Changing a Time Capsule's hard drive

French Mac site HardMac has posted the step-by-step process of changing a Time Capsule's hard drive. Specifically, they swapped the original 500 GB Seagate SATA drive for a Western Digital 1 TB Green Power drive.

The actual removal of the existing drive won't be too tricky for people used to tinkering with hardware. In fact, the whole thing was simple. The Time Capsule immediately recognized the unformatted drive, formatted it and made it available to Time Machine.

They chose the Green Power drive because they're designed to use a varied rotation speed, based on demand so, it's much quieter than the original Seagate (according to HardMac).

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Source: http://www.hardmac.com/articles/79/page2/

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French Mac site HardMac has posted the step-by-step process of changing a Time Capsule's hard drive. Specifically, they swapped the...

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Mark

While today it may not be economical to a) buy a Time Capsule 500gb and b) buy a 1 TB drive and swap, it's good to see it's fairly easy to do.

I just got my TC 500gb, and I'm loving the N experience (our house was G/B, now it's dual N 5ghz / GB 2.4ghz thanks to the retention of a cheap Belkin router that has a cool "access point" mode) but I'm concerned that I've had to exclude a lot from my iMac 20" late 2007 model with a 500gb hard drive. I want to keep at least 200gb free on the TC for long term backups and recoveries. Plus, I'm probably going to be moving all Apple in a year or so, if they ever get an "ultraportable" right (the MacBook Air ain't, imo), or do a major upgrade to the MacBook line.

So a year or so from now, when 1TB drives are the price of 320gb drives today, and 1.5 or 2TB drives are readily available, it might be a good time to upgrade, and move the original TC's 500gb into an enclosure.

BTW, on noise comments - I haven't heard anything really from the 500gb TC. It's whisper quiet. Most annoying thing is the flashing green light (I enabled the activity mode for the light, and may turn it off soon).

March 13 2008 at 8:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

HineyWipe

I opted for the Seagate Enterprise class drives (ES.2) which can be found for less than $300 plus 24x7 operation and 1.2 M hrs. MTBF. Yeah, I think I can sleep at night. Can you?

March 13 2008 at 12:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

stompy

The WD green power drives are not "dynamic" or "variable" speed.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page1.html

March 12 2008 at 6:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tired_

Interesting. I'm in the market for a 500GB drive for one of my desktops, as well as a router that does 802.11n and Gig-E. I wonder if buying the Time Capsule (ripping out the drive to put in my desktop and replacing it with an 80GB I have laying around) would be cheaper than buying the drive and the non-Time Capsule Airport base station separately...

March 12 2008 at 6:30 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

badtzmaru

nice tip! im going to buy the 500GB TC in a couple of months.

March 12 2008 at 3:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tyler S.

My question is...is it cheaper to buy the 500GB TC and install the 1TB drive? or is it cheaper to buy the 1TB TC?

March 12 2008 at 3:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Tyler S.'s comment

eSystm

From what it looks like on the referring link to this article that you would most likely break even or end up spending a little bit more (due to the exchange rate, the web site deals in Euro's). Though, what they try to sell you on is the efficiency of the drive they used. Seeing as it has dynamic RPM selection to improve power efficiency and life expectancy. I am sure you could find a 1TB drive out there that would make it cheaper, but it would probably be lower quality and louder than the drive that comes with Time Capsule.

March 12 2008 at 3:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Will

Sort of unrelated, but how are folks using Time Machine with their laptops? My wifes laptop is either surfing or asleep/charging. It's almost never just "idle". As soon as she's done with it, it gets closed and that's that.

What kind of hoops are you jumping through to keep your laptop "alive enough" for Time machine to do its job?

March 12 2008 at 2:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Will's comment

tuaw

It will just back up while she's surfing. If that's all she does with her laptop, she's probably not creating much content to back up. It should only take a minute or two each time, and TM will do the work when it can.

Since the laptop isn't creating any new files, modifying files, or downloading emails while it's asleep, it doesn't need to do anything at that time...

March 12 2008 at 2:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

awh

does anyone know if you can replace the hd in the new ï£¿TV? i saw samsung has new 500GB drive that will fit in laptops so it should fit in the ï£¿TV? also can you use the Time Capsule with the ï£¿TV?

March 12 2008 at 2:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

3 replies to awh's comment

sven

Hhmm. So far no one has complained about the noise level of the TC.

March 12 2008 at 2:08 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

indiekiduk

Well Seagate are the loudest because they have no acoustic management since the patent lawsuit a few years ago. And Western Digital are now regarded as the quietest. The difference should be noticeable when idle and dramatic when seeking.

Now if only they sold the Time Capsule without an HD :-)

March 12 2008 at 2:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply