While we are indeed kissing distance away..hubba hubba, the layout of the space would make running an ethernet from my Mac to her TC closer to 20 feet of cord as there are door and shelving obstacles. It’s hard to explain, and I don’t have 20 feet of cable to boot. Can I avoid this?
Clearly if you don't want to use ethernet then you can use wireless.
Not having a 20' ethernet cable is not a very good excuse.. ie it would cost $10 to buy one. And it will work 10x better than wireless.
Going back to your very first post.
My problem is that our wireless connections on our computers are nearly useless, and I believe its because our set up is wrong. How can we both back up to our own time capsules wirelessly without putting a drain on our wireless connection. Should they be hard-wired instead?
The answer was clearly.. the more wireless the worse the connection.. the slower it will go.. if you want fast connections use wired connections.
If we go back to wireless.. then rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.. the speed improvement can be expected to be remarkable.. only straight down.. !!
You mention turning off wireless on my mac…is this just for testing purposes? Don’t I need to have wireless on?
Only need wireless if you don't run a cord.. take your pick.. !!
Now let me start over.. again!!
The connections are going to work better by changing over to your newer Paul TC.
So plug Paul into the modem and redo the setup.. run new backups from Morgan iMac and Morgan Macbook .. you will have tons of space on that hard disk also for Paul iMac.
Wireless is much faster on 5ghz. BUT your iMac is not making use of it. It is too old.
So lets improve that situation by using Morgan TC as extend wireless. and do this with this specific setup.. Do all of this exactly.
Setup Paul TC as the main Network TC.
I am not sure if it is bridged or router mode.. whatever the current one is the replacement will also be.
Factory reset it as that is necessary when you change devices in their network setup.
Factory reset universal
Power off the TC.. ie pull the power cord or power off at the wall.. wait 10sec.. hold in the reset button.. be gentle.. power on again still holding in reset.. and keep holding it in for another 10sec. You may need some help as it is hard to both hold in reset and apply power. It will show success by rapidly blinking the front led. Release the reset.. and wait a couple of min for the TC to reset and come back with factory settings. If the front LED doesn’t blink rapidly you missed it and simply try again. The reset is fairly fragile in these.. press it so you feel it just click and no more.. I have seen people bend the lever or even break it. I use a toothpick as tool.
N.B. None of your files on the hard disk of the TC are deleted.. this simply clears out the router settings of the TC.
Setup the TC again.
Then redo the setup from the computer with Yosemite.
1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.
eg TCgen4 for basestation
Use TC24ghz and TC5ghz for wireless.
2. Use all passwords that also comply with 1. but can be a bit longer. ie 8-20 characters mixed case and numbers.. no non-alphanumerics.
3. If the TC is main router you can skip this point. This is only an issue when the TC is bridged.
Ensure the TC always takes the same IP address.. you will need to do this on the main router using dhcp reservation.. or a bit more complex setup using static IP in the TC. But this is important.. having IP drift all over the place when Yosemite cannot remember its own name for 5 min after a reboot makes for poor networking.
4. Check your share name on the computer is not changing.. make sure it also complies with the above.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. but this change will mess up your TM backup.. so be prepared to do a new full backup. Sorry.. keep this one for second round if you want to avoid a new backup.
5. Mount the TC disk in the computer manually.
In Finder, Go, Connect to server from the top menu,
Type in SMB://10.0.1.1 (or whatever the TC ip is which you have now made static. As a router by default it is 10.0.1.1 and I encourage people to stick with that unless you know what you are doing).
You can use name.. SMB://TCgen4.local where you replace TCgen4 with your TC name.. local is the default domain of the TC and doesn't change.
However names are not so easy as IP address.. nor as reliable. At least not in Yosemite they aren't. The domain can also be an issue if you are not plugged or wireless directly to the TC.
6. Make sure IPv6 is set to link-local only in the computer. For example wireless open the network preferences, wireless and advanced / TCP/IP.. and fix the IPv6. to link-local only. Do the same for ethernet if you use it.
Now you will plug Morgan iMac into this TC.. and you will have completed the setup and turn off the wireless.
Do a TM backup.. this will take a while as it is the first one on this TC. After a few weeks or months you can delete the old backups on the Gen3 TC.
Do a TM backup of the Macbook.. I recommend you plug in by ethernet to do this first backup also .. but subsequent backups can be done by wireless.
Take the current Morgan TC now..
Do the same as above.. only it should be named.. TCgen3
When you do the setup do not plug it into anything except your iMac.. apple airport utility setup wizard will choose extend wireless.. accept that .. but make sure it extends on 5ghz. It will pretty much then complete the setup without any other configuration.
Once completed your iMac can have its wireless turned off.. you will be connected by ethernet to the TC.. with a short patch cord.. the TC is connected to the TCgen4 by wireless.. and you can then pick whichever you want for the backup.. but TCgen3 will be much faster.
Extend wireless on the Extreme in the upstairs setup.. should also work fine.. but choose 5ghz signal and test.. if it is poor.. then use 2.4ghz.
This will give you everything you want with the best compromises..