TimeCapsule back up taking a long time

A) My backups are taking an extremely long time verifying backup.

Normal, if Time Machine detects any possible kind of potential corruption issues. If you have been backing up the same Mac to the Time Capsule for 4-5 years or more, it is going to take Time Machine longer and longer to verify all the old backups before it will run a new backup.

My advice would be to copy all of the old backups on the Time Capsule over to a USB drive, then erase the Time Capsule hard drive and start over again with new backups.

I'm confused on your other (B) statement. Are you saying that you cannot see any backups older than a few days at this time?

Finally, if the Time Capsule really is 6+ years old, the hard drive is subject to failure as well as the Time Capsule power supply. It won't hurt to continue to use the Time Capsule, but I would suggest backing up to another hard drive as well.

You can run First Aid on the sparsebundle file on the Time Capsule that contains all the backups......but.....you cannot run First Aid on the Time Capsule hard drive itself. In other words, if the Time Capsule hard drive is beginning to slide downhill......as would be expected after 6-7 years of use.......First Aid is not going to help.

At 8 years, both the Time Capsule hard drive and the power supply are "suspect".

If the data on the Time Capsule hard drive is important to you, my suggestion would be to copy all of that data over to another USB drive......just in case. It won't hurt to continue using the Time Capsule, but I would not keep any data on the drive that I could not afford to lose. When a drive fails, it usually does so very quickly, with no real advance warnings.

could i run the old time capsule USB to the new time capsule USB?

No, that won't work since the USB port on the Time Capsule is only designed to handle an additional USB hard drive for additional storage options.

i was rethinking all my issues are probably the 2016 TC,

On average.......5-6 years is about it for the Time Capsule. Some go longer....and some not as long.

The 2021 MBPro will have its own brand new TimeCapsule.

A good thought.......but.......there are some downsides to running newer operating systems like Big Sur and Monterey on Macs backing up to a Time Capsule.

Why? The hard drives on Big Sur and Monterey Macs are formatted in a new way called APFS. But....the Time Capsule cannot be formatted this way. To try to compensate, Time Machine has to convert that data on the Mac's APFS drive to work on the Time Capsules' HFS+ formatted drive. So, extra complications and more chances for things to go wrong. Of course, Apple never bothers to mention details like this to us.

Remember......even the "latest" version of the Time Capsule was designed and introduced in the 2012-2013 timeframe. Apple never updated the hardware capabilities of the Time Capsule, so it is really is somewhat out of date, technology wise.

It won't hurt if you want to try this with the newer Macs backing up to a Time Capsule, but I would also back up to an APFS formatted hard drive connected directly to the Mac......much less to go wrong and much faster backups this way.

Good luck!

when i bought the 2021 the apple techs said it would work with time capsule, either they are misinformed or plain ignorant to the facts. i thought i covered all my bases and trusted them and their information they relayed to me.

i will Give it a whirl and see what happens.

Most users have been able to make things work in general, but as I said there are more complications with this type of backup, so more things to potentially create issues.

Technically, this is what is happening with Macs running Big Sur and Monterey that are backing up to the Time Capsule:

The Time Capsule drive cannot be formatted in APFS, so Time Machine creates a sparsebundle file (that is formatted in APFS) on the Time Capsule.....which is formatted in HFS+.......so the backup process becomes tricky and complicated.

As far as using SSD or a conventional spinning drive for backups. There are of course no real moving parts on the SSD, so it gets the nod as far a reliability. The real issue here is the Time Machine application can only back up at limited speeds, so backups to an SSD will be no faster than backups to conventional spinning disk.

In other words, Time Machine cannot take advantage of the normally faster speeds with SSD, so users who spend the extra money to get faster backup speeds are disappointed to find that the SSD backups are about the same speed as regular spinning drive backups.

It's a judgement call with no real right or wrong answers. Some users cannot justify the extra expense for SSDs and some can.

i thought the DATA was stored on the Time Capsule, im kind of really confused.

The data in the backups is always stored inside a special type of file called a sparsebundle on the Time Capsule. In other words, Time Machine cannot back up directly to the hard drive on the Time Capsule.

Time Machine can back up directly to a hard drive that is connected directly to the Mac, like a USB drive though. So, backups are simpler (and faster) if you are backing up directly to a USB drive connected directly to your Mac. This is called a "local" drive. The Time Capsule is a "network" drive that is connected to your network, so backups have to occur over the network.

with no TimeCapsule i went into Time Machine and i can see and access my Back Ups for 2 days. so something is storing on the 2012 MBPro.

Time Machine temporarily stores "snapshot" backups on your Mac's hard drive if the Time Capsule is not connected or not available.....and..... if there is plenty of free space on the Mac's hard drive. Later, the "snapshots" are consolidated and stored as regular backups on the Time Capsule. When that occurs, the older snapshots are deleted from the Mac to make room for new temporary "snapshots".

okay i am ready to do my first Back Up to the new Time Capsule. The way ive done the 1st Back ups in the past is, do one then do a second one right after to be sure it is all there.

After the first backup is done, Time Machine still has to index all the data stored in the backup, which can take 4-6 hours or more. So, you may not be able to view the new backup in Time Machine for a few hours or so.