Are some Apple Time Capsules locking themselves up for good?
By Donald Melanson 
posted October 6th 2009 8:02PM
posted October 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]
my 500gb TC dies after about 18 months and was replaced by Apple under my
applecare warranty for my Mac Mini.
mine died after a year. the wireless card died and i couldnt connect to it.
I can confirm based on my experience that flaky behavior is most likely a heat issue. My 500 GB 1st gen Time Capsule worked fine for 3 months, then began freezing intermittently over the next couple of months. After a freeze, I could get it to restart by unplugging, letting it cool, then rebooting. It would then work for a time but inevitably freeze at some random interval days to weekslater. I then moved it from its original position on my desk, where it sat underneath a Netgear router, to a new spot on my desk away from other devices, with nothing on top of it, sitting on some homemade spacer feet to improve cooling. Bingo -- there's been nary an interruption in the past 7 months, and the unit feels noticeably cooler to the touch than before the move. I had been ready to give up on this product but have now bought a second. Advice for all those who don't want to swap out the drive for a cooler-running one or who don't want to place it on top of a fan: just don't stack it on top of or under anything else, and consider placing it in a well ventilated spot on some little "feet." Good luck!
The most amusing comments on this article are the ones from Apple owners who relate the sad tale of how their Timecapsules also suffered an untimely death.
...only to then go on to mention how they subsequently bought an even bigger Timecapsule. Am I the only one seeing the problem here?
Yeah, mine was one of the 16-month old deaths, but I *didn't* just go out and buy another one. (I did, however, buy an Airport Extreme, which is actually a better router than my Time Capsule was).
yes
I have a 500GB version. It makes a super coffee cup warmer. Keeps coffee near boiling all the time. I bought it as soon as it came available. It never really did backups, and frequently couldn't be found from my iMac. I made many calls, and usually the only way to get it going again was to delete all the data on it and start over. Obviously not a good backup option. When I pointed this out to the Applecare people (after 5 times being told to choose the "erase" option) they agreed and sent me a fresh one. So far no problems since August 2008.
Oh yeah, I downloaded "Time Machine Editor" so that I could adjust my hourly backups to a less frequent schedule.
But since you did say about WinMo, "Everyone is abandoning it in favor of the superior alternative called Android.". Yes that's right they are going to Android, not the iPhone OS. the iPhone is not an alternative to a real handheld computing platform.
Yeah kind of not surprising as iPhone OS is not licensed to anyone else. Probably never will be. Android is a fine phone OS I'm sure but stating that no one is going to iPhone OS as if they had that choice is disingenuous at best.
So Scott, what are you saying? That people aren't ditching their WinMo phones for the iPhone because of it's proprietary hardware? I was just making the point to mr apple fanboy above us that while people are ditching their WinMo phones... they are ditching them for Android because it better fits the needs of someone coming from a platform like WinMo. Even being an apple fan boy he admits that. The iPhone is sexy as hell but it's also a very tightly controlled and limited ability computing platform aimed at a specific audience. I'd love to have the hardware if the OS was up to par, but it isn't. Like everyone else i'm going Android instead.
Amazing how many go out and buy another Time Crapsule to replace the last one that failed. It's the magic dust, it's addictive man! Just say NO to pixie dust!
I had one go bad on me. took it to the store, no warranty on it, but she replaced it based on a warranty I had on my laptop. In and out with no problems. I've had nothing but perfect customer service with apple.
My Airport Extreme is working tip-top ever since I bought it 3 years ago. I might leave it to my brother and get me a TimeCapsule instead.
Little more than a year ago we bought a Time Capsule for our research group. Because our part of the campus isn't connected to the Uni's wireless network, we primarily wanted to use it as a router, but having some extra storage space, easily accessible from the WiFi network seemed like a handy thing. plus a couple of colleages used it for time machine backups.
Today, we're happy that we kept that disk use to a minimum. About a month ago our Time Capsule died on us. Just died. No flashing lights, no funny noises, just dead.
We sent it in and just received word today that it has been replaced with a new one.
Replaced. Without warning. Even though we kindly asked them to let us know beforehand what the options were.
So in any case, we're back online. But we might as well have bought an Airport extreme, because what's the use of having a backup disk, when it dies after 1 year and they just give you a blank disk back. And yes. Even backup disks should be backed up every now and then. But I hoped it'd at least last a year or so.
Or maybe Apple will come up with this neat Time Capsule Capsule, to backup your Time Capsule.
I work in a retail store that is also an Apple ASP, I have my fair share of dealing with defective Time Capsules. Ultimately it really depends on what brand of drives it is being used in there. Some are using Seagate (bad), some are using Hitachi (ok), some are using WD (best). It is impossible for me to find out what it is unless I break open the seal, which I don't want to do that as Apple won't take it back.
