Has anyone replaced a hard drive in a Time Capsule? I think mine is on the way out.

[Feek]

I bought my 3Tb Time Capsule back in 2011 and it's been powered up pretty much continually ever since.

I think it's the 4th Generation model.

I'm pretty sure it's on the way out now because backups have become ridiculously slow recently on both my iMac and my MacBook. There's plenty of space on it and I'm connected via Ethernet so it's not a case that's it's full or that wireless is causing it to go slow.

After seven years of running, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the drive is failing. Unfortunately the only way I can tell that is to take it apart, remove the drive, connect it via a cradle and analyse it using DriveDX.

Has anyone replaced the hard drive in this Time Capsule? If so, how did it go?

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I assume you have the old 'flat' style one, I have done it on an older version and it worked fine after. The rubber base is stick on with adhesive in a typical apple style but after that its relatively straight forward. You just have to be really careful not to tear it, I used a hair dryer to heat it up.

There are tear downs on ifixit you can follow.

 

[Feek]

I took it apart yesterday - It was still very warm and I managed to peel the rubber base off with only a couple of very small splits.

Interestingly, although DriveDX is reporting a number of values being quite low, it's not suggesting it's on the way out and I left it running a full scan overnight which came back clear.

Although I've noticed that the Throughput Performance figure is only 2% above the 'OK' threshold (but it does say 'offline' in the description).

With no excuse for the large images :





The Power On hours figure ties up nicely with the time I've owned it.

With the report in mind, I'm wondering whether just to do a full erase of the drive and start again, see what happens.

 

[mikedigitales]

With the hours on the drive i'd be tempted to just to pop a new one in there, especially while it's in bits. Can always keep the old one as a extra backup disk or sell it if the money is tight

 

[Deleted member 138126]

It might just be massive fragmentation. If you're thinking of swapping in a new drive anyway, you have nothing to lose by formatting and starting from scratch.

 

[Feek]

I'm actually running a full pass of writing zeros over the drive now to see if it makes any difference - Slow process though.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

How did it go?

 

[Feek]

it does seem to be quicker after a format but at some point in the near future, I'm going to replace one of the 3Tb drives in my Drobo (only a year old) with a 4Tb and will then put the 3Tb drive into the Time Capsule.

 

[Feek]

Massive bump.

I never did replace it and now, nearly four years later I think it may be on the way out.

My Time Capsule keeps dropping out from Airport Utility and coming back online. I can’t hear the drive making any strange noises or spinning down and back up but the symptoms just make me think it’s failing.

Considering I bought it in 2011 and it’s been online continuously since then, it’s not done badly. I do have some 2Tb and 3Tb drives so I think I’ll go through them, find the one with the lowest run hours and give it a try.

 

[Feek]

The drive has just over ten years run time on it. According to DriveDX, it has zero errors and the overall stats are very good for a drive that age.

I swapped the drive anyway, it did the same, I did a factory reset and reconfigure, it's still doing the same.

What a shame, it's given me over ten years of good service but I suspect it's time to chuck it in the nearest skip

 

[Deleted member 138126]

How tricky was the swap? I've seen a video or two, and some of the connectors look pretty fragile. I've been thinking about putting a 2TB SSD in there. My drive has basically been doing what you describe for much longer (so mine only lasted 3 or 4 years) and I eventually stopped using it a few years ago.

 

[Feek]

@rotor Easy, really easy. The only tricky part is removing the bottom rubber cover which is glued in place. I initially rushed it without using a hair dryer and managed to tear it in one place but once the bottom is off then you just undo all the screws you can find, be careful taking the base off because of the connector to the fan and then the drive simply lifts out.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

@rotor Easy, really easy. The only tricky part is removing the bottom rubber cover which is glued in place. I initially rushed it without using a hair dryer and managed to tear it in one place but once the bottom is off then you just undo all the screws you can find, be careful taking the base off because of the connector to the fan and then the drive simply lifts out.

Thanks, must give it a go!