Does anyone have BOTH the Airport Extreme AC (or Time capsule) & new Macbook Air? Curious to see what performance increase you see over LAN to a NAS or something.
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Airport Extreme AC + Macbook Air AC? Nobody?
- Thread starter portishead
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I will be ordering both pretty soon (well the MBA and a Time Capsule), will report back once I have them
Awesome, that's what I wanted to hear! I look forward to it!
I am guessing that somebody using an MBA is not a heavy user and will not be transferring large files over WIFI. Also if they are using it for 'internet-ing', then they will be hard pushed to get an ISP to keep up anyway.
Bottom line, probably not much a big deal in real world applications.
Bottom line, probably not much a big deal in real world applications.
Haha, you've got that one wrong! I know many iOS developers (myself included) that use the MBA as their primary machine. What people don't understand is that the MBA is powerful enough for 90% of people that would use a MacBook of some form. Technology has really moved on which makes the 1.x GHz processors in MBAs more powerful than older Quad Core i7s!
try searching "Air" in http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
Haha!?
'Heavy' in terms of file transfers over a network. So what size file's are you transferring on your laptop that will take full advantage of the spec and will make a real world difference to your productivity, as per my post?
If you have a MacBook Air with 256GB of storage, a NAS makes sense to store the rest of your files while still maintaining portability around the house and to share it with your possible secondary computer and/or iOS devices.
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I'll be getting both but not for another 30 days or so. Still debating between the AE or the TC; I have a Mac Mini server that I can use for TM backups but the Time Capsule is sure handy and the price difference is just about the cost of a 2TB hard drive so not a bad deal at all.
Got 3TB Time Capsule today, but new 13" i5 Air won't be delivered until next week.
Instead of replacing my Extreme, I installed the new TC to extend my existing network, joining my Airport Express and Extreme.
Nice Installer.
Airport Utility downloaded and installed onto my i7 Air from Feb 2011; updated firmware of new Time Capsule. Now have 3 WiFi stations in my large home - Extreme, Express, and new Time Capsule.
Running a small partition under 10.8.4 release version, and started a Time Machine Backup. Took about two hours for a 14GB backup. I'm happy, very smooth install without any issues. Haven't paid attention how the traffic flows thru the network. My older Extreme is the master for now.
Will have to see how things go with the new Air next week.
One comment: I debated the i5 vs i7, and stuck with the new i5 w/8GB and 256GB SSD. According to Anandtech quick review, not much advantage of i7 over the i5 in the base clock config.
Since this will be a secondary Mac over my Retina (maxed out), did not see a real need to get the i7. RAM more useful for me.
Was waiting for Haswell and the improved battery life. NEed a nice small travel Mac. WIfe wanted me to get the 11", but I got the 13 inch as I prefer the larger screen.
Instead of replacing my Extreme, I installed the new TC to extend my existing network, joining my Airport Express and Extreme.
Nice Installer.
Airport Utility downloaded and installed onto my i7 Air from Feb 2011; updated firmware of new Time Capsule. Now have 3 WiFi stations in my large home - Extreme, Express, and new Time Capsule.
Running a small partition under 10.8.4 release version, and started a Time Machine Backup. Took about two hours for a 14GB backup. I'm happy, very smooth install without any issues. Haven't paid attention how the traffic flows thru the network. My older Extreme is the master for now.
Will have to see how things go with the new Air next week.
One comment: I debated the i5 vs i7, and stuck with the new i5 w/8GB and 256GB SSD. According to Anandtech quick review, not much advantage of i7 over the i5 in the base clock config.
Since this will be a secondary Mac over my Retina (maxed out), did not see a real need to get the i7. RAM more useful for me.
Was waiting for Haswell and the improved battery life. NEed a nice small travel Mac. WIfe wanted me to get the 11", but I got the 13 inch as I prefer the larger screen.
I'm not talking about speeds form your ISP, I'm talking about internal networking speeds. There is supposedly a 2x speed increase over N.
Actually the opposite is true. The MacBook Air has limited storage in the SSD. Having a faster connection to your network-based storage will be a huge win.
I will be ordering both pretty soon (well the MBA and a Time Capsule), will report back once I have them
Did you get your Air yet? Do you also have a NAS?
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Yep, I have my iTunes library on my NAS, so it's pretty slow going at the moment. I get about 15MB/s which is pretty abysmal over wireless N. It does work, but syncing phones or adding music is terribly slow. And it beach balls A LOT! I'm hoping wireless AC will at least double my speed to 30MB/s, which would help quite a bit.
Got my 11" air and my 2TB time capsule yesterday. The wireless connection seems faster while browsing the web and stuff but the most noticeable part is when the mac is backing up through time machine. It is significantly faster at backing up then my imac. Overall pretty happy with the purchase.
That's a start. If you can throw together some comparison numbers, that would be super duper.
I have a new 2013 i7 Macbook air, and two new Airport Extreme's (one is a repeater). I have a Synology Rackstation RS2212+ feeding into the main AE.
From my (non-scientific) use/testing - speeds are night and day over my 5th gen Airport Extreme in 802.11ac mode to my Macbook air, and better range/throughput to all other 802.11n devices (e.g., a bunch of Roku 3's in my house that stream content from my Plex server that pulls from the Rackstation).
Best network upgrade I have completed in the last few years.
From my (non-scientific) use/testing - speeds are night and day over my 5th gen Airport Extreme in 802.11ac mode to my Macbook air, and better range/throughput to all other 802.11n devices (e.g., a bunch of Roku 3's in my house that stream content from my Plex server that pulls from the Rackstation).
Best network upgrade I have completed in the last few years.
I have both as of yesterday, YES.
And the answer is.....my Ooooo Face
uhhmmm, Yes,.........Awesome
I have an airport extreme only 5 months only (5th generation), but when I picked up this new Airport Extreme with the redesigned antenna geometry, and the Ultrafast 802.11ac Wi-Fi.
I KNEW I'd get better bi-di communication on my brand new 2013 macbook air, which I do, but what turned out a real shocker is Im getting around 30% faster www cruising on my Ipad 4th gen and my Ipad mini! Why didn't apple Inc. advertise "Hey, not ONLY will you get blazing better speeds with the new Ultrafast 802.11ac Wi-Fi,...but ALSO you'll notice faster speeds on your Ipads and other devices"
My wifi on my 2012 Macbook Pro is about 20% or more faster on downloads and MUCH faster refresh on known sites.
I was planning on getting faster speeds on ONLY my new Macbook Air, and FURTHER stronger signal strength. But additionally a HUGE PLUS is my now-faster Ipad communications and home networking speeds.
Was it worth the $200 considering I had a basically a new (older model) airport extreme? Absolutely YES. WORTH IT!