Old Time Capsule,new iMac

You will still be able to see everything on the old Time Capsule, and be able to back up multiple computers to the same time capsule. I back up 4 MacBooks to a single time capsule and it works wonderfully with no problems. One thing that I would think about however is that your Time Capsule might run out of space if you have a lot of data on both computers.

Hope this helps! :)

Question : I know I can access the Time Capsule on my new iMac(browse other backup disks) to restore them to a chosen folder on my new mac.

No, this is not correct. If you are using Time Machine, you will only be able to access backups that the MacPro that you are using has made. The iMac will not be able to access backups that your old Mac has made and restore them using Time Machine, so you will need to find another way......like using Migration Assistant on the new iMac to transfer data from the backup of your old Mac to your new iMac.

If I make a backup of my new iMac on the old time capsule,can I still access the older backups (from my old mac) too?

Using Time Machine, the new iMac will be able to access the backups that the iMac has made and your old Mac will be able to access the backups that it has made.

The new iMac will not be able to access Time Machine backups using Time Machine that were made on the old Mac and the old Mac will not be able to access backups made using Time Machine of the new iMac.

If you make a copy of the new iMac when it arrives, then you will have the new iMac backed up using Time Machine. If you then migrate data from a backup of the old Mac to the new iMac, then the next time that you back up, all of the new data that has been migrated will be backed up.

I still have.......a 2009 Time Capsule.

To be honest, you are very lucky that the Time Capsule is still working. It should have failed a few years ago, and is frankly going to fail at any time now. So, you would not want to keep any data on the Time Capsule that you cannot afford to lose unless you have another copy of the data on the Time Capsule on another hard drive.

If it were me, I would never back up the new iMac to the Time Capsule because it is going to fail at any time now. My advice would be to back up the iMac directly to a USB hard drive as soon as possible.

Let me add a big +++ to Bob's comment.

Your new computer on Catalina will have major issues reliably backing up to an 11 year old TC. And that is assuming it has sufficient space, since it likely only has a 1TB drive.

Don't even start. Immediately get a decent size desktop 3.5" USB drive, say 4TB min. Partition it into two.. you can have different size partitions. I would immediately download Carbon Copy Cloner and create a clone of your Mac.. that should provide boot support. You can use Time Machine to the second partition.

Considering the age of the TC and how difficult it is to actually extract data once things go bad, I would archive it immediately. You can use a very cheap small 2.5" 1TB drive (or better if you want to make use of it later).

If the old iMac is still running which I gather it is create a CCC clone to the USB drive.. that will be very useful if you need to gain access to files later on and the TC and iMac have passed away.

Perhaps I can explain as Bob made no mention of clones.. !!

Plan is to buy an external SSD for time machine backups for the new iMac

SSD is great.. using Time Machine is pointless on SSD because it must use HFS+ format. Apple has not updated Time Machine in ages and ages.

On the other hand for a bootable clone.. it MUST copy the full setup of the new iMac.. which likely has soldered on disk drive??? Anyway lets say recovery is near impossible if your new iMac fails. (I don't like soldered on RAM or especially HDD). A clone will be exact match of the computer.. using APFS format.

APFS is specifically designed for SSD.. it is super slow on hard disks.. so clones do not work well on spinning rust.. but is acceptable on the larger 3.5" desktop drives.. avoid 2.5" laptop models. (Info from CCC KB which is stacked with useful info btw).

You hold down option and choose external drive (whatever it is) as boot device at chime. So it offers you the fastest easiest check of a backup in existence. Just boot the clone and make sure everything is working as it should.. done.

Time Machine since it is converting everything from APFS to HFS+ has issues and in Catalina has been unreliable. The next OS apparently will finally get some improvement. However network backups using APFS are not possible and likely will remain so.

A clone software allows you to save a number of clones. Time Machine has absolute min of controls and you cannot easily create a number of multiple backup jobs. TM is excellent for recovery of a few files.. but for rebuilding a machine .. terrible.

For example you can create a clone of the Mac.. name it day of creation and store it on the same disk as the bootable clone which will have all the changes thereafter. While the day of creation backup on same disk (unless partitioned) cannot boot.. just put it in a folder, you could easily reconstruct the computer to match its arrival condition.

