Recommendation for Wifi Extender for an Apple Airport Capsule

do I need to replace it with the same capacity, 2TB?

No.. any capacity above about 3x the disk capacity of all the Macs that backup. And then anything above that.

Synology DiskStation DS118 Mini Desktop NAS

Wow.. that is a class above what I was thinking.

The model I recommend is DS220 (it comes in flavours, j and plus with fairly wide pricing difference)

The cheapest is J so DS220j but if you can still find a DS218 it would also work.

There is a one bay model but the price for 2 bay is not a lot extra.. the actual controls and board etc are identical but the 2 bay allows you to add another disk later.

2TB SSD

I would NOT buy an SSD for a NAS. Let me explain why.

SSD are expensive in large disk sizes. The cheaper versions have file write limits well below that of normal hard disk. Backups do use a lot of writing and rewriting of small files.. so SSD while fine for normal home use.. are not really suited to this job.

A good backup drive like Seagate Ironwolf or WD Red have long warranty and come in sizes from 1TB to 16TB or thereabouts. I stick to around the 8TB size. But you could by a 4TB if it saves a lot. Not really worth buying under that size.

More important.. over a network.. the rate determining step is gigabit ethernet. It has a limit of lets say 115MByte/s .. whereas even a slow NAS drive can do 180MBytes/s. There is some speed gain using SSD for small files.. as it is much less efficient writing file tables on the disk.. and Time Machine cannot really manage backups much faster than 40-50MBytes/s and much slower when it is lots of tiny files. In other words in this situation.. an SSD gives no speed gain whatsoever.

On balance.. if you want a small compact low power consumption NAS the DS118 with 2TB SSD would be super.

I would still buy the bigger unit myself.

A DS220j with 8TB NAS drive is around the same price I guess.. check amazon etc.. just as fast in this context.. bigger and although very quiet not as good as the smaller unit. If you run out of space though you can buy a second drive and put it in making the backup 16TB..

dealing with a guy who is 76

Keep well and stay safe.

Happy to help if you need more details on doing anything.

I am only 67 but the doctors took 15 years off my lifespan with bone marrow transplant when I was 40 so I didn't die at 41. So I feel about 82. Better than 41 so not complaining.

Just to add to Bob's comment..

If your TC is already 5years + then it is time for replacement regardless.

At 3-5years you might still get some life out of it but with the understanding that it is not ideal with latest OS since really High Sierra which moved to SMB for backup. Big Sur is perhaps not as bad as Catalina but many people have found backup to the TC unreliable for ages now.

This warning is all too common and you might not even see it but it deletes the old backups anyway.

Since Apple has bought the whole Airport line to a conclusion over 2 years ago.. it is well and truly time to rethink backup.

The cheapest, easiest, fastest and most reliable is USB drive (SSD much preferred for boot drive backup but fast desktop type is still ok). Plug this directly into the computer. Time Machine handles this better than network backups.

Much more expensive but worth consideration is a NAS. Synology is top of the pile for this with Time Machine. Other brands do support Time Machine though. You can buy a cheap 2 bay one with just one large hard disk to begin.. and build up from there.

Frankly, there are no recommendations for third party WiFi Extenders if you are asking about a device that would connect using wireless and extend the network in that manner.

The reason for this is that Apple engineers designed Apple's "extend" feature to only work with other Apple routers using a wireless connection. So, if you want to wirelessly extend the signal from an AirPort Time Capsule, you will need another Apple router. An AirPort Extreme would be recommended, since it is the same WiFi router as the Time Capsule. An AirPort Express would work as well if you are willing to accept a significant decline in performance in the area where the AirPort Express will be located.

New, Refurbished and Used AirPorts are available on Ebay if you are interested in staying with the Time Capsule and adding an extender. A used AirPort Extreme would probably sell in the range of $75-125. An AirPort Express in the $25-50 range.

If the new "extender" will connect back to to the Time Capsule using a permanent, wired Ethernet cable connection, then virtually any third party router that can be configured to act as a "wireless access point" could be used. Do a Goggle search for "wireless access point" for more information. Netgear and Linksys products are popular choices.

If you decide to go with a new mesh system to provide your wireless network, then the Time Capsule can be reconfigured and used as only a wired back up hard drive in this type of setup, as long as the mesh router has an available Ethernet port. In other words, the Time Capsule will not provide a wireless signal at all in this type of setup......it acts only as back up hard drive.