NEW SEALED - 1TB APPLE TIME CAPSULE 802.11n WIFI HARD DRIVE A1302 - Power Failed in one month

bruceisacson wrote:

Thank you for the info. If it is 15 or 20 years old, sealed and never had been used, why would it have a power-problem?

Materials including electronic components, mechanical components, and lubricants can and do degrade over time, whether boxed or unboxed, or whether powered or un-powered.

Corrosion never sleeps.

Capacitors can swell and fail and sometimes leak.

Embedded batteries leak, too. I don’t know off-hand if there’s a lithium battery in use here, but many computers do have one as part of preserving settings, and those batteries last maybe ten years and variously less, and batteries are also prone to leaking. And some of the TC docs do list a warning about a coin cell.

And sometimes a brand-new device has a problem. (Such as some of the 1st gen AirPort Time Capsule power supplies, for instance.)

My initial suspects here would be the HDD, and maybe a coin cell or cap, or the power supply.

But what might actually be wrong with this one?

bruceisacson wrote:

Mr. Hoffman, I tried to search for a NAS device for Mac to replace the Time Capsule, however the only ones I could find did not have good reviews on Amazon. Can you recommend a NAS device with just 1TB that will work well with Apple Time Machine. My MacBook Air macOS version is 10.13.6 I haven't upgraded the OS because I would loose important software like Photoshop. I use the MacBook Air mainly for Screen Writing, but I also have important large Video Files and many important documents that all need to be backuped using Time Machine. Thanks again for all of your help! Sincerely, Bruce

I’m likely not in the same part of the IT market as you.

Mentioned Synology upthread. I use Synology NAS boxes for various storage- and server-related purposes, and those do support Time Machine server. Multiple Macs are usually involved, each going to (usually) two NAS boxes, or to one NAS and one direct local HDD.

The Synology gear is usually used with Ubiquiti Wi-Fi in a mix of mesh and wired.

Have done infrequent (but successful) Time Machine restorations within these configurations, as well.

Synology does have combination Wi-Fi with add-on USB-based NAS, but those are aimed at a different part of the Wi-Fi and NAS market (might be closer to what you want here, though), and I’ve not used those configurations.

I’ve been using WD HGST Ultrastar (IBM heritage) datacenter HDDs with the Synology boxes.

A mid- or upper-end four-bay NAS configuration with these (not cheap) HDDs starts around USD$2000.

Random Synology tip: the last two digits of the Synology model number are the year of introduction for the product, so you might want to aim your choices for somewhat newer years for longer support.

If you really like reading reviews:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-network-attached-storage/

Pretty comprehensive review of what they tested, how, the results and other good options.

Still recommend doing your research on the vendors' sites.

bruceisacson wrote:

Is it possible that a new sealed Time Capsule, like mine, could fail because it has been sitting in a sealed box for over five years and never had been used?

Closer to fifteen years old. Not five.

The A1302 model was sold from March 2009 to October 2009.

What’s wrong with this particular AirPort Time Capsule? Donno.

Apple docs: https://support.apple.com/en-us/docs/accessories/132380

Third-party disassembly guides and such are available, if you want to continue the adventure.

+1 👍

If you’re specifically looking for Wi-Fi gear for a longer deployment cycle, look for at least Wi-Fi 6 or maybe Wi-Fi 6E gear with WPA3 authentication, and look for gear with Time Machine Server capabilities when you’re buying NAS for a Mac.

I usually wouldn’t buy new old stock or gear from a vendor that has exited the particular product line. Apple exited Wi-Fi routers and such in 2018. Apple’s recent Wi-Fi client gear capabilities well outstrip its old Wi-Fi routers, too. (The embedded Wi-Fi client gear has also confusingly used the AirPort brand name.)

Synology offers expandable Wi-Fi gear with Time Machine server available if you add storage, and offers dedicated NAS boxes with Time Machine server, for instance.

The most recent newer-than-this-2009 AirPort Time Capsule gear I was dealing with was failing with random ten to fifteen second dropouts, and that was all replaced some years back. Had a half dozen or so all fail, and some of the others sites I was working with back then themselves had similar issues.

Equivalent to a (much updated) AirPort Wi-Fi network (with no storage) is Ubiquiti Express, which is a mesh-capable system.

Given the age of all Apple Wi-Fi gear, I wouldn’t install new or new-old-stock nowadays, and would be working on deploying replacements. Even if it’s all working.

If it is 15 or 20 years old, sealed and never had been used, why would it have a power-problem?

Same reason that your car, sealed in a warehouse for 15-20 years would have problems. The battery would be long gone., connectors have become corroded, capacitors have dried out. We could go on, but you get the idea.

Synology is good. QNAP is good. They tend to alternate as the top pick in places like The Wirecutter in any given review cycle.

Both of their websites are fairly easy to navigate and you can see what their offerings at various tiers look like. From your description you are looking for a basic small office/home office (SOHO) setup - which can be reasonably priced (as MrHoffman said, likely a different IT market from him).

Only thing I would suggest is avoiding any one-disk models. If you want only one disk there are much cheaper External USB solutions. Two disks allows you to do a mirrored RAID configuration where the same data is on both disks so that if one fails you don't lose data but can replace the failed disk.

Re: “… and [I] would be working on deploying [Time Capsule] replacements. Even if it’s all working …”

An apt description of my own current situation.

Likely going down the Synogy NAS route.