Are some Apple Time Capsules locking themselves up for good?
By Donald Melanson 
posted Oct 6th 2009 8:02PM
posted Oct 6th 2009 8:02PM
A backup device that's not reliable is what some may consider a "very bad thing," but that's just the charge that a sizable number of users have been leveling at Apple's Time Capsule as of late, and the complaints aren't showing any signs of letting up. What's worse is that the problem being reported doesn't appear to be related to a firmware or software update, or some other configuration issues, but rather that the Time Capsules "just die" randomly -- most after a year or more. Judging from the reports on the official Apple forums, it also seems that folks are having hit and miss results getting Apple to fix or replace their Time Capsule, with some apparently able to get an out-of-warranty replacement and others faced with a $500 bill. So, has your Time Capsule bitten the dust? Let us know in comments.
[Thanks, Michael]
[Thanks, Michael]
Another quality Apple product.
That's Apple for you. Instead of making a quality SAN they don't have RAID and they have substandard hardware. My money is on the thing overheating or something since everyone knows that Apple hates putting a fan in anything.
Don't Apple fans buy new versions every year anyway? Life-cycle seems about right.
It just works?
After a class action lawsuit they may even actually recognize this problem.
@John: "Apple hates putting a fan in anything".
They've got enough fans already.
@John: "Apple hates putting a fan in anything".
They've got enough fans already.
say it two times and we'll think there are twice as many... ;)
all the failed drives are coming from the first batches. also, i don't know about where you are but in my area of LA finding a 1TB Time Capsule in stock is impossible. just on a lark i've been calling around every couple of days and no one has them. which makes me wonder if they temporarily halted production to investigate. potentially a good sign
Yes, I guess they intentionally brake your devices so that you can enjoy the newest awesome, super, very good, products. They are so good at it!!!!
I strongly believe they do intentionally lower their products quality so that you have to buy aftermarket accessories: cases, covers, headphones, etc... Much smaller companies like Sansa, uses rubber in their products back covers for instance to reduce scratches and cracks.
My history with Apple products is:
- All ipod cables sucks, the brake easily on the joints, every single one I got new with my iPods had to be replaced in 2 months or so.
- My first iPod, a nano 1st gen died within a month, I lost my warranty papers so could not be replaced...
- 3rd Gen iPod Classic. Battery past away after a year, replaced with an spare one, HDD died after 1.5 years.
- 2nd Gen iPodtouch, random lockups and shutdowns, at least one in a week, not heavily used.
Now, if I compare that with my Sony, Sansa, Samsung, LG, devices in which I never had a single failure. Apple is in very bad shape.
Ad me to the list as well. Don't remember exactly when I bought my 500GB TC but it was around March of 2008. I was very surprised when I googled Time Capsule will not power on and the Apple Support Forum came up with several pages of people with the same problem.
Apple has to be aware of this problem and just deciding to ignore it.
Maybe they will unlock themselves in 50 years....
lol
Yeah, on the bright side, Apple just gave you a $500 time capsule...literally.
Maybe apple has implemented the famous Write Only memory?
http://www2.vmi.edu/Faculty/squirejc/Research/IC_Datasheets/digital_cmos/Write%20Only%20Memory.pdf
I believe that's WORN - Write Once, Read Never.
Has to be user error, after all Apple doesn't make bad products right ?
They must have kept it under a lamp or something.
What idiots, seriously.
I bet they didn't BELIEVE in the time capsule's superiority over all other things natural and manmade, hard enough, so it die.
lol
Still working as well as the day I bought it. I attached a couple of external hard drives to it and it makes a great whole house media server in addition to a backup server.
Best of luck mate!
for the sake of discussion, what model is this, when did you buy it and where are you (general geographic terms). also has it ever get you any signs something could be amiss, major overheating, dropped signal for lengths of time when the actual internet (cable modem or whatever) was fully functioning.
Strange. Just a couple minutes ago I was thinking about how I need to take mine to the apple store.
I can access it fine, but every 3-5 seconds it locks up for a second, then resumes. This is most evident on my windows machine and when watching videos on either computer. The windows machine can hardly see any files (when previewing images [win7], only every 5th picture displays, and many get hung up on Loading..., locking up the preview window).
Luckily, I've read that if you buy a time capsule with your mac and you have applecare, it's covered.
the bonjour plugin doesn't really work well with windows 7. it's been causing NT Stop Errors for a lot of people, slow browsing, time outs, freezes, etc. Apple hasn't updated the bonjor / airport disk software for Windows 7 yet. it's rubbish really.
I honestly believed Bonjour.exe was malware until after removing it a few times, I decided to find out what the hell it actually was.
Why would they release software for an OS that isn't out yet?
