{"id":51084,"date":"2026-02-24T16:50:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=51084"},"modified":"2026-04-27T11:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:32:12","slug":"how-to-replace-time-capsule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/24\/how-to-replace-time-capsule\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Replace Time Capsule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2026\/02\/11\/macos-tahoe-no-longer-fully-supports-time-capsules\/\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2026\/02\/11\/macos-tahoe-no-longer-fully-supports-time-capsules\/\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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&rsquo;re replaced. Apple remains intentionally vague about this, <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/102423\">stating only<\/a> that AFP &ldquo;won&rsquo;t be supported in a future version of macOS&rdquo;, and has been even less clear about support for backup stores on HFS+.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>If you&rsquo;ve upgraded to macOS Tahoe and erase your Time Capsule&rsquo;s backups, you&rsquo;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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>This is of course an issue because Time Capsule backups frequently become inoperable and need to be reset.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2026\/01\/apple-is-burying-the-time-capsule-but-how-to-replace-it\/\">Glenn Fleishman<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/sixcolors.com\/post\/2026\/01\/apple-is-burying-the-time-capsule-but-how-to-replace-it\/\">\n<p>Time Capsule was always on, could be located anywhere you could plug it in, handled connections over Wi-Fi and Ethernet, and allegedly <em>just worked<\/em>. As any of us who owned one recalls, it often <em>didn&rsquo;t just work<\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Internet-hosted backups are a good supplement, but I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a drop-in replacement that boasts the same ease, even if reliability were not an issue.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>What can you do today to replace a Time Capsule and provide the functionality it offered? You have effectively three choices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Add a drive (or drives) to a desktop Mac.<\/li>\n<li>Install a NAS that supports the features required for Time Machine.<\/li>\n<li>Use a third-party tool that is tweakier than Time Machine, but may fit the bill better.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@helge\/115929501096898890\">Helge He&szlig;<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/mastodon.social\/@helge\/115929501096898890\">\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/23\/macos-27-to-drop-support-for-airport-and-time-capsule-backups\/\">macOS 27 to Drop Support for AirPort and Time Capsule Backups<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/21\/network-time-machine-backups\/\">Network Time Machine Backups<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/28\/apple-officially-discontinues-airport-router-line\/\">Apple Officially Discontinues AirPort Router Line<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/02\/network-time-machine-without-a-time-capsule\/\">Network Time Machine Without a Time Capsule<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"how-to-replace-time-capsule-update-2026-04-27\">Update (<a href=\"#how-to-replace-time-capsule-update-2026-04-27\">2026-04-27<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/rachelbythebay.com\/w\/2026\/04\/24\/unas\/\">Rachel Kroll<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/rachelbythebay.com\/w\/2026\/04\/24\/unas\/\">\n<p>If you value your sanity, do not buy the Ubiquiti UNAS 2. You might have seen it and thought &ldquo;oh wow, look, a little plastic box that will replace my aging Time Capsule&rdquo; because you know that Apple is dropping support for them in an upcoming version of macOS. It sure looks like about the same thing, but it&rsquo;s woefully unstable and you will come to hate yourself for installing it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/26\/04\/01\/if-this-project-succeeds-your-time-capsule-may-not-be-killed-off-in-macos-27\">Andrew Orr<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/26\/04\/01\/if-this-project-succeeds-your-time-capsule-may-not-be-killed-off-in-macos-27\">\n<p>A new GitHub project is trying to retrofit Apple's discontinued Time Capsule with modern SMB support. If this works, Time Machine backups to and restores from the hardware will still work, even after Apple kills it off in macOS 27.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/jamesyc\/TimeCapsuleSMB\">TimeCapsuleSMB<\/a> is all about updating the outdated SMB layer with a newer one, while keeping Apple's firmware untouched.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Howard Oakley: 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-24T21:50:26Z","apple_news_api_id":"566f0f50-54e4-4ae5-80af-d30bd19a4514","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-04-27T15:32:16Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AVm8PUFTkSuWAr9ML0ZpFFA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[146,2670,30,2742,2029,2694,503,216],"class_list":["post-51084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-backup","tag-hfs-plus","tag-mac","tag-macos-tahoe-26","tag-server-message-block-smb","tag-synology","tag-timecapsule","tag-timemachine"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51717,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51084\/revisions\/51717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}