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Place a piece of cloth or a similar soft material on a clean, flat surface. Place the device upside down on top of the fabric.
Open the Time Capsule by exposing the screws that hold the device together. The screws are concealed by the rubber base, which is the bottom surface of the device.
Use a heat gun or hair dryer to heat the rubber base, which softens the adhesive holding it on.
Starting in a corner, carefully lift the rubber base to prevent tearing. You can use a guitar pick or a small, plastic ruler to help separate the rubber from the metal.
Take your time to prevent tearing the adhesive. Ensure that you don't overheat the device.
If you tear some of the adhesive, don't worry. The existing adhesive is more than enough to allow the rubber base to stick back onto the unit during reassembly.
During reassembly, you can apply heat to the rubber base. This will enable the adhesive to flow and form a better bond with the device's metal casing.
Slowly start peeling at one corner… worked better than shown on the pictures.
Slow down particularly near the bottom label where it is stiffer. Either that or I needed to give it more heat. Going too fast can risk tearing the rubber base if the adhesive is strong.
If you are wondering if the Time Capsule will still work as a router if you remove the HDD and leave it out, the answer (according to another webpage I read) is YES, it will still work. Apparently, you get a warning with the AIrPort Utility about a missing HDD, but it still works. I wanted to keep and reuse the 1TB Hitachi HDD for offsite data backup.
Use an iron instead of a heating gun or hairdryer!
Gradually raise the temperature while checking for separation, while moving over the rubber. I first cleaned the rubber with some soap, to avoid scorching dust or grease. The setting for synthetic fabrics seemed to do the job with my Tefal iron; probably a little over 100 degrees centigrade. No steam off course!
Worked like a charm without leaving almost any residual glue.
Sticking the rubber sole back after the repair was also successful.
Once the rubber base is separated from the device, remove the 8 Phillips PH00 screws that attach the metal bottom of the case to the plastic top of the case.
Use the Philiips #00 Screwdriver.
Some revisions of the Time Capsule have 10 screws. The A1254 revision has two screws in the upper right and lower left corners, as shown in the second image. In this situation, be sure to remove all 10 screws.
Confirmimg 10 screws for Model A1355
Larger screwdriver size can help with sticky screws.
One of my screws was already stripped by Apple, so I had to drill it out.
Position the rear side of the device (the side with Ethernet connectors) so that it is facing you.
Lift up the left side of the metal plate and slowly flip it over the right edge of the device.
To prevent damage, do not lift the metal plate straight up or use force. As shown in the second picture, the fan is attached to the metal plate and connected to the logic board next to the power connector.
Since many people have had serious problems with the fan power connnector breaking, it is advisable to NOT try to disconnect the fan power connector. Be VERY careful with this connector. It is extremely fragile. If you absolutely have to disconnect the fan from the logic board, VERY carefully use a spudger or tweezers to do so.
It is really not necessary to disconnect the fan and you risk breaking it off of the logic board. :(
I'd destroyed the connection between my fan and logic board by trying to remove the fan. This is a bigger problem than a broken hard drive. DO NOT TRY TO DISCONNECT THE FAN. Instead be careful with the base (making sure not to stretch the fan wire) as your proceed to step four.
I wish I had read the comments too!! DO NOT try to disconnect the fan!!!! The connector broke off with out a lot of force. Now I have a worthless piece of metal and plastic!!!!
This is not my guide, but in order to try to prevent future damage, I've edited the guide to warn against disconnecting the fan from the logic board. Hopefully the update will be approved soon :0\
Replaced 2 x 1500 uF capacitors ant the Time capsule is back to work !
Thanks for this guide.
I had no issues removing the fan plug from the board.
I used a block to lean the cover on so it didn't fall completely flat on the surface. The wire connecting the fan is too short for that.
HDD is an abbreviation for "hard disk drive."
Before removing the HDD, remove the temperature sensor that is mounted directly on the hard drive. The sensor is attached to the hard drive using adhesive tape and a protective foam cushion.
Peel off the foam and set the sensor aside. Be gentle with the foam because you will reuse it to connect the sensor to the new HDD.
Lift the HDD out of the device and disconnect the two SATA cables from the HDD.
NOTE - on my drive that I removed, a Hitachi 2TB drive, there is a rubber band that is attached with adhesive around the edge of the entire drive. This comes off easily… reattach that to the new drive to ensure a tight fit.
Using a Phillips #00 screwdriver, remove the four metal spacers (pegs) from the old HDD and install them in the same locations on the new HDD.
If the new HDD is thinner than the old HDD, you may need to unscrew the spacers a few turns to prevent the HDD from rattling around in the device.
Place the temperature sensor in approximately the same position on the new HDD as on the old HDD. Cover the sensor with the foam, using adhesive tape if necessary.
Make sure the surface of the sensor is flat against the metal hard drive enclosure.
To save power and reduce heat waste, use a "green" (power-saving) hard drive or a low-speed (5400 RPM) hard drive.
It is possible to test the device's functionality before fully reassembling it. To do so, reconnect the fan and replace the metal casing (without installing the screws).
To prevent electrical shock and overheating, complete this step before turning the device on.
