How can I back up my Time Capsule?
I would like to back up my TC which has been up and running since 02/2013. No problems but just seems prudent to back it up before it fails. How long do TC's last? Thanks.
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8 replies
Plug a USB drive into the TC.. go to the disk tab in the airport utility and select archive.
Archive is slow.. if you have 2TB of data it can take near to 24hours to backup .. but it will proceed without your needing to do anything else.. All backups will stop during the archive as the TC disk is not available.
Or, the other method is to plug the USB drive into your computer and simply copy and paste the files to the drive.. if you do this over ethernet it will take about half the time.
How long do TC's last?
Most manage to last 3years.. some fail long before that and some long after.. normal statistical bell curve distribution.
You cannot know how long it will last so you plan for failure..
The only reason to backup the TC is because you have used it to store files.. if all you have on the TC is the Time Machine backup from your computer it is far better to make another TM backup to a different location.. ie a local USB drive.. this doubles the chances of the backup working.. making a backup of a flawed backup will be just as flawed as the original.
What I had in mind was backing up my TC to a different separate external hard drive, and then somehow periodically backing up the TC to this HD. Not to be pessimistic, but just preparing for the possible TC failure as it ages. Hadn't planned to purchase a 2nd TC at this time. Just a pure external HD without the router. Thanks for your help on this.
The simplest way to back up the contents of your Time Capsule would be to connect a USB hard drive to the port on the back of the Time Capsule, and then use the Archive function in AirPort Utility to make a mirror image copy of the data on the Time Capsule.
Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility
Click on the Time Capsule icon, then click Edit in the smaller window that appears
Click the Disks tab at the top of the next window
The process will likely take 3-5 hours or more, depending on how much data that you have on the Time Capsule at the present time, so a good time to do this might be at night, right before you head to bed......so the Archive will be done by the next morning.
Good point about making the backup from the computer, since the TC may get corrupted as opposed to just stopping which is what I had though about. Maybe just back iMac to external HD directly would be better. How can I do this automatically? i.e. Use Time Machine to backup to TC and something else to back up to the separate ext HD? Or maybe I am just making this way too complicated.
Looks like I have a couple of good options,,,,,and maybe time to think about a new TC! Thanks to all for the advice.
jrbondo wrote:
Good point about making the backup from the computer, since the TC may get corrupted as opposed to just stopping which is what I had though about. Maybe just back iMac to external HD directly would be better. How can I do this automatically? i.e. Use Time Machine to backup to TC and something else to back up to the separate ext HD? Or maybe I am just making this way too complicated.
TM can automatically backup to two or more locations.. it will simply work sequentially with each backup going to the next device in the list. An external drive plugged into the computer is ideal for this since TM backs up differently to local vs network drives.
However using a different backup utility is well worth it.. I use Carbon Copy Cloner.. but I guess once a month as it is to produce a bootable clone.. in other words this backup is an identical clone of the internal hard disk in the Mac and can be used as alternative boot device.. therefore you can check you have a viable backup in a few seconds.. !!
Time Machine is good for backup of incremental files.. and you can use the external drive for both CCC clone as well as TM.. easy peasy just partition it.. as well as backup to the TC.. This is far superior backup regime as you have multiple independent backups.
How can I back up my Time Capsule?