Replacing a Time Capsule: alternatives for the Mac
Apple discontinued its AirPort products, including the Time Capsule, in 2018. Many still run, but the disks inside are aging, and Apple has marked AFP, the network protocol the Time Capsule relies on, as deprecated. Time for a plan.
The alternatives
- External disk on the Mac: simplest and fastest. Downside: it only backs up while connected and usually sits right next to the Mac.
- NAS with SMB (for example Synology or QNAP): backs up over the network like the Time Capsule, with several disks against failure. Time Machine supports SMB shares the NAS offers for it.
- Cloud storage (for example Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2): the offsite copy. Needs a tool that encrypts and uploads, because Time Machine does not back up to the cloud.
Move without losing your history
- Keep the Time Capsule running until the new backup is complete and you have restored from it once.
- To keep old versions, copy the sparsebundle from the Time Capsule to a disk. It opens with a double click and can be browsed in the Finder.
- Then remove the Time Capsule as a destination, add the new one and let the first backup run.
Do it right from the start: two destinations
A move is a good moment for the 3-2-1 rule: Time Machine to a disk or NAS at home, plus an encrypted backup offsite.
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