Upgrading Time Capsule A1409 to 8TB storage

[drtanz]

I have a 2011 A1409 TC with 2TB of storage and I want to upgrade it to 8TB.

It looks like I have the option to buy a WD Red drive or else one of the new My Book external drives and use its drive, which works out cheaper. Amazon links below for comparison:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Network-Attached-Storage/dp/B01BYLY4DM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479492279&sr=8-3&keywords=wd+8tb

https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-8TB-Book-Mac-WDBBGB0080HBK-EESN/dp/B01LWVT81X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479492279&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+8tb

It looks like the My Book internally has an equivalent of a WD Blue drive, would that be good enough for Time Capsule usage?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @drtanz!

Since you will be upgrading the storage of your Time Capsule, there's no point in getting an external drive and removing its enclosure to use the HDD only. This voids the warranty of the product which means that if at any point it fails, you won't be able to RMA it and get a replacement. Moreover, the WD My Books incorporate a hardware-based encryption which basically prevents you from accessing the drive's content outside of the original enclosure. 🙁
The drive inside the WD My Book may vary depending on the application of the external HDD. You can read through this knowledge base article for more details on the matter.

I believe a WD Red HDD is your best option because it's an internal HDD product, meaning that you can install it without voiding its warranty. However, I'd suggest you check if your Time Capsule is capable of handling an 8 TB HDD. For details on that, refer to the manual or the manufacturer's customer support. The WD Red would be a good HDD replacement because it's our NAS/RAID specific HDD and it can easily handle the workload in 24/7 system/storage environments.

Hope this helps you. Let me know if you have any additional questions!
SuperSoph_WD