Permanently remove Hard Drive from Time Capsule

Yes, you can.

The TC will give you an error that the hard disk has failed. The error can be ignored but I am not sure if you can ever get the TC to show a green LED again.. ie it could flash amber till the end of its days.

I will need to check that one.

You can replace the hard disk with a small laptop one.. as long as it is sata any size will work. Mounting in the TC might be a farmer type job.. cable ties and rubber blocks.

Let me also suggest the AC version TC is worth a fair bit second hand.. cf the AC version airport extreme. You can buy a much larger hard disk for whatever usage you had in mind. And simply get the AE second hand.. !!

Opening and removing the hard disk from the TC is not exactly difficult.. but it is hard to do cleanly.. without marking the plastic.. and putting them back together is an even more difficult chore. The connectors are surface mount and will snap off the board with slightest over pressure. This device was never intended to be opened.

And the result of your exploits is one of the worst hard disks Seagate ever made.. !!

I don't have easy access to a gen5 TC at the moment to try disconnecting the hard disk.. but I do have a gen4 TC on the desk.

Powered it down .. disconnected the hard drive.

Powered up again.

Then selected ignore and the front LED did return to green.

The fault will always be there.. of course..

But at least it won't annoy you ..

It probably works better with the hard disk completely out of the unit. As I remember you cannot simply ignore a faulty disk..

The Gen5 could be different but Apple is pretty consistent in the way things work.

When you reassemble the unit .. you can leave out the front LED cable. So it will simply not show anything.

The ifixit instructions don't explain clearly enough one important thing.

This is not important for the immediate future if you intend to run the TC without hard disk. But will greatly decrease its value if you want to sell it later.

Remove the cable from the end of the hard disk.. there is just enough slack in the cable to do that.. as the cable is locked on the board at the other end. Be very gentle.. ease the plug out directly.. without stressing the cable at all.

The ribbon cable is extremely easy to damage.. if you upend the TC and the hard disk slides out catching the cable it will tear it.. and there are no replacements available as spare parts.