Can i partition time capsule disk

Expect your media libraries to get "lost" from time to time, so you'll have to repoint the path from the application to the media library when this occurs. I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out a way to partition the TC drive internally.

Nothing I attempted worked without causing issues.. The TC will forevermore give you disk errors.. I have done it myself. Apple actually removed the possibility of even successfully installing a partitioned disk manually by later firmware throwing up disk errors.

It introduces too many variables.. Never forget you can add a USB drive of any size.. Albeit it has major issues with slow speed. However it might be fine for streaming of media files..

Dec 21, PM. Dec 22, AM. Not sure what you have done Disk Image, maybe , so if you are looking for more feedback, we'll need more info. Communities Get Support. Sign in Sign in Sign in corporate. Browse Search. Ask a question. Related Article Setting up Time Capsule for the first time. User profile for user: NumeriCris NumeriCris. I backup my Mac High Sierra As the backup is getting bigger and bigger, I am trying to reduce its size. On the other hand, partitionning is very easy with Disk Utility but I can't see network disks Thanks for your answer!

Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for Time Machine backups. It's easy to get at the general storage. I have disk accounts set up, so the way you do it might be somewhat different. My Time Capsule appears in Finder's left sidebar. When I click on it, two items appear: one with my username and one with the Time Capsule's disk's name. I double-click on the first one, and after waiting a few seconds for the disk to spin up again, I get a list of the files I've stored there.

Finder also puts an icon on the desktop, which I can use to quickly get back to it. When I'm done, I either drag that icon to the trash, or click the eject icon next to the Time Capsule's name in any Finder window. Everything here was copied from my three comments. As noted in Blacklight's answer, it's not recommended; but you can do it, and everything will work, just not optimally.

Here's an explanation on why this might not be the best to do. First, it makes sense Time Capsule wouldn't back up files stored directly on it. Where would it back them up—to itself, the same drive? That's not a backup of great value, but this isn't a true negative. The bigger issue is that it's using a shared physical disk, with one potentially greedy process: Time Machine. If Time Machine slows, no great worry, the user doesn't watch this background process.

Apple doesn't want you to think its products are of poor quality, so they recommend you use them in ways that optimize perceived performance. If you accept the possibility of slow access for stored items due to Time Machine commonly writing to the same disk, it should work fine outside less space for the Time Machine image.

However, if you're expecting blazing and consistent access to content, don't use the same disk you're using Time Machine for anything else. Not even if you partition it. Get a separate drive, connect it to the Time Capsule, and use that.

The second disk will not be affected by Time Machine's reading and writing processes. I think the answer why they don't recommend it is quite simple. Your backuped data are always in two places, on your Mac and on your TC. The TC only has one disk so if you don't have the data on your Mac and the TC crash you are in trouble. This is because the drive will carry out many more read and write actions as you save, edit, and delete extra files.

It's also worth mentioning that Time Machine doesn't back up any extra files you keep on your external drive. Even if it did, you'd lose the original files and the backup at the same time if your drive stopped working. We strongly suggest you keep multiple backups in different places for any important data. Technically, there's no need to partition your hard drive if you want to use it for external storage as well as Time Machine backups. All you need to do is start copying files and folders onto the drive using Finder.

If your Time Machine backups are encrypted, you might need to authenticate changes to the drive with your administrator password. Just make sure you don't edit or save anything to the Backups. Backupdb folder. This is where Time Machine stores all its backups. As your external drive runs out of storage, Time Machine deletes the oldest files from the Backups.

Backupdb folder to make space for new ones. If your files are in that folder, Time Machine might delete them as well. You might want to create a new folder, called Files , to clearly separate your files from your Time Machine backups. The above method is the quickest and easiest way to save files on your external Time Machine drive. Unlike using a partition, which we'll explain below, you can start saving files to the drive without erasing all your existing Time Machine backups first. But the lack of a partition also means your Time Machine backups will continue to swell in size until they take up all the free space on your external drive.

Although Time Machine won't delete your personal files when this happens, it might take up more space than you want it to. That's why a partition is the most practical long-term solution. You can allocate a set amount of space for your Time Machine backups and for your file storage so neither one hogs the available storage. After you partition a hard drive, your Mac sees each partition as a separate drive.