Hey, engadget, this is a story worth following.
But you need to get the story reported. The discussions on the apple website all point towards one problem: the power supply. It fails.
This isn't about wonky wireless or about fritzy hard drives. those may be problems as well, but that's not the issue people are having.
As for me, 17 mos., and still alive. We'll see . . . (I just added some rubber "feet" to the bottom to give it an extra 1/4" or so off the desk.
@laxfan0930: Because most companies make software/drivers for an OS before it is actually released so people can use it as soon as the OS is released? Why WOULDN'T you make a driver for an OS before it's released, what do you want to make your customers wait for however long after it comes out to use your product? No, of course not. Smart companies do at least, Apple just doesn't care probably.
@tom that is what they did with itunes and vista. I do believe they went so far as to urge users not to upgrade to vista just because they never ported their music player/store in time.
Wait, a few hard-drives failed? why isn't CNN on this?!
They were, but their Time Capsule "locked up" and they lost 40 min of
news.... which included, you guessed it...
@ Fingal, The hard drives didn't fail. the Time Crapsules they were installed in failed. Why wasn't it on CNN? I guess this story isn't anywhere near as explosive as Apple recalling 1.8 million iBook and PowerBook notebook batteries that's why. ;)
It's a feature, right?
Another reason I avoid "The Apple"
that's right, because Apple is the only company who ever has hardware failures. suck it.
@ Devin Brown - Yeah, right? I mean, considering what you pay, at least it's a premium hardware failure.
Well I have had mine for 2 years strong. I guess thats because I have placed a Cooling fan below since I have had it. I did notice when I got it it gets really really hot so since then I had on and off connection issues. So I placed a fan under it and wow who would have thought the issues go away.
Just my 2 cents.
Anthony H.
The iFan accessory is available for $89.95
You can still put them all in the iRack.
Sorry it's old but still the best spoof about apple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE
@Percy
Yeah its old news, everybody is certainly more interested in the iRan now.
Not to mention Mackistan.
you guys cover this, and not the issue of apple not providing proper bootcamp drivers for their latest macbooks?
Just get the next gen one. That kind of thinking works for the iPods.
My 18-month-old Time Capsule died mid-August. Came home to no status light, no network etc. Completely dead.
Seeing as it was out of warranty I pulled out the hard drive and made sure my data was safe, which it was. After much deliberation, I bought a new one the next day, and then did a bit of investigating and found 2 suspect-looking capacitors in the power supply.
I finally sourced some replacement caps just recently and on the weekend a friend replaced the dead ones for me and it was a success!
I'm hoping Apple has switched capacitor suppliers since the first few batches (my dead one was bought when they first went on sale) Not keen on ripping open my new TC to find out.
I'm in Australia so this happened mid-winter, so I doubt it's a heat issue. Just seems like the caps are letting go after around 18 months.
Why should the consumer go to all that trouble to open them up and replace the capacitors? Replacing a poewr part isn't the easiest thing for everyone...hell, even opening up any device at all is well beyond any apple users user anyway.
Apple users tend to want every simplified, convenient, and trendy. They don't care about spending money, and don't think about keeping a product more than a year anyway. They'll just buy the next version when it comes out to stay with the times.
Mine just died in exactly the same fashion. First gen. ~18 months old, I come home and its just dead...no light, no burnout smell, no nothing. Pulled out the hard drive and waiting on a drive enclosure to arrive in the mail to retrieve my data (fingers crossed...dumped my iPhoto library there b/c old macbook was running out of space...moronic move to put all my eggs in one basket, i know.)
Never the less, it worked so well otherwise, I'm just waiting till the frustration wears off (...or anxiety of unbacked up data builds up) to buy a new one. Probably another month and I'll pull the trigger on a 1TB.
I like your keen sense of adventure to delve into the belly of a TC. I wish I had stuff to open up to see whats wrong. Good job.
Not really understanding the "it works great until it breaks" mentality here.
@tofug
I always see a bunch of comments that question why someone would say that a gadget that broke "worked great till it broke" and where you can't understand that attitude, personally I can't understand people that can't understand it.
Personally, I think about it with gadgets the same way I do any other type of product. I've had my current vehicle for 9 months and I have over 65k miles on it, thats a lot of miles in a short amount of time. I replace my vehicle every couple years and the previous two I had I could not wait to get rid of. This current one I am not sure I will even get rid of. It is the best damn car I have ever had and the first one that I actually like driving long distances in. I may get another one just like it if they still have the same model and pass this one to my wife or keep it for my fourteen year old son when he gets his licences in a few years.
To the point though, if the car's engine or transmission let go tomorrow and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere, I might be mad about the part failing but it would still be the best damn car I have ever been in.
