APPLE TIME CAPSULE

Apple Time Capsule partitioning

I bought an Apple time capsule (TC) 5th Gen with AC wireless connection to get the best wifi speed. It connects to my MacBook Pro over the 5G channel @1300mbps wifi AC connection. Planning was to install a NAS hard drive, partition it then use it as a media server. The reading/writing speed of the HDD over wifi was 30mbpc which was good enough for streaming media. Gen 4 had around 20mbps R/W speed via wifi which I didn’t like. If I use a wire (LAN port) direct to a computer that goes over 50mbps R/W speed which I only use to transfer data into it from other media. TC can connect up to 50 users over 2G, 5G channels or wired connections via Ethernet ports.

Upgrading the time capsule hard drive: is not an easy task. I bought an 8TB Seagate Barracuda with 256 cache @5200rmp knowing that the original HDD inside was a similar brand with 7200rmp and 64 cache. A SATA 3 cable inside TC usually can transfer data up to 6Gbps speed as the maximum speed in the logic board or faster connections like USB3. Watched a YouTube video to open it and remove the original HDD. Had to cut the two bottom gaskets to fit the new hard drive in as there were 4 wires running on top of it. Anyway, I was feeling comfortable sticking the wires in using my fingers other than the spudger. But the tweezer was necessary to open the wires. Be careful about the thin wire for the led light inside when you open the TC and remove things. 

Partitioning time capsule hard drive: now I found a lot of misleading information about partitioning the TC HDD. First of all, you must format the new hard drive using the Airport utility to make it readable by the time capsule. Otherwise, TC will keep showing that HDD needs repair. I had to put the new HDD in the TC and wire the data cable and power cable temporarily. Then connected with OSX MONTEREY via “airport utility”. As usual, once it was shown “HDD needs repair”, I just erased the HDD on the airport utility. Now switch off the TC, and undo the wiring. I used a USB 3 HDD reader to connect the formatted HDD to my MacBook Pro. Then found that the airport utility created three partitions in it. APconfig and APswap were for system files that I didn’t touch. Used the disk utility on Mac to partition the drive which came with the name of Airport Disk and 8TB space. Partitioned 8TB into 4 containers. 

It is very important that only Mac extended journal partition will work, as because the Airport Disk came with Mac extended journal partition and configuration. When it was erased with airport utility. I made some external HDD with extended journal partitions then plugged them in into the TC with USB 2 port which did work perfectly. Anyway, USB 2 is a bit slow over wifi to browse. The TC has only USB2 ports to connect external drives only. The USB port won’t work for a USB dongle to connect internet at all. The TC can be only connected to internet via Ethernet port. You might extend an existing home wifi network with internet when you configure the TC via airport utility. 

Finally put the HDD back into TC with 4 partitions (2TB each). The partition name Airport Disk was left as the 2TB partition for TIME MACHINE backup from MACBOOK PRO. Used a USB 3 connection to transfer a pile of media into the other three partitions before putting the HDD back into TC. 

it’s working fine. Streaming is perfect on all my devices including Apple TV. Apple TVOS and IOS use similar apps to browse the wifi media means the TC via SMB1 network protocol. It is a bit slower than SMB2 but we must admit that TC is kind of old technology now. When you access your TC to transfer media and documents from your Mac computer you can lock all content as read-only so that no one can delete them. Drive access is managed by password means your data is password protected which you can configure via “airport utility”. 

The good thing is TC always sleeps @10W power consumption if no one is browsing it or no computer is backing up anything via the Time Machine app. But it wakes up very quickly when I connect via any device to browse. 

Time capsule user manual states that people can link media and contents from the TC to their own domains if they purchase a domain name with those features. Once TC is connected to internet, you should able to configure it for remote browsing from outside the range of the TC via internet.