Airport Extreme or Time Capsule to be used only for Time Machine?

[alexreich]

Is it possible to use either of these peripherals as only a wireless Time Machine backup station and not a router? I don't need the router functions, and would prefer just to do a backup wirelessly via Time Machine every few hours. If it's impossible to just use as a router, I'll make it my router.

But,is it possible to use either products as only a backup station, or just extend my network range, and be a wireless backup station?

Thanks for any help!
-Alex

 

[flynz4]

I use an Airport Extreme as the main router for the house. It is located next to the cable modem, and drives my home LAN (wired and wireless).

I have two time capsules (connected to the wired LAN) upstairs in a different room. Both are only used for Time Machine backups of our Macs. One is dedicated to our 2TB iMac (currently just over 1/2 full), and the 2nd TC is dedicated to the laptops.

The iMac is hard wired to the home network (Airport Extreme). The laptops (2 MBAs) are wirelessly connected to the Airport Extreme and are then backed up over a wired connection to the 2nd TC.

I really did not need the Airport Extreme... but I ended up with one when a daughter didn't need it at college anymore... so I used it as my main router. I could have used one of the TC's instead.

/Jim

 

[neteng101]

I use my Time Capsule as a wireless access point and Time Machine backup store... just hook it up to your router. You probably want to give it a static IP address probably first on your network, and set it to bridge mode so connection sharing is turned off.

 

[alexreich]

Thanks for your replies.

I'm considering buying a refurbished 1TB Time Capsule to backup my 2010 Mac Mini every so often, and my external hard drive that has all of my media. I would die if I lost my Music, Movies, etc.

I have two more questions...

1. Could I have the Time Capsule set up to broaden/strengthen my current network, and to use as a Time Machine hub? If so, I'd like to have my Mac Mini plugged in via Ethernet, to make faster backups directly to the Time Capsule. Am I getting this right at all? ...I have a feeling not

2. Is it possible to backup an external Hard Drive to the Time Capsule?



Thanks for all your help so far!
-Alex

 

[Brian33]

1. Could I have the Time Capsule set up to broaden/strengthen my current network, and to use as a Time Machine hub? If so, I'd like to have my Mac Mini plugged in via Ethernet, to make faster backups directly to the Time Capsule. Am I getting this right at all? ...I have a feeling not

I believe you can set up the TC to extend your current wireless network, and it would certainly still work as a TM backup target. I think there's a setting to "extend the current network" but I'm not at home now... can anyone else verify this?

EDIT: Page 43 of this Apple document describes how to extend your wireless network: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Apple_AirPort_Networks_Early2009.pdf

2. Is it possible to backup an external Hard Drive to the Time Capsule?

You can use Time Machine (the software) to backup any external hard drive that's directly connected to a Mac to a Time Capsule (the device). In other words, TM does not backup "airport" disks or network attached storage, like external drives connected to TCs or AEBSs.