How to Replace Time Capsule
Tahoe no longer lets you start a new backup on a Time Capsule, nor it appears to any other store requiring HFS+ (Mac Extended) format.
Time Capsule support is expected to end with macOS 26 Tahoe, as macOS 27 is unlikely to support AFP any more, so those Intel Macs compatible with Tahoe can continue backing up to Time Capsules until they’re replaced. Apple remains intentionally vague about this, stating only that AFP “won’t be supported in a future version of macOS”, and has been even less clear about support for backup stores on HFS+.
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If you’ve upgraded to macOS Tahoe and erase your Time Capsule’s backups, you’ll be unable to store any new backups on it, unless you revert to Sequoia. This is yet another compelling reason not to upgrade to macOS 26.
This is of course an issue because Time Capsule backups frequently become inoperable and need to be reset.
Time Capsule was always on, could be located anywhere you could plug it in, handled connections over Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and allegedly just worked. As any of us who owned one recalls, it often didn’t just work. Backups would fail, requiring erasure of the entire internal drive with no option to recover older backups. There was no Disk First Aid for Time Capsule.
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Internet-hosted backups are a good supplement, but I don’t think there’s a drop-in replacement that boasts the same ease, even if reliability were not an issue.
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What can you do today to replace a Time Capsule and provide the functionality it offered? You have effectively three choices:
- Add a drive (or drives) to a desktop Mac.
- Install a NAS that supports the features required for Time Machine.
- Use a third-party tool that is tweakier than Time Machine, but may fit the bill better.
What do you recommend for a noob that wants to make sure his Mac laptop is backed up? I did setup my Synology to do the same, but it is pretty awkward and much worse than what Time Capsule provided.
Previously:
- macOS 27 to Drop Support for AirPort and Time Capsule Backups
- Network Time Machine Backups
- Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Router Line
- Network Time Machine Without a Time Capsule
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Interesting that Time Capsule backups need to be reset frequencly. I'm using Time Machine to back up a Mojave laptop to my Synology, and it's as disappointing as backing up to an external drive shared from another Mac. In both cases, at least monthly it detects a problem and needs to recreate the backup from scratch. On the one hand, hooray for consistency checking, but on the other, it doesn't inspire any confidence that I'll have a backup when I need it, and it won't be older than a month.
I replaced Time Machine and my old Time Capsule (which failed backups too many times) with a regular disk on the Mac mini with ARQ. Super reliable.
I’m another person for whom Arq Backup has been working well.
I don’t have a Time Capsule, but I’m tempted to abandon Time Machine entirely in favor of local Arq Backup to an external drive, in addition to using their online backup.