Something breaking after 18 months of use doesn't take away anything from the item if it was a great piece of gear until then. In this case a external hard drive unit, I would be overjoyed at 18 months. In my office I've tried three compact NAS units and not one of them has lasted that long. The worst was a Maxtor 1TB RAID unit that the power brick failed on three times in a 6 month period and then the unit just died completely, but I had to make an old PC lying around into a Linux box just to stick the drives in and recover the files as Maxtor would send me a new unit but to get the data off the old one they wanted a couple thousand dollars.
Parts fail, and there is no amount of bench testing, QA inspections or burn in time will ever prevent it. I've seen $10k pieces of equipment delivered on a truck from the factory and be DOA when the day before it just passed factory certification testing.
hey dennis,
what car? i drive about the same amount and cant get a decent ride for the long haul each day. the line between nice seats and good gas mileage dont seem to match up often.
@ brewja
I put on a lot of miles too... My '06 Acura TL was pretty good, really good seats and 29 mpg on highways. I can't get past how they screwed up the new TL, though I hear the TSX is still nice. Now have an '06 BMW 330xi which is much more fun to drive and the sport seats are better for the first two hours, then they start feeling restrictive. Also getting around 29 mpg on highways. My personal ideal would be a 330d wagon which is not sold in the US :(
dennis, I think you missed the point.....
a year and a half is WAY too early for a "here, pay a premium price and store your life on this piece-of-mind device" unit to die.
I also think you're a little silly if you would still love a car even if the engine and transmission died at around 65k miles.... (if it was a known problem with all of the units shipped, like it is with THIS apple product at least... there's bound to be a lemon or two no matter the manufacturer). the point of transportation is to keep you safe, get you where you need to go, and do so efficiently and comfortably. if it died at 65k miles, it would have failed in that regard. just because it has comfortable seats doesn't mean that it's a better car than one that will last you 200k miles. you must have never owned a honda or toyota, you get comfort, style, efficiency AND reliability. maybe you should set your expectations higher.
also, sounds like you've had bad luck with your NAS products... but that doesn't mean you should expect a device that's only job is to hold data and keep it safe to fail... and maxtor? that was your own damn fault. they make shit products.
It just works. As intended.
Sounds EXACTLY like the hard drive in my macbook. Mine died out of the blue when the OS froze up. And my Wife's battery died....
The quality of Apple's Laptops is now worse than some other brands. I will never buy another mac laptop again.
My old Powerbook lasted 5 years with the only problem being the superdrive going bad.... now every Macbook owner I know has had major problems.
Apple.... you're fu**ing up
seems they are now having trouble staying consistent with their 10% market share (oh the pressure)
Strange... the HDD in my 6 week old MacBook Pro just died too. Apple products must be mass-suiciding right now.
I've had my Powerbook for over five years too. It has been fine, no rproblems. This summer I dropped it on a hardwood floor and my wireless stopped working, clearly my bad. It seems like the new hardware has more problems though. I would definitely avoid buying any Apple product for the first year, until they get the most prevalent hardware problems sorted out.
I have a 1TB Time Capsule I bought in Apr 08. It died about a week ago or so. No lights, no activity, nothing.
Called AppleCare the next morning. I have two macs with AppleCare contracts (plus a 3rd that just expired a few months ago). They sent a replacement out, had it the next morning. No charges at all. They said if there was a Mac with an AppleCare contract, they would make an exception to the warranty.
This is why I prefer the MediaSmart Server method of redundant, replaceable hard disks. SOME hard drives are just bound to fail, and Apple has a habit of making their hardware components non-replaceable. I'd argue that's fine for iPod and even computers to a degree, but for a NAS, that's a design flaw.
You want to have at least two disks backing each other up, and you want to be able to replace the bad disk when it fails.
Read the story again: HDDs are OK.
As some reported above capacitors in power supply are failing.
The story didn't mention the cause. Even if that is true, however, making the disks removable makes for an easy way to get your data out of a broken unit. Just pull them out, and plop them in a replacement.
apple must be getting ready for the apocalypse, don't what your backups to get lost in time do you?
Hahaha...oh wait am I not supposed to laugh?
Ok so i read this article..Fired up my time capsule..and yup she's toast. But I just got off the phone with Apple and it is a FREE repair.
Does Nobody remember the Mac Mini problem? Anything Apple makes in this form factor eventually has a serious HDD failure before it's time. It's because Apple tries so hard to make these things as cheap as possible and sacrifices the very thing that makes it worth the cash.
From what I understand if you have a Mac computer under and AppleCare Warranty, then your Time Capsule is covered. I've had mine since it came out and haven't had a single problem (the original model). You Apple haters are so funny. So you Windows products are more reliable? Really?
