Backup to the Future

I recently received a notice from Apple informing me that my decades-old backup system—the AirPort Time Capsule—would soon no longer be supported. Apple’s suggestion was straightforward: if I wanted to keep backing up my iMac, I should switch to a solid-state drive (SSD).

The Time Capsule had long pulled double duty in my home. It served not only as a backup device but also as my router. If I was going to upgrade one, I reasoned, I might as well upgrade both. So I bought a Crucial X10 2TB SSD and a Netgear Nighthawk dual-band WiFi 7 router.

I did not realize I was opening a technological Pandora’s box.

Connecting the SSD was easy. Connecting the new router wasn’t all that difficult either—or so it seemed at first. What I hadn’t fully appreciated was how many devices in my home were quietly tethered to my existing network. Changing the router meant changing the network name and password, and that meant reintroducing every connected device to the internet.

Before tackling that, I focused on the backup itself. I set up my iMac to back up to the SSD using Apple’s utilities. The process took about 12 hours, but it worked. With my data safely stored, I turned my attention to the old Time Capsule. My wife suggested recycling it, but since it contained years of personal information, I decided to erase its internal hard drive first. That process took another 10 hours. Only then did I feel comfortable setting it aside for recycling.

Backup complete. Old backup wiped. Time to move on to the router.

I followed Netgear’s setup instructions and got the new router online. Then came the tedious part: reconnecting everything. First the iMac. Then my iPhone and iPad. Then my wife’s iPhone and iPad. Then the Apple TV. Each device required logging in again, entering passwords, and waiting for confirmation that it was back on the network.

Just when I thought I was done, I heard from Ting, a home insurance program that monitors electrical safety through a small device connected to our internet. Once the router changed, Ting lost its connection. It took a little detective work, but I eventually got it back online.

Then came the real problem: my solar energy monitoring system.

The system simply would not connect to the new WiFi network. I went down what quickly became a very deep rabbit hole. I turned to ChatGPT for help and spent several days working through suggestions. ChatGPT was impressively helpful, but the problem was stubborn.

One issue was compatibility. The new router was WiFi 7; the solar monitor was WiFi 6. In theory, the Netgear router should have handled both. In practice, it didn’t want to cooperate. I explored several options: returning the router (the box explicitly said not to return it to the store), contacting Netgear support (which involved repeated half-hour waits before I gave up), and even using my old AirPort as a secondary router. None of it worked. The iPhone app used to connect the solar monitor refused to recognize the network.

As a last resort, I contacted the company that originally installed the solar monitoring system. They wanted $300 just to evaluate the problem, with no guarantee they could fix it. They also required a signed contract in advance, which they promised to email the following Monday.

That weekend, our family gathered to celebrate my wife’s birthday. During the conversation, my oldest daughter suggested a workaround: use my iPhone as a temporary hotspot. I tried it. Somewhere along the way, the solar monitoring app suddenly recognized the Netgear signal. I was able to complete the setup. The system came back online. I canceled the installer’s visit.

At last, everything was working—until the next WiFi-dependent device makes itself known.

For now, though, my data is backed up, my network is running, and I’ve successfully made it back up to the future.

Oops—my garage door app needs fixing.

~ Al Zagofsky