely watch out while working near the reset switch!

[@georgesenda1952]

Did you replace that 3 tb drive with an ssd or stick drive ?

[@kathyhodgins5161]

So are you now using the time capsule as only an external hard drive and not as a base station? how do you turn the base station off?

[@varmaTrini]

what is the maximum size of hdd that will fit into the machine?.Will an SSD work if connected?.

[@rudolfnemes8565]

The video is very well done. I use SuperDuper and I am very satisfied with the fact that you can boot the system from the external hard drive and it has USB3 which your device is not. But it's ok. Respect

[@Zeke0816]

This was a great video, I personally don't mind the jump cuts, it was a nice and detailed process. I love watching videos like this even when I don't have the featured hardware (and especially if it's an Apple product) because I feel like I can learn a lot out of it and who knows if I might get one of these in the future and run into similar problems... in any case, I'm glad it worked fine and that OS X was actually OS X lol

[@grungle_gimmix]

no one asked if you didnt mind the jump cuts

[@grupinfractionalorganizatp5003]

Hi ,i have one tower only wifi Can put hdd inside ? Have all cable to connect one hdd ?

[@LulluTube]

hello and great video, do you know how much better performance (if any) does the 5th gen have compared to the 1st gen? I am thinking about upgrading my 1st Gen (HDD replaced in 2011) before it dies. I do feel that the backups have become a bit slower overtime.

[@nonkoolaider]

Thanks very much for this. My 4TB WD Red is doing its 9 hour erase and should be ready to rock when I wake up tomorrow morning. Next Guinness is on me... Cheers ✌️

[@ioannis69k]

Kudos for your videos and many kudos for taking care of ESD !!! Thanks for sharing.

[@MarKoparys]

Hey, I have a Time Capsule 3 TB (802.11ac), recently I have problems with backing up one MBPretina 13 ", 2015, 500 GB, can it mean the end of the disk ?? and is it possible to change the disk in TC to a larger one, 4 or 6 TB ?? If so, what kind of regards, Martin

[@MeUnboxing]

can u help me . Mine is not booting up, green led is not showing. But when connected to power hardisk is moving.

[@drabuserieh]

Can somebody confirm if I can upgrade it to 12 TB and which HDd internal drive u advise seegate or others For time capsule 3TB last generation Thanka

[@Plainapple287]

How is your Hackintosh doing? And do you recommend the 2015 macbook air or the 2012 or 2013 macbook pro

[@ItsMyNaturalColour]

My Hackintosh is doing great!! But I must admit, I've chickened out of any updates since 10.11.3 so I'm way behind. Planning a fresh install on the Hackintosh once I get my data sorted. In answer to your question, it really does depend on what you want out of a machine. I will say though that the MBP is generally a much nicer machine, simply because of the display, assuming you're talking about retina models.

[@nathanj9350]

Get a 2015 MacBook Pro, they are really good machines and I would definitely recommend them over the older 2012 and 2013 models.

[@danihelios]

i have a 2012 MBP and I absolutely love it. It's my daily laptop, use it all the time as I travel full time. Still works a charm for 1080p video editing in final cut with 8gb of ram and an ssd, and logic pro x works wonderfully as well. obviously it's fine for web browsing, word processing etc

[@danihelios]

never tried, my camera only films in 1080p, and the people i do editing for usually only film in 720, lol

[@andljoy]

Buy a 2015 pro before they are impossible to find and if you want an air buy that before apple ruin that too. Or just do yourself a favour and buy the current get LG gram.

[@helloken]

I have been wondering about doing this with my own time capsule not because the drive is dead, but because I want to increase the capacity and like the idea of it fitting in a nice compact Apple Time Capsule. That said, with minimal airflow inside of one of these things, I am concerned about the additional heat a larger capacity drive would create and how that would impact the reliability and longevity of the new drive. Hmmm...wish I could at least measure the temperature inside one of these things somehow...

[@jujuforce]

Hey, would an SSD in one of those would be clever, indeed I find the backup to be very very slow ... The time capsule is not writing to the disk all day, so it should be ok, am I right ?

[@MMMM2MMMM2MMMM]

Why did you change it to another HDD? Why did you not use a SSD?

[@amessman]

At 6:47 what keyboard shortcut did you use to eject the drive?

[@dannykeyworth9645]

Adam Messmann CMD + E

[@jamesgibson5606]

Hard to imagine that the harddrive is a full size desktop drive rather than a laptop variant. Good job Tom.

[@normanneal35]

Video starts from 9:23 (!)

[@Radiiiiiiiii]

Not an imnc video without the rambling!

