Filed under: Hardware, How-tos
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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
sven said 1:38PM on 3-12-2008
"much quieter"? What is the noise level of the Time Capsule w/ the original harddrive. According to Appleinsider it's already really silent.
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Evan said 1:46PM on 3-12-2008
I have my 500GB TC sitting on my dresser 3 feet from my bed. I had it backing up through the night and didn't hear it at all (while I was awake...). If I am standing right over it I can hear an occasional clicking or the initial spin-up... Otherwise, it's not that bad.
Niles said 2:09PM on 3-12-2008
I'm going to disagree with you, Evan. My experience has been a bit different.
Because of the unfortunate layout of our old house, our internet cable comes into the house via our bedroom. So our 500 GB TC is about three feet from the bed, and if the fan is running on the TC, you will definitely hear it going. It's not loud, but it's ABSOLUTELY noticeable.
As a result, I've been trying a few things with it to reduce the fan noise.
1) If your computers that use it are all asleep or not accessing the internet through it (or backing up), the TC will park its HD in about 5 minutes and the TC will be completely quiet. This is probably what Evan commented on.
2) If you turn off Time Machine on your computers but leave them on to access the internet when you go to bed, the fan will stay on as the router part of the TC needs it apparently.
3) If Time Machine is backing up a Mac to your TC, the noise level will now include that of the fan as well as lots of clacking as the hard drive seeks and writes.
So my advice - don't put it in your bedroom unless you have to.
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Niles said 2:14PM on 3-12-2008
Er, brain not working. Treat "Fan" as "Hard drive", as it the spinning HD sounds like a fan.
Evan said 3:06PM on 3-12-2008
I was commenting on it running it's first back-up through the night. So it was running the entire time... I didn't notice it, but that could be due to the fact I may be "used" to the sound as the server rack I work on sits in my office at work...
Also, now that the first back up is over with, the Time Capsule doesn't do much when Time Machine isn't active. The TC isn't my primary router for the internet so I wouldn't be experiencing activity during BackUp down time.
I'm not saying the TC isn't completely silent, I just don't think it's the chainsaw people try to make it out to be.
So, I will agree with you. I wouldn't recommend placing the TC in a bed room, especially if you are sensitive to odd noises while you are trying to sleep.
On another note, I like the idea of the Green Drive and it optimizing the RPM for the requested work load, Brilliant!
ramond said 2:04PM on 3-12-2008
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 :-)
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sven said 2:14PM on 3-12-2008
Hhmm. So far no one has complained about the noise level of the TC.
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aaron Hulsizer said 2:24PM on 3-12-2008
does anyone know if you can replace the hd in the new TV? i saw samsung has new 500GB drive that will fit in laptops so it should fit in the TV? also can you use the Time Capsule with the TV?
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jus10 said 2:35PM on 3-12-2008
I don't see while you couldn't replace it although I'd have to ask - with the streaming abilities of the AppleTV Take 2, why would you want to?
Also, have you seen the 2.5" 500 gig in the wild? I want to drop it in my Macbook which streams everything to the AppleTV.
Evan said 3:28PM on 3-12-2008
How about Intel announcing (or close to) 80GB and 160GB SSD? I would gladly slap one of those in my MacBook.
Berkeley_Trader said 12:35PM on 3-13-2008
Checkout awkwardtv.org. It's a very popular appleTV hacker site.
Will said 2:34PM on 3-12-2008
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?
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tuaw said 4:05PM on 3-12-2008
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...
Tyler said 3:21PM on 3-12-2008
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?
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Evan said 3:25PM on 3-12-2008
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.
badtzmaru said 3:53PM on 3-12-2008
nice tip! im going to buy the 500GB TC in a couple of months.
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Tired_ said 6:30PM on 3-12-2008
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...
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stompy said 6:55PM on 3-12-2008
The WD green power drives are not "dynamic" or "variable" speed.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article786-page1.html
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Speddy said 12:18AM on 3-13-2008
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?
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Mark said 8:02PM on 3-13-2008
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).
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