How to Transfer Time Capsule Backups to a New Time Capsule or New Time Capsule External Drive

Time Capsule data is stored in a sparsebundle so the procedure will involve partitioning or resizing the sparsebundle.

No, it won't. A sparsebundle file will automatically expand to accept new data.

The instructions in the support document...... Time Machine: How to transfer backups from a current backup drive to a new backup drive ......assume that your external drives are connected directly to your Mac and they are not "network" drives on a Time Capsule or connected to a Time Capsule.

Transferring sparsebundle files is different.

Connect a powered USB hub to the Time Capsule

Make sure that your "new" drive is formatted correctly in Mac OS Extended Journaled

Connect your "old" drive and the "new" drive to the powered USB hub

Mount both drives on the Mac desktop

Open both drives

Drag the sparsebundle from the "old" drive to the "new" drive.

This is going to take a very long time, since the USB port on a Time Capsule is old and slow USB 2.0 and processor inside the Time Capsule further limits speeds at the USB port to about half of normal USB 2.0.

Rather than copy all the old backups in the old sparsebundle file to a new drive, you might consider simply keeping the old drive around for a month or two until you have built up some backup history on the new drive. Few users ever need to go back more than a few days or maybe a week or so to pick up a file that they may have accidentally deleted on their Mac(s).

Even if you do copy the old backups from the old drive over to the new drive, Time Machine will very likely start a new complete backup of your Mac all over again.....especially if you are running Sierra or High Sierra on your Mac. So, you will likely be using up more space on the new drive than you imagined.

The bottom line.....although I have transferred backups in the past.....my opinion remains that it is not really worth the time and effort involved to do it. But, you may disagree.

why is it necessary to setup a sparsebundle when using Time Machine over the network instead of the more simple backupdb used when an external drive is connected directly?

Time Machine automatically sets up a sparsebundle container when it "sees" a network drive as a target for backups. The sparsebundle handles data over a network better and more reliably than if the data were simply placed into a normal folder, so it is Apple's default setting for anyTime Machine backups to a network drive.

Other backup applications like Carbon Copy Cloner will also automatically store backups in a sparsebundle file when the target is a "network" drive.

In my case I found it easier to let Time Machine back up a large video library than managing the backups myself and I think it will be worth it for me. It's time consuming but simple and runs in the background.

I was not saying that it is not worth it to use Time Machine to back up. I was saying that it is not worth it to transfer old backups that are already on one drive over to another new drive. It will take up a lot of space, and Time Machine will probably start all over with new complete copy of your Mac anyway, taking up even more space.

Simply keep the old backups around on the old drive for a few weeks (or months) in case you need to go back and pick up a file from the past.

Once you have 2-3 months of new backups on the new drive, I doubt that you will ever need to go back more than a few weeks or so to pick up a file. Then you can erase the old drive and use it as a spare, or start dual backups to two separate drives. In case one backup fails, you still have the other backup drive.

It's nice to see how your Mac looked 12-18 months ago or longer, but few of us really need to see backups that go back that far. But, I do understand that some users do have a hard time thinking about erasing their old backups.....even if they will never use them.

You are very welcome!