airport time capsule failing
Can a ten year old Apple Airport Time Capsule Wi/Fi with internal back up drive be repaired? The internal drive is failing.
The answer is yes but not every you can do should be done.
The TC lifespan of 3-5years is expected .. after that you are working on pure luck. Yours has been spectacular.
What model do you have? There is a number on the base.. It could be A1355 or A1302 for instance. What size hard disk? The two earliest ones, Gen1 and 2 are far slower, higher power consumption so more heat. I would not recommend upgrading them. Both Gen3 & 4 have their own issues.
Power supply should be replaced along with the hard drive if you are going to do this.
I have written up details of repairing Time Capsules since Gen1.
Due to Apple dropping Airport production in 2018 and how later Mac OS backup.. they are much less useful than in the past.
For backup now we recommend a locally connected USB drive. Especially for Big Sur which is dramatically different to OSX.
For network backups a Synology NAS is a big improvement until Apple finally figures out some better backup for Macs.