I recently purchased a Macbook Air and AirPort Time Capsule. I have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of photos on external hard drives. I would like to transfer them to the Time Capsule to have easy access to them on the MacBook Air. Good idea?
A Time Capsule is a computer backup device, not an external storage device. So, no, it's not a good idea. Set up your Time Capsule and Time Machine to backup your computer. Leave your pictures on the external drives. Most likely you couldn't fit them on a Time Capsule, anyway.
If you want your pictures always online, and you could fit all of them on a drive the size of the one in your Time Capsule, then buy an external drive of that same capacity, transfer all you pictures to that one drive and leave it connected to your computer.
Very fast reply. Thank you. The idea was to have a fast wireless access to view the photos on the MacBook without clogging the MacBook Air's smaller storage. The Airport Time Capsule has 2TB of storage. I thought I could split the use of the AirPort Time Capsule between a backup device and wireless access to photos. (I would continue to make two external hard drive back ups for the photos)
It is cumbersome to always have the external device attached to the MacBook.
Any idea what I could use if the Time Capsule won't work?
I would like to transfer them to the Time Capsule to have easy access to them on the MacBook Air
If you decide to do this, then the only copy of your images will be on the Time Capsule. Have you thought about how you will keep a backup of all of your photos on another drive?
Kappy has a much better idea for you. Put the images on a hard drive that is connected to your MacBook Air. Then, Time Machine will back up both your MacBook Air and the hard drive to the Time Capsule.
First, you cannot partition a Time Capsule drive. Second, it's a backup device not a storage device. Backups should be maintained separately otherwise it only takes on drive failure to compromise both the backups and the storage space.
What you could use would be some kind of network attached storage, but I would suggest you simply get a large external drive that you connect to your MacBook, share the drive in order to allow access via your network.
It may be cumbersome, but you want reliability and speed. Network drives are slow, and wireless drives even slower.
i don't know how many other external drives you have with pictures on them, but are you even sure a 2 TB drive is large enough to store them all?
I think I have just under or just over a 1TB. Maybe the solution is to connect my external to one of my wireless router ports. I wonder if Time Capsule could back up through the network?
BTW, I really appreciate the time you have given and the advice. Thank you.
You cannot connect a standar external drive to a router port unless you mean to the USB drive port. Although you can do this, Time Machine will not use it as a Time Machine backup drive, although your could mount the drive on your Desktop and backup to it with third-party backup software.
I wonder if Time Capsule could back up through the network?
Time Capsule cannot back up a network drive using Time Machine. Connect a USB or FireWire hard drive to your Mac....and then Time Machine will back up both your Mac and the hard drive to the Time Capsule.
I recently purchased a Macbook Air and AirPort Time Capsule. I have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of photos on external hard drives. I would like to transfer them to the Time Capsule to have easy access to them on the MacBook Air. Good idea?