[@LorcanWall]

I can't wait for networking part 5!!!!!! Big fan of your videos.

[@alfiecbrown123]

I love these videos! Great to have regular updates from you again, Tom. Looking forward to more! :D

[@mikekennedy3173]

Thank you for the lesson . Much appreciated

[@huwthomas67]

Nice video, wish i had seen this a few weeks ago as i attempted to fix my time capsule due to a fan problem only to break off the HDD connector from the Logic board gave it to a computer engineer only for him to try rip me off, now waiting for a new logic board which are a nightmare to get hold of .

[@polaricebear80]

Great vid sir glad to see you back hope the fam is doing well.

[@majorvictory3231]

Where did you get that screwdriver kit?

[@garirry]

Nice video. Honestly repairing that reset button should be a piece of cake, even though I'm bad at soldering I would have no problem doing that. You should do it as soon as possible before you accidentally lose those parts.

[@drs-Rigo-Reus]

Format hdd?

[@markarca6360]

I think you should replace it with a SSD (1.8 TB or 3.84 TB Seagate Ironwolf SSD).

[@marciofilho3629]

Why would anyone do this? you don't need high performance drives for storage only.

[@wmorales27]

Can you replace the drive by a SSD instead for better performance?

[@harrymanback5817]

Skip to 9:50

[@denisstrok9898]

do you need the ac standard??

[@homelessballoon]

I have tried seriously to use Apple’s Time Capsule with 3Tbyte drive for three years, and it has been a nightmare. When it’s filled up with about 2,5 Tbyte, it just stop making automatic backups, gives a meaningless error message and stops working. I have set it to delete old backups if necessary, but this feature doesn’t work! And the worst is that I can no longer access my previous backups! They have all disappeared. The only option is to erase the disc and start over. - When I switched to a new iMac a year ago, Apple Support tried to assist me because their software didn’t work as expected. It took me eight full days to restore my backup (with the MacOS with settings, software etc), and the result was that a random selection of files had been restored. Most programs did not work, lots of important files had not been copied and the restore process was a giant failure. Apple Support had no explanation or suggestions, and I understood that they are not proud of this product. Their last words were: «But it’s nice when it does work!» If you have few programs and not too many files (probably less than 1 Tbyte), you may have luck with Apple’s software and the Time Capsule, but my best advice is not to use Apple’s solution as your main backup!

[@Rockwolf50]

Thought you were building a Pfsense router? Now you are going to use Crapple networking?

[@ItsMyNaturalColour]

Mike it's a stepping stone. Things will become clearer in Part 5.

[@jacobpem7927]

could you link where you got that screwdriver set please.

[@Oregonian1]

Maybe this one? www.amazon.com/ORIA-Screwdriver-Professional-Precision-Smartphone/dp/B01E16J6RQ Looks like a nice set.

[@jacobpem7927]

thank you!

[@draconus003]

I know this was 2 years ago but thank you for the information the video helped me help a client...

these small connectors you can push back with the back of the pencil eraser, it took me just some seconds. :-)

[@UstazKreatif]

can airport time capsule use ssd?

[@technikmitben]

You're using the wrong side of the ESD mat :) I'ts also a good idea to connect the crocodile clip to a clean and not annodized earted piece.

[@aubreymuswema9183]

TechnikmitBen ooooopsie daisy

[@varmaTrini]

Will WD60PURZ 6TB hard Drive work?.

[@marchingband_8255]

30k, congrats Tom!!!

[@aubreymuswema9183]

marchingband_825 70k and growing ....

[@thegeforce6625]

@@aubreymuswema918370k? He’s got 43k now 🤔

[@bensatechguy3239]

Sweet video Tom! Can't wait for Part 5!

[@davidblankinsop933]

Great to see you back!

[@dysfunctionalwombat]

Please, for the life of me, *Get rid of those WD green drives* The modern day equivalent of the Quantum Fireball. I have had so many of them have head crashes. Anyways, seeing the inside of one of those inside was cool though. Keep up the good work

[@aidenbliss]

i have had my wd green 4tb for almost 5 years and its been in constant use every day since I got it so ive had no issue with them

[@unlokia]

Wait and see...

[@unlokia]

Yes, mine died about 3 years ago and I nearly lost ALL MY DATA. They are AWFUL.

[@aidenbliss]

unlokia it probably will die one day but I know they use wd Green drives in sky+ HD and some sky Q boxes and I've never had one of them die on me

[@CraigLillie]

One could say that about any electronics product. ;)

[@nguoirung6150]

The video sound is pretty good, beyond my imagination

[@AndrewJacobsonsh1t]

If I have an AirPort Extreme cane I just pop in a HDD?

