Part 2 On How To Setup Apple Time Capsule and Time Machine For The First Time

Part 2 On How To Setup Apple Time Capsule and Time Machine For The First Time
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Setting Up Time Capsule - Pt. 2

You may get some messages that pop up that say “There was an error setting up Time Capsule, or Time Capsule has not been fully setup”. If that happens, close these messages and follow the below directions.

After your computer is booted up, you can now sync your Time Capsule backups with your airport connection. Time Capsule is a wireless router as well as a backup hard drive. To get started, open up your Airport Utility. Disconnect the ethernet cord from your computer but leave the other end of the ethernet cord plugged into Time Capsule. Now, plug the open ethernet cord directly into your cable modem. Restart your computer once more.

Next, navigate: Finder - Applications - Utilities - Airport Utility. Wait for the Airport Utility to scan for and find your Time Capsule.

Make sure that your device is selected along the left hand side and click continue. You are now going to re-enter some of your information as well as setup your Airport.

The first screen that you will come to will ask you to enter a name and password for your Time Capsule. If you can recall from part one you have already done this. So, if your information does not automatically show up in the boxes, simply re-enter it and click continue.

The next screen is also going to be a repeat screen that you have already seen. However, you will want to make sure that Secure Shared Disks is set to With device password, and Airport Disks Guest Access is set to Not allowed. Click continue.

The next screen will ask you to setup other devices with Time Capsule. Just click continue for now.

Now, pay attention to the options on the screen you are on currently. You will see four options: Create a wireless network, connect to a network using Ethernet to extend the network or create a second network, join a wireless network, and disable wireless and connect to a computer using Ethernet. Select create a wireless network (recommended) to use your time capsule as your default wireless router.

On the next screen, you will create your wireless network. Enter a name and password for your wireless network and select continue.

The next screen will allow you to adjust some advanced internet settings. It is fine to leave these options as they currently are and select continue.

The last screen will simply ask you to verify everything you have configured and click finish. After you have done that, go ahead and restart your computer once more.

After it has loaded back up, your computer should automatically connect to your wireless network. Now, it is time to do a Time Machine backup over your wireless network. Click the Time Machine icon to do a backup; or use the Time Machine icon in the top nav bar, and select back up now.

You have now officially setup your Time Capsule and Time Machine. Although it was not the fastest process in the world, all future backups will go much faster for you. Time Machine works by adding only the information that has been changed on your Mac, each time it creates a back up.

** Keep in mind that Time Machine backs up your information every hour. So, if you add 4GBs of information to your computer within an hour, Time Machine is going to take a little longer to back up next time. It has to add 4 whole GB’s of information to your next backup.

This post is part of the series: Setting Up Apple Time Capsule and Time Machine For The First Time

Apple Time Capsule and Time Machine is often confusing to setup. However, following certain steps, you can setup your Time Capsule correctly the first time, avoiding any future troubles. Check out this guide for anything you need to know about setting up Time Capsule, Time Machine, or both.

  1. The Best Way To Setup Time Capsule For The First Time
  2. The Best Way To Set Up Time Capsule For The First Time, Part 2