I will keep the Time Capsule until there is nothing more left I want to migrate and then send it to a well deserved retirement ;)

Yes.. this is the way to go.

I..... wouldn’t choose to put parallel sets of backups onto a single device.... One failure takes out all. But that’s your call.

CCC isn’t fussy about the format originally used on the output device (it clones), and Time Machine presently expects HFS+.

To add...

I’d go bigger than that 4 TB direct-attached storage suggestion, but that’ll work.

If you should want a network-based backup to replace the now-retired Apple Time Capsule products, the Synology NAS DS220+ is not that much bigger than a Time Capsule, can contain two 3.5” devices of your choice, and can be configured with RAID 1 should you prefer. (The top-end Time Capsule was limited to 3 TB, without RAID.) And it supports Time Machine via SMB.

A configuration with 2 x 12 = 24 TB storage (~12 TB with RAID 1), with the DS220+ unit, and with Synology memory is ~USD$1000, for example.

SSD storage tends to have (much) higher speeds and lower capacity for a given cost, as compared with hard disk drive (HDD) storage and which has (much) larger capacity and lower speed for a similar given cost.

There are certainly times when backups can be time-critical, and/or when you’re churning a lot of data, too.

In favor of hard disks... Time Machine really doesn’t like running short on storage, and the more storage you have, the deeper your Time Machine backups.

If you’ve got the requirements for and/or the budget to use three or five terabytes of SSD for Time Machine, have at. But I’d then look seriously at one of the various Time Machine-capable NAS with HDDs, as those will be in the same price range, maybe cheaper.

I’d go bigger than that 4 TB direct-attached storage suggestion, but that’ll work.

I did say 4TB min..

Just as a side note.. Avoid SMR drives. These are creeping into the market and many of the drives larger than 4TB .. e.g. 6 or 8TB are SMR type. Unfortunately SMR is also creeping back to smaller drives as well.

Look at the WD red fiasco for more info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hdJTwaTl8I

SMR drive are very poor for using with Mac backup and cloning.

seagate backup plus (5GB HDD,Catalina compatibel)

I think?? (please double check) that is 2.5" drive and is SMR type.. definitely not the way to go..

I would go 3.5" desktop type.. of which you must assume most over 4TB will be SMR type.. but that is no where near as bad as the smaller drives. (5TB is very rare size and mostly 2.5" seagate about the only one).

I think buying USB drives the urge to avoid SMR drives would make me buy a separate drive and USB holder.. which always comes out a lot more expensive. And it is near impossible to find out what drives are put into the various USB drives sold as they use a whole selection of drives.. not one type.

Note also drives that say Catalina compatible is a load of nonsense. Time Machine still uses basic HFS+ format as has been in place for the last 20 years. i.e. standard Mac OS journaled format.

What is important in the future is what happens to Time Machine .. if it needs APFS then SSD is well worth it.

You don't need a huge drive.. 1TB SSD are now a very reasonable price. Keep using CMR type hard drives for your bulk storage. The longer you hold off that purchase the better.. covid pricing is affecting everything at the moment. Of course in the US .. you need to accept that everything is made in China.. sad!!

And I also think buying a NAS if you want network backup long term is well worth the expense.

For now with desktop mac though USB is fine. It is cheap, robust and pretty much hidden away in the background.

It depends on brands you like.

WD My Book or even Elements.. sometimes one is cheaper than the other but they are virtually the same just different boxes.

They are around $130 for 8TB on Amazon.. just do a search

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wd+mybook&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Don't worry about format.. I recommend you format it on the computer you buy.. along with partitioning.. Time Machine will format the drive for you if you are too confused to google how to format disks on Mac.

Everyone has their own preferences and reasoning.. so no definitive answer.. but buy from Best Buy or one of your nearby chain stores that offer easy returns and good warranty if you have issues.. some will sell a variation on the above so you cannot easily price compare.. don't worry about it .. figure out the size you want.. they are sold in 2-12TB.. for a 2TB Mac you should go 8TB IMHO.. but up to you.