The worst thing about the Time Capsule is that the thing is running 24/7, plus hourly time machine back up. That means, the drive is constantly reading/writing in small increments. Put that in a multi-user network, you can image how "hard" the thing has to work and give up at the end. This is just the same as BitTorrenting on a hard drive...
Therefore, I no longer sell the Time Capsule. It makes much sense by selling an Airport Extreme base station, and hook up an USB external HDD the base station. Setting it up is not as straight forward as the Time Capsule, but it gives you the more control on the drive as needed.
You can back up a Time Capsule with an external hard drive hook up to the rear.
that's not good enough
how many backups of the backup would you need???
I have a 18-month old Time Capsule purchased in April 2008 and had exactly the same experience as a handful of people above - came home and nothing. No light on front side, no wireless, no nothing. All signs point to the dodgy capacitors others have mentioned - unfortunately, my ability to diagnose the problem far outweigh my ability to fix it myself.
I haven't tried to deal with Apple yet, as the only people who have gotten any love from them seem to be those with an AppleCare package on one of their computers.
What's annoying is that (like many people here) we spend thousands on Apple products, which are hit-or-miss on the quality-side. No wireless router (with hard drive or not) should fail out after 18 months. Hell, even my POS Linksys wireless router lasted until I replaced it...
Apple, get a hint and move the freaking power supply to a brick!
Not my time capsule, but my black Macbook's HD simply died on the day it completed 2 years of use...
And the amount of people i know who's had their Airport Express dead when it completed 18 months...
Would they be trying to push that horrendous extended guarantee on top of the premium prices??
Or is it just poor quality hardware??
I'm on my third Time Capsule now. Neither has failed me hardware wise, but there was an issue with PPPoE in fw 7.4.0, but that was fixed in 7.4.1 a month later.
My TC died after 18 months. HD is probably still fine, seems like the power supply failed like on most other cases.
My TC died after 18 months. Had it replaced for free buy buying applecare for a recently purchased MacBook. Actually, the old one was a 500GB model, the replacement was a 1TB model, it will be covered under applecare for the next 3 years.
Yes, mine died too, almost exactly a year after purchase, but it was repaired under warranty. That it failed didn't surprise me, as it ran extremely hot at times.
My Macbook AIR failed after the same length of time.. it ran at absurd CPU % at times, so I expected a problem with it, though not with the iSight. Buy Apple Care by the way!
Dare I say my iMac is still working perfectly after a couple of years..?
Surely most people here know you can get programs to do backups automatically to normal external HDDs. You can get 5Tb of MyBook for $500.
So i just checked my time machine, and it should have backups for about two years now, but only goes back to the beginning of September of this year.... It's not a time capsule, but I'm very concerned about what happened to my old backups... The drive itself is almost full and is twice the size of the drive it backs up. I think this is kinda related right? even looking through the directories on the drive i can only find files from early september. Maybe this is a problem between software AND hardware, or maybe i'm just an anomaly. My hardware certainly isn't the latest and greatest (G4 mac mini baby) but still this shouldn't be happening right? To answer your next question, no nothing catastrophic happened around that time either. Any suggestions?
Maybe the oldest updated file is September? Is it meant to keep version files?
Get more active about checking when you have backed up and reset it yourself once in a while after making a copy to take to another location.
Man the PC fanboys are out for blood today! I guess because they have nothing good to talk about or look forward to, they have to ethug a mac article. Whoohoo for PCs. Where's all the 'happy'? Someone piss on your Zune this morning?
Anyways, my TC is doing fine.
You'd think they had all forgotten about the MS Home Server fiasco where it actively grunged your data to oblivion but told you it was OK. I beta tested it and after the Airport Extreme with the USB port came out I dumped it so I never got the version that did that.
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.
My 500gb Time capsule just died after 18 months. Luckily it was covered under the apple care on my mac book pro. Unfortunately, the apple tech on the phone didn't know this. So after sending in mine and getting a refurb to replace it. I noticed they never took the lean off my credit card. So after calling in to tell them of their mistake, I was not only told I had to pay for the refurb that the time capsule isn't covered under apple care. After finally convincing the very rude representative off his mistake he agreed to replace it for free, but in doing so told me the reason he wasn't going to initially was because he thought I was rude. I called him out noting I never cussed or called him names but was standing my ground since I knew I was in the right. Eventually, I threatened to talk to his superiors and after much grovelling on his part, he offered to upgrade my refurbed 500gb for the new Dual Band 1tb TC. The whole thing ended up being a big ordeal. So if you get a replacement under apple care be sure to check your credit card and to stand your ground with apple because not all of their staff know their own policies.
I gave up on my Time Capsule and am only using it as a Wireless Router. I went out and bought an external drive that I use for backups now. It works great as a wireless router only.
"it works great as a router", but not it's intended purpose! lol That's Apple fans justifying their wasted of money to themselves.
