Replace AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac drive

You might want to look through this article for more information:

Airport Time Capsule A1470 Hard Drive Replacement - iFixit

Different hard drives are available depending on your requirements:

https://www.amazon.com/Green-3-5-Inch-6-0Gb-IntelliPower-WD60EZRX/dp/B00LO3KMK0? tag=ifixitam-20

Frankly, this is not an easy operation, since Apple did not really design the Time Capsule for easy access. If you decide to attempt this, be extremely careful as you disassemble the product. It very easy to break a delicate connector or ribbon cable.

If you want a shop to do this job for you, it will likely cost more than a new Time Capsule, so that might be another option to consider.

cajonpass wrote:

The 3GB hard drive inside my AirPort Time Capsule 802.11ac is failing. What is the best option for replacing it?

What makes you think so?

Have you done a one pass erase which is the best method of actually checking a drive.. If too many sectors are bad it will simply spit out a disk error and stop working.

If the TC is older than say 3 years.. if you are having issues.. the hard drive is the least likely component to fail. What might appear to be disk problems are more likely power supply or even main board faults.

I have replaced hard disk in my TC.

Let me say if you are a DIYer it is just finicky and you need to be very careful. The ifixit instructions don't make one thing clear.. you must remove the disk drive cable from the back of the disk.. not from the board which is locked.

Apple made the older model TC with heavy cables.. I have never heard of anyone breaking the hard drive cable (although fan was a problem).. like the inside of a computer. The AC model TC was made with multiple tiny surface mount sockets. It is a very poor design in the sense that all the cables need to be unplugged to get the hard disk out but getting those cables to plug back into their sockets.. is very frustrating. They don't slide in.. you fit the cable to the front of the socket and snap down the back. You must do this with tools .. tweezers, pliers, screwdriver because there is no access. It feels more like pulling apart an iphone than a computer.