Replacing a Time Capsule
Q
Our two iMacs are connected by Ethernet to a Time Capsule for their backups. What can we replace that Time Capsule with, now that it’s getting long in the tooth? byRICHARDPOLLOCK
A
Apple stopped selling Time Capsules nearly four years ago, and even the most recent are now at increasing risk of hardware failure, particularly their hard drives, which are becoming significantly more likely to lose all your backups.
There’s no direct replacement which works as well as the original, and in any case you should take the opportunity to reassess how you make backups. As you’re backing up desktop
Macs over a wired connection, your first choice should be to attach local storage to each rather than going over a network, as that’s much faster and more reliable, particularly now that Time Machine can back up to APFS. Although that works best to an SSD, even a USB-C hard drive would bring great benefits over your Time Capsule.
If you still want to back up over the network to a networked-attached storage system (NAS), then there’s a wide choice from half a dozen reputable manufacturers catering for all needs and budgets. Ensure that the model is fully compatible with Time Machine using the SMB protocol, as recent versions of macOS are losing support for the older AFP, which should be avoided.