Time Capsule disk won't connect to Mac Studio

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Level 1

8 points

Time Capsule disk won't connect to Mac Studio

I have a (fairly old) apple airport time capsule 3TB disk which I use as a Time Machine backup disk for my M1 Studio running Sonoma 14.4.1. It is connected via the ethernet ports. It has been working fine but a few days ago I loaded some large video files onto my Studio. Despite the fact that Time Machine is set to delete old backups once the disk becomes full, the next backup failed and stated that the backup disk was full. I have now moved the large files to a separate disk and tried the backup again through the Time Machine settings. The backup failed as Time Machine is now telling me that no backup disk can be found. I have tried unplugging the disk and reconnecting it as well as restarting the Mac, however backups still fail and I also see the disk is no longer showing under Locations in the Finder.

Any ideas what may have happened and how to resolve this?

Posted on May 16, 2024 7:26 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

den.thed

Level 9

77,734 points

May 18, 2024 8:36 AM in response to Birdvid_57

Sounds like the old Time Capsules internal drive has bit the dust.

Personally I would replace the old Time Capsule with a 4T or larger external drive to use for Time Machine.

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Answer 2

May 25, 2024 7:23 AM in response to Birdvid_57

This is almost tangential to the discussion, but you can "host" backup drive(s) on another Mac on your network, and back up across the network.

Support for this feature inside File Sharing was first available in MacOS 10.13 High Sierra.

The Mac holding the backups needs to be one that is 'always on'.

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Answer 3

May 26, 2024 7:18 AM in response to Birdvid_57

The usual pinch point is having another Mac, always on.

You could probably get a Full backup done overnight, even one that size. That's what your Time Capsule was doing. The second and subsequent backups are just the changed files, so they are much smaller.

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Answer 4

Birdvid_57 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 25, 2024 2:42 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks and could be right. I've tried connecting to MacBook via USB as well as ethernet and not showing there either. I do have an alternative drive so time to move on I suspect.

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Answer 5

Birdvid_57 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 26, 2024 4:11 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks Grant, however I now have nearly 2.5TB of data that needs backing up ...

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