Reminds me of:
Mac's are so easy to shutdown, all you have to be doing is using a piece of software and poof its gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvXZVJXIyqM brilliant video
Mine died a few weeks ago, almost 18 months to the day since I bought it. This falls in line with what I read on the Apple forums. Fundamentally, the TC is a fantastic product, by far the best wireless router I've used, and having the external drive for my TM backups and to share files was great. Even if this is a manufacturing problem with the power supply (which it seems to be), that happens.
What irks me about this is that Apple markets this as a backup device, yet they cannot repair them or offer recovery services. Sure, I could pry it open and put the hard drive into an enclosure and get my data, but that would void the warranty[1]. You'd think they'd be able to at least check to see if the drive is OK, and if so provide a new TC with the old drive in it. It's ridiculous that they don't. Hell, if they only marketted it as an external drive, and not a backup system, that would be fine too, but as it is I feel pretty pissed.
I lodged a complaint with Apple, and so should you: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timecapsule.html
--
[1] Mine was bought with a MacBook and AppleCare, so it was still covered.
That is a very good point. I will register my comments with them now!
"what do you want to make your customers wait for however long after it comes out to use your product?"
You mean like everybody did with Vista?
My Time Capsule is working fine.
Yes, mine bit the dust. The main status light on the front...she's not glowing green any more. Actually, it's just lifeless. Plug and unplug will get a brief status light on the network plug-ins at the rear, but that's it. No power.
Bought in spring '08.
Bought March '08. Died last night. No coincidence, it seems.
word on the street is it's just the power supplies. so if the power supply dies, can't you just rip it open, grab the hard drives out, and use an IDE/SATA > USB adapter? or are the drives inside some crazy proprietary apple thing?
Same here. 1st batch 500GB Time Capsule - RIP 10/10/09
I know it's not an HD issue, but maybe this should act as a warning to those TC owners who double them up as NAS devices... Think about what you could lose!
Just woke up this morning to a completely dead 1tb Time Capsule. It was working perfect last night however the grime reaper visited some time between 11:30 pm and 6:45 am this morning. The time cap exhibits no signs of life at all when plugged in to AC.
This Time Capsule 1 Tb edition was purchased in April of 2008
Called Apple Support they were able to register it against my Mac Pro that has Apple care and because I located 75 miles from the nearest Apple Service Center of any type they are shipping me a replacement.
Of course I must return the dead one and Apple will place a hold for $277.98 on my credit card just in case I do not return the brick.
There are no files that I cannot live without on the Time Cap and I'm lucky enough to have a spare (very old) router that I have returned to temporary service until Apples replacement by "mail" process completes.
I do wonder what would have happened if I did not have a machine with Apple Care they could register the Time Cap against as well if there had been files on that I had to recover what would have happened?
So it seems as of this moment the path of least resistance to getting your Time Cap replaced is to be sure that you have one machine in your covey that they can register the Time Cap with plus if you can live with out those files then do it. BTW I will degauss (big electro magnet) the Time Cap from the outside before I return it just for my own security. I will not open the device.
Best of luck to any of you that experience this same situation. I truly like Apple hardware and software. Apple is a well designed and thought out system. However if you ever have to deal with their designed for dummies service and support system please have your wallet ready and plenty of patience.
Apple Support is rather fickle. I never know what to expect. I must admit the magic words "Apple Care" make the difference. Stay away from their service bay at the Apple Store if you are not under warranty or have Apple Care at all costs. You will be treated as a leper.
If you ever have to deal with the "big headed", "self important" so called "experts" "by appointment only" aka the "Apple Genius" in the Apple Store it is an encounter that I will never have again. Its funny that the Genius's are located in the Apple store at the Genius bar. That's where they should be. They all seem to be drunk on their own importance and knowledge.
If there really is an expert in the Apple store then it is no wonder why they are behind 3 levels of secured combination locked doors. I have never found an Apple Genius that can logically debug a machine. From what I have seen they simply shotgun the parts till it works. If you have a machine that has a small ding or dent on the tender aluminum case then good luck convincing the "Genius"(impersonator that you will deal with first) that the outside of the machine has nothing much to do with the inside of the machine. The cosmetic inspection process is an out of control customer losing situation that Apple Service executives need to squelch before the customers finally catch on and drive the retail stores out of business.
As conducted now this cosmetic inspection is a mind game that the so called tech or "Genius" has been well schooled in (either through formal training or as I suspect from OJT as a game they play among themselves to generate the big fish lies to brag about in the break room.) and have developed a game of cat and mouse the most of the time the customer loses. APPLE wake up you will in the long run lose the game too. Try training your tech "Genus's" in debug and basic service and stop playing the mind games that insult technical experts like myself. You might be able to convince grandma that a scratch on the battery caused the logic board to go bad but not me. Let's remember you can't judge a Mac Book by its cover but it is easy to see through your "Genus".
MT Hall
Electrical Engineer
Yep, my Time Capsule bit the dust. Just as you describe. I had to fight for it, but they replaced it. So much for all the data history. Hopefully this one I have here doesn't go the same way.