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Time Capsule as sonos server and time machine

HI anyone

I have a time capsule with all my music on it for my sons system.

I would like to know if i can also use it as time machine for all my family computers, as well as running a wireless printer from it?

Am struggling to get this all set up so any help/advice would be appreciated (ie. to add wireless printer, and also to understand if i can restrict time machine to a certain amount of data per machine backup / don't want to fill it up as want space for new music for songs)

Thanks

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), 16GB RAM; 478GB Hard Drive

Posted on Nov 28, 2015 9:04 AM

Reply
1 reply

Nov 28, 2015 11:46 AM in response to chaseroonie

You can use it for backups.. but remember that wireless has limited bandwidth and during backups your wireless streaming for music could dropout.


How many computers are you talking about.. and what is the total capacity of their hard drives (actual data) at this time??


What model is the TC? What capacity is the drive?


Restricting sparsebundle size (the actual TM backup) is kinda tricky.


See A8 here. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html


Remember you can add a USB drive to the TC to increase its capacity although choosing the right drive can be tricky. It is also much slower than the internal drive and you don't want to add too much latency into the system.


You add a wireless printer via WPS in the airport utility.

This is generally best done via the first attempt method.


The issue here is more the printer than the TC.. some printers are easy to setup.. others are plain difficult..

It is almost a completely separate topic.. if you search you will find lots of threads here with people having issues networking their printers.


I strongly recommend the following as a starting point for any setup of the TC.


Start from a factory reset. No files are lost on the hard disk doing this.

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 Mavericks--Yosemite--ElCapo. (MYELCAP)

1. Use very short names.. NOT APPLE RECOMMENDED names. No spaces and pure alphanumerics.

eg TCgen5 for basestation and TCwifi wireless name.



If the issue is wireless use TC24ghz and TC5ghz with fixed channels as this also seems to help stop the nonsense. But this can be tried in the second round. ie plan on a first and second round of changes to fix this.. hopefully.. I will point out other steps that can be round2.


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 MYELCAP 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://192.168.0.254 (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://TCgen5.local where you replace TCgen5 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.







There is a lot more jiggery pokery you can try but the above is a good start.. if you find it still unreliable.. don't be surprised.



You might need to do some more work on the computer itself. eg Reset the NVRAM/PRAM/SMC.. has helped some people. Clean install of the OS is also helpful if you upgrade installed.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7306452?answerId=29202159022#29202159022&ac_cid=ha123456#29202159


Tell us how you go.


Time Capsule as sonos server and time machine

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