Time Machine will no longer support Time Capsule formatted with AFP Apple Filing Protocol

Annoyedmacuser196 wrote:

Please be advised that this human being will no longer support the apple corporation and its shareholders- I won’t be updating my OS and will continue to use time capsule and after decades of using these products my next computer will be a PC

You should always buy what you want.

We don't care what you buy.

Re: “Please be advised that this human being will no longer support the apple corporation and its shareholders”

And this matters to your fellow users how? Enjoy the Windows world, where Microsoft cut off a lot of PCs that could run Windows 10 from getting a Windows 11 upgrade simply because those PCs did not have a “Trusted Program Module.”

Having no backups at all is exceptionally inconvenient after a problem develops.

I know this because I am a developer-type and from time-to-time I manage to crash out my main Mac in a way that eliminates all my data.

To get an idea what that would REALLY mean, I suggest you create a new, Blank account on your Mac, and use it for a day without referring to anything on your old account.

log in to a web site? sorry, your passwords are not available.

check an email from last week? sorry, not saved and not available.

send an email to anyone? sorry, their address is unknown.

check back on documents you set aside? sorry, they are gone.

Although you may not need 3-2-1 backups for non-business data, having a backup really is superior.

Allow me to suggest some simple alternatives to NONE:

• Once a week, walk around and connect a local drive to each Mac in your household and allow Time Machine (or any other method you prefer) to make a backup. One drive backs up one computer.

• designate ONE computer on your network to be a shared backup destination, and connect some larger drives to it for over-the-air automatic backups using Time Machine or another method you prefer. One big drive can handle several computers, but has no redundancy. Several drives with backups split across them is superior.

what model NETGEAR Router? Does it have a USB port that can support one or several external drives?

If it does, it may be able to replace your Time Capsule with a similar capability. I am sure Readers could help with configuring that if it can be done.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Having no backups at all is exceptionally inconvenient after a problem develops.

…

what model NETGEAR Router? Does it have a USB port that can support one or several external drives?

If it does, it may be able to replace your Time Capsule with a similar capability. I am sure Readers could help with configuring that if it can be done.

NETGEAR apparently used to offer Time Machine support, but apparently no longer:

https://kb.netgear.com/25387/How-do-I-backup-my-files-using-Time-Machine-to-an-external-USB-HDD-connected-to-my-NETGEAR-Nighthawk-AC-router

Within the NETGEAR network, running Time Machine to an old Mac, or to a spare PC with TrueNAS installed, or to Synology NAS or another purchased NAS, are all options. Or to local direct-attached storage. Or to a Time Capsule, with the source Mac running some macOS version prior to macOS 26 arriving later this year.

As an alternative to the NETGEAR Wi-Fi mesh or router equipment, Synology offers various Wi-Fi mesh and router devices that support Time Machine server, as do their wired NAS choices.

• https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/compare/routers
• https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/How_to_back_up_files_from_Mac_to_Synology_NAS_with_Time_Machine

I prefer to keep backups of important data, but if AppleCustomer9 doesn’t need backups, that’s their call, and that simplifies their migration to macOS 26, or to Microsoft Windows if that platform works better for them.

In case anyone is following along, I bought:

• UGreen DXP2800 2 bay NAS (new player in NAS, good hardware value, software shaping up).
• WD Red Pro 4TB drive (basic disk, no RAID yet).
• UGreen 2.5G 5-port switch
• UGreen 2.5G usb-c to ethernet adapter

The upgrade to 2.5G ethernet at my desk wasn't strictly necessary, but I wanted to get completely off the Time Capsule and I couldn't justify going any faster (DXP2800 has a single 2.5G ethernet port).

I originally bought the WD Red Pro to hang off my ASUS CT-8 router for Time Machine backups, but that felt a bit janky - I needed to use my admin Router password for disk access and I had some issues with the drive going to sleep. I could have probably worked through that, but went a different path.

I was able to keep the old Time Capsule sparse bundle with minimal complications (Time Machine said the backup was in use, but some restarts cleared that up). YMMV, but tmutil might help with keeping an old sparse bundle.

 sudo tmutil inheritbackup {machine_directory | sparsebundle}

Edit......That would work and allow Time Machine to keep backing up to the Time Capsule.

Should have said "should work"......because I have not yet tested this, but I would expect it to work.

Servant of Cats wrote:

It looks as though Time Machine can now do network backups using the (Windows) SMB file sharing protocol.

That’s been the case for a while now. (Apparently since 10.15, if not earlier.).

Apple decided SMB had won, and started retiring AFP.

And here we are.

Although the Time Capsule supports SMB v1, I suspect that will not be good enough to allow continued Time Machine use once Apple pulls the plug on the deprecated Apple Filing Protocol. You would need a newer NAS, running a current version of SMB, that supports the current version of Time Machine.

SMBv1 is best gone everywhere, given its security vulnerabilities.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/filecab/stop-using-smb1/425858

Ned Pyle, formerly a Microsoft Principal Program Manager for various Windows-related functions including SMB, spent a chunk of his Microsoft career working to end SMBv1, due to its flaws. SMBv1 is bad.