Let me get this correct - Apple Time Capsules are failing, so you should pay a $1000 or more to buy a computer plus $250 for an extended warranty for the Apple computer to make sure that when your Apple Time Capsules fails you get a replacement, but "Apple hating Windows users" are the stupid ones?
windows doesn't make hardware other than PMP's. Lenovo's are about a thousand times as reliable as macs
@NohOne - Why on earth would you buy a Time Capsule if you didn't already own an Apple computer?
My Mac Mini is over a year old and I did not buy an Apple Care warranty for it. If I bought a Time Capsule now and it would break, I would not be covered.
It was more a comment on the absurdness of needing to buy extra to cover a 3rd product, and somehow him tying it into Apple hating Windows users.
Last time I checked, external hard drives and routers weren't "windows products"
You can buy AppleCare specifically for the TimeCapsule
nohone - You said you have to pay $1000 or more to buy a Mac, and then you said you have a Mac Mini. Apparently you forgot what you paid for that Mac Mini, since you can get them for $600. I'm not sure your brand of stupidity is forgivable since you're getting the facts wrong on products that you actually own.
Well either that or you're lying about owning them. It's one or the other. Either way you still end up being stupid.
If all this is true then Apple really sucks.
And I was just starting to like the iphone.
hey i'm no fanboi, but remember those frozen zunes..?
Yeah but what's more important, a frozen media player or a dead backup when your computer dies?
You mean the ones that fixed themselves and worked a day later after a reboot?
Are these things like zunes, where they break once and fix themselves within 24h?
Or are they more like xboxes, where you get a new one of it breaks?
@decoy: call me when apple has anywhere near the defect rates that xbox 1 OR 2 OR zunes have. you don't need my number because it will never happen.
@ Devin
I'll call you when your phone stops dropping calls.
i thought about getting one but i read the reviews and thought twice... just too many posts from people about the thing just randomly failing on them.
no thanks.
It "just works" right up until it "just stops working".
In fairness all those apple ads never do specify a time line for their simple functional state.
Besides, what kind of denial of history is it to buy an apple product thinking it is going to have longevity and company support down the line?
forget the time capsule and roll your own time machine server with ubuntu. Google "time machine"+"ubuntu" and you'll find this awesome write up by this guy 'krema'.... and it shows how much of a badass you are when macbook drives fail (which they often do after 2 years.)
Apple told me the same thing: the warranty follows the applecare on my recently-purchased MacBook even thought the Time Capsule was 9 months old.
Mine didn't die completely, it just locked up (via wifi and ethernet) every 5 days or so.
Apple was awesome about it.
That said, my $30 Netgear router still rocks it after 5 years. My Dell Inspiron is still kickin' after 8 years. I'm HOPING my premium-priced Apple products show similar longevity.
I've had the backup filesystem itself crap out twice and had to re-format each time. I believe this has been fixed with the latest firmware as I haven't had any trouble in a while. No hardware issues but yes, the thing gets HOT when in use.
Some non-Apple computers had trouble communicating with the wifi access point ability.
That's what you get for buying an overpriced router and hard drive hybrid. Just buy a router and any external hard drive to use as a backup. You're better off both money and piece of mind wise.
After having my time capsule for less than a year I am starting to have problems with it. All of a sudden suddenly it stopped backing up my computer and I can't login to retrieve my data.
Mine died a month after the warranty expired. It was a 500GB model. Apple replaced it free of charge. I still have trouble syncing with my MacBook Air though.
mine is going just fine. i have had to reset it twice in the time i have had it, but other than that no probs
No surprise here - just more overpriced garbage from Apple.
Mine died outside of warranty. Apple replaced it free of charge.
I had an Iomega external drive that died after 4 months. External hard drives die all the time...
My gets HOT AS HELL is all I'm sayin... just doesn't seem natural...
Better get yourself an external drive and SuperDuper fast...
Got mine the day it came out. 500gb model. Still working fine for me.
Just keeping your data safe. It knows what's good for you.
I've just learn that Apple is a very consistant company, all products have the iPod lifecycle policy.
*** IT IS ALL ABOUT FANS!! It needs a fan!!! Everything Apple needs a fan!! JOB's hates fans!!! You need to hack your Mac's firmware with SMC fan to up the fan speed. Time capsule's just plan and simple BURN UP from a lack of a fan!!!! ****
Blueshoes is actually on to something here. Ever since Jobs returned to the helm and Apple became cool again....the one then consistently left out of the cool designs....is cooling..... I think Apple has always suffered from quality problems, even though I still own Apple products, and this has been compounded by designs that shorten the life of every component in the Apple products....they all get too freaking hot.