After the Time Capsule is reassembled, format the new HDD using Airport Utility. It may be necessary to perform a hard reset on the Time Capsule.
You should reconnect the heat sensor in about the same location as on the original drive.
About the HDD - can I use any HDD as long as it is low-speed or power-saving?
There is nothing else I need to take into account?
About the HDD compatibility:
I replaced the 1TB HDD in my Time Capsule (3rd generation, model A1355, firmware version 7.6.3) with a Western Digital Red 3TB SATA-3 (WD30EFRX)
Works just perfect :)
Hey many thanks for posting! I am thinking to upgrade my TC 3rd gen with same drive as you WD30EFRX (3TB). Any reports WD40EFRX (4TB) works as well?
Question: Does your WD30EFRX HDD spins down (power save)?
I JUST bought the WD40EFRX. It will be here on Jan 4th and I'll post if it works.
This works beautifully with the WD40EZRX Western Digital Green 4TB 3.5" SATA3 64MB Buffer Hard Drive on a Time Capsule MD032LL/A (4th Generation) running firmware 7.6.4.
I just installed a WD40EFRX as well and my first back is running fine. I love how easy apple makes things. My original 2TB was still working fine, but since I doubled the space on my Macbook Pro hard drive and created a Fusion drive on it I decided it would be nice to have more space on my Time Capsule. Now I can add this old 2TB to my Airport Extreme (already had an empty enclosure laying around) that extends my WiFi network and have a NAS for sharing home movies, media, etc. Your write up was awesome. Thank you.
One other note, take your time on removing the rubber cover on the bottom. I used a heat gun on low and worked little by little. All the adhesive stayed on the rubber cover beautifully. To reinstall just lightly heat it again and the weight of the TC will cause it to reattach.
Also used a WD Red 3TB/SATA3/64M/3.5. Model WD30EFRX. ($129 at MicroCenter) Fit is perfect and performance is outstanding. Directions are fine except the rubber base is glued pretty strongly and is a bit delicate when peeling off. Didn't use a heat gun, just patiently and slowly peeled it back.
I just installed a WD Red 6TB WD60EFRX in my 4th Gen A1409 with firmware 7.6.4. The drive formatted just fine showing 6TB of free space.
I can add that the drive seems to spin down just as it should.
Just try WD60EZRX in my Time Capsule, no idea of the generation, but it is firmware 7.6.4. It goes on, for 1 minute. Light blink amber, and TC go off.
Any idea ?
Gilles
I updated two different Time Capsule Models with the WD Red 6TB WD60EFRX. The drive works in both Models A1355 (third Generation) and A1409 (fourth Generation) and shows fully 6TB of Space. By the way… the A1355 1TB had been equipped with a Samsung HD103SI, the A1409 2TB with a WD Green WD20EARS. Partitioning ist also possible! The WD60EFRX is now fitted into the A1409 and the WD20EARS into the A1355. Everything works fine!
Tom
I can concur regarding a 6TB drive working just fine. I just installed a WD Red WD60EFRX 6TB drive in a A1254 (2nd gen TC). I took the precaution of upgrading the firmware to 7.6.4 before doing the install. After the physical install, I simply connected using Airport Utility. I could see the new disk immediately under Edit -> Disks and the disk capacity was correct (6TB).
I selected "Erase Disk" and "fast" as the method (since it was a brand new drive). I also renamed the disk (which you can do by clicking on the name in the "Disks" pane).
The disk that I removed (because it failed) was a Hitachi Deskstar HDS721010KLA330 (1TB).
Hope this helps.
John
Did it with a WD40EZRX (green serie from WD) - thank you iFixit!
One comment though, the power inlet was displaced (slighty rotated) during disassembly or re-assembly.
One quick check before closing the box by inserting the power cable isn't too much.
Worked perfectly with a 4th generation and a WD60EZRX!
Anyone use a SSD yet, I'm looking to replace the HD to save some heat… Did I read earlier that a blank drive will work, if erased?
Had a problem with 3 screws that would not budge - a bit of heat from my gas solder iron and a bigger philips screwdriver solved it - replaced the 2TB WD20EADS green with a 4TB WD40EFRX red… did an erase and seems to work fine - easy peasy… thanks for the guide
I installed (12/12/16) a Western Digital 3TB AV 3.5" 64MB WD30PURX (purple surveillance HD) successfully. $106.99 at B&H in NYC. Special thanks to Ray Haverfield for guiding me in on that purchase. He's an expert system when it comes to Time Capsules. Hails from Australia. His site: https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenag… .
I'd like to know if anyone has used an SSD also, Thanks
I wouldn't expect there to be any benefit to using SSD since you'll more likely be CPU constrained. Also spinning disks work well with backup jobs because of their sequential nature of writing to disks. Also you're going to save a ton of $$/TB with HDD versus SSD. SSD would provide less heat, but I think the other benefits weigh in favor of the HDD as a better option.
Using an ssd is possibly faster but you will lose read write ability over time as the ssd doesn't have the longevity of spinning disks. I just upgraded my 500g drive to a 2tb and went over the rubber pad with a hair dryer as proposed, then went over it again in and it pulled up flawlessly.
Great tutorial.
WiFi-Direct