Jan Vajdák With the advent of each new version of the operating system macOS we have to accept that Apple occasionally retires some of the older features or services. In the upcoming system macOS 27 Golden Gate However, a farewell is coming that will affect many an apple connoisseur. Apple It completely removed support for the AFP network protocol, which in practice means the definitive end of compatibility with the Time backup tool. Machine with the legendary Time Capsule network drives. This step closes a chapter in history that spans almost two decades, but thanks to an unexpected community project, there is hope for salvation for owners of this hardware.
The end of forty years of history
Time Capsule network solution introduced Apple in January 2008 as an elegant combination of a Wi-Fi router and a network attached storage (NAS) for wireless backup. Although the company developed the entire product line AirThe port was discontinued in 2018 and the last stocks were sold out, but thousands of these reliable white boxes still work flawlessly in homes around the world. The AFP protocol itself dates back to the deep 1980s, when it was created as a native part of the network package. AppleTalk. Over time, it was replaced by the more modern SMB standard, but Apple maintained backward compatibility in the system for a long time. The definitive warning came in last year's system macOS 26 Tahoe and the current first developer beta macOS 27 no longer contains the AFP client at all.
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Why old backups fail
The problem is that all Time Capsule models rely exclusively on AFP and the ancient SMBv1 protocols from 1987. The new macOS 27 however, it uncompromisingly requires Time for backups Machin miniAt least the SMBv2 or SMBv3 versions, which modern NAS network storage devices meet, but the original Apple hardware is simply not enough for this in the factory settings. Apple In addition, it has tightened network security across the board and requires TLS 1.2 encryption as an absolute minimum, which is a bar that the processor inside the Time Capsule cannot exceed. Fortunately, James Chang, a software engineer at the company, stepped in. Microsoft, who published a project on GitHub called TimeCapsuleSMB. His solution does not replace the entire drive firmware, but installs a modern Samba package directly into the device, allowing the Time Capsule to communicate via the secure SMB3 interface.
Risks and update availability
However, this unofficial intervention has its clear pitfalls, which need to be warned about in advance. Only in the latest fifth generation of Time Capsule in the form of a tall tower from 2013, the modified network server automatically restarts after a power outage. Owners of older flat models will have to enter a manual activation command after each power outage, otherwise the backup will secretly stop. In addition, the transition to the new protocol creates a completely new backup chain, so you lose the continuity of older backups and, since there is no long-term data recovery testing, it is safer to have another secondary storage. Raw version macOS 27 Golden Gate will arrive after summer testing in September and will be compatible exclusively with computers with chips Apple Silicon. Older users MacSo users with Intel processors can stay on the latest version without any worries. macOS 26 and continue to use your Time Capsule without any modifications.
Amaya Tomanová 
Filip Brož 
Patrik Pajer 
Vratislav Holub 
