I just received my new Time Capsule (Airport & 500Gb HD) & want to set up Time Machine to use that as its destination. Simple enough but I have been running Time Machine for a while already on a LaCie external FireWire drive & not sure how to transfer my existing backup info. It is on (in?) a HD partition named "Time Machine Destination", the top folder in the hierarchy that contains all of the backups dating to March 2008 is named "Backups.backupdb".
Will Time Machine prompt me to transfer this or do I need to copy it to the Time Capsule HD myself, then redirect Time Machine to the new destination location? Nothing I can find in the help files or on the Apple Support website speaks to existing backups, just MANY references to be prepared for long initial backup.
Hopefully someone here has changed their b/u destination drive & can ease my mind before I delve into this blindly!

Unless I have seriously misunderstood much of what I have read this is at best a bit difficult. The problem is in how files are stored. When Time Machine stores files on a Time Capsule the files are stored in a type of file called a sparsebundle. When Time Machine files are stored on drives directly to a mac they are stored in the folder structure you noted in your post.

I have seen one procedure that seems to do what you want but have not tried it. Details are here http://jason-townsend.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-transfer-local-time-machine.html There is also some software available that allows you to use files from a Time Machine Backup. You should be able to use the software to use the files from the existing backup though it would not transfer the backup to the Time Capsule http://www.tri-edre.com/english/backintime.html

Wow, great info, exactly what I was looking for! Thanks!

After reading that it has me seriously evaluating the need to transfer the existing b/u. I am thinking about how necessary all those backups really are? Or start anew on the time capsule and just leave that 150 Gb file alone, then if I do find I need something, just redirect Time Machine back to the LaCie drive to , I assume that would work.

I thought it would be nice to free up the space on the external, but I've still got over 200Gb free on other partitions, by the time I needed the disk space I may be comfortable with the idea of deleting it (my consumption of space is probably in the modest category).

Anyhow, an urgent family matter has come up & I don't have the luxury of the time it would take me right now to attempt the transfer, so I'll keep the status quo at least until things settle down.

I looks like you've come to this conclusion already and this may be a little late, but I was going to ask if you really needed to move the old back up over? Sounds a bit redundant to me. When assigning a new drive for TM it will create a new complete back up of your system the first time you backup to it. Afterwards, it'll make backups of only stuff that has been changed since the last backup.

After using your new Time Capsule a while, you can check to see if your important files have indeed been backed up properly. When you feel satisfied that everything has been backed up and you have the time, feel free to delete the old backup on the old drive.

Chakris