3 TB Hard Drive upgrade?

Hello Richard,

I repair and modify Time Capsules; I can also add different drives to 'upsize' them. The 'repair' is usually the PSU that has cooked in its own heat - the capacitors die. The modification is to the internal cooling fan, which as built; has no air inlet hole, faces the wrong way and is not turned on. Correct these blunders and the whole TC will run 10°C cooler. *nice* :-)

To upsize to 2TB try to not use the latest WD drives (good as they are), they will NOT spin-down in the TC environment. Use a Samsung F4 Eco-Green, works well has has proved to be very reliable.

To upsize to 3TB, again do not use the WD 3TB green offering. It will not spin-down and as a result takes more power than it should and keeps the internal temperature slightly higher than is good. Use a Hitachi 3TB Deskstar (especially when the prices come back down to sensible levels from their present very high level).

Cheers,

Chris Fackrell

www.fackrell.me.uk

When 'upsizing' the Time Capsule, I used to use the Hitachi Deskstar but no longer do so. The drive of choice, primarily because of cost and availability, is now the Seagate Barracuda. I have not done a great number of these so far, about 5x only with no negative comments. Slightly disconcerting is the UK warranty offered on these is only 1 year.

The Hitachi was 2 years and is now 1. This for me was almost a tad unfortunate as I had two failures of these drives inside TCs that I had upsized, after 11 months 2 weeks and few days!

Excellent timing Hitachi... they did replace them and the new units returned have been running now for a few months; again no negative comments.

Regards,

Chris Fackrell

www.fackrell.me.uk

How do I upgrade my Time Capsule's hard drive?

Here's a video on doing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osy-oybn9...

Time Capsule A1254 works with Seagate 3TB Desktop drive model ST3000DM001, P/N:1ER166-301. Drive spins down and up correctly. 400MB file tested in average 14sec write and 8sec read (30MBps/50MBps) when IP is set in same network. If IP is from different range, the speed is W10/R10Mbps on average)

Regards

A few months have gone by and I am noticing that the recommended Hitachi drive is possibly discontinued at NewEgg. Is it possible that there is now a better option than the 3 TB Deskstar? I am looking to replace the drive in my 1 TB A1302 because it is starting to act hinky.... gives error when rebuilding using Disk Warrior and failing to run backups. I would be happy with anything 2 TB to 4 TB as a replacement. I have read that the 7200 speed will be unappreciated for this function and what is really needed is reliability and cooler running which may be the one and the same.