[@AndreBence]

Andrew Jacobson no

[@eliasmamoun2333]

Well done my friend 👍👍

[@mezza001]

You still have the Mac Pro Towers in Colors! I have one of those still it stopped working.

[@tsirtosky1439]

Bro your camera angle at 16:52 where your hand completely blocks what you're doing on the drive . Move your cam or your body / work angle.

[@Oldgamingfart]

Is the colour coding for hard drives just a Western Digital thing, or is it an industry standard?

[@toma58uenaventur]

Oldgamingfart just a WD thing

[@amessman]

I use my MacOS server (Mac Pro) for time machine... it's pretty nice, you could do it on your Mac Mini I think

[@tsirtosky1439]

Why erase it, if it's new?

[@scottchampion3511]

Cool video Tom!

[@CJT80]

Tom what a fantastic video, did you say you are going to use the Time Capsule as a router? If so Openreach supply a Modem (well 2 versions), which depending which cabinet you have depends which one you use. One's Huawei and the other ECI. Plusnet will allow you to use another device with the connection. Swapping out the Hub should be easy...

[@hfs9502]

place camera to let us see what you are doing. Thanks

[@inonothin3304]

so happy to see you back love the channel

[@robertrussell6440]

The ice cube tray is a very smart idea 😀

[@videomasters2468]

your using a mac os virtual machine, inside mac os, why?

[@Beezer123mr]

videomasters2468 I think you saw him from remotely controlling a server using screen share

[@wooow]

Awesome video! Thank you!

[@jameslowmanjr6141]

I just came across your video because my time capsule hard drive just failed it keeps dropping off talk to Apple found out they’re no longer made repaired or serviced anything with my hard drive keep dropping off the tech-support they still provide said that it’s probably not a hard drive issue it’s a software issue well if it wasn’t that I was going to ask you for your Address and see if you wouldn’t swap out a hard drive for me you ever thought of doing a low profile one.

[@stevelowry9127]

If you're going to keep this up, you might thing about investing in a COMPRESSOR. THAT THING NEEDS A BLOW JOB ....GREAT VID !!

[@tsirtosky1439]

I hope you get a new camera / recording device that allows you to record without losing power... and do time lapse on the tedious but still useful parts of the repair, like trimming the rubber dampers, and reassembling the drive. Sigh.

[@josephnealescratchcards]

Awesome repair (hard drive swap)

[@Trusteft]

Copying one file to a new drive is hardly enough of a test of if a new hard drive is going to work properly. I am a bit perplexed as to why you did not use any better solution (there are plenty of free software to check hard drives), especially since this is a backup drive. ANYWAY, good video as always. :) I just wish you would make more videos :)

[@ItsMyNaturalColour]

Absolutely true.. Time I guess!

[@imbabe3449]

Thank you for doing this! You really gave me the confidence to replace their hd!

[@MaxMacZone]

Great vid!

[@amasood_]

Great video!

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

LOL - swapping a Seagate with a Western Digital toilet guarantees you'll be changing it again really soon!

[@stevenbarber2703]

yay another video networking

[@harrisoncringe]

Hey look it’s a KZbin comment section without awful hate and firsts!!

[@GeorgijusPavlovas]

Your square cylinder is parallelepiped.

[@pbsct6757]

You are hiding from what you are doing? It is too unprofessional to use cameras.

[@mrsnapple5827]

thanks dude! shove it in there!

[@WakeRunSleep]

250k hard drive? What’s the point of that?

[@mostafaabasiry8069]

That was very helpful! thank you

[@Nick-ef8tu]

Yay he’s back

[@ljonesj]

the red wd drives are great

[@ljonesj]

oh also most of the time for me the seagate drives in enclousers for me always die the wd drives never do in enclousers and bare always work

[@Rockwolf50]

Uh no...... Seagate Ironwolf is a far superior choice.

[@ljonesj]

Maybe but right now I’ve not had experience with those seagate drives I’ve seen Linus Sebastian use them with his unraid stuff and with helping others on KZbin

[@adamw7411]

Was thinking about opening mine but naaah, changed my mind.

[@qlimaxbass5022]

Oh god Sorry for asking but how old are you? :)

[@Plainapple287]

One of the first. I have a 2011 model. But I'm selling it I don't really need It. Nice video Tom I love your videos been watching since 2014.

[@Plainapple287]

My 2011 model is a 3TB

[@Jae_972]

6:04 ghost orb on your imac

[@SuperFredAZ]

What a nasty product. I would give this a 4 out of 10 for servicing. I would never buy such a product, awful, but you do a nice job explaining.