Airport Extreme plus hard drive vs Time Capsule

[davidoloan]

What are the real use pros and cons of using the latest Airport Extreme with a USB hard drive vs a Time Capsule, for a great wireless network and time machine?

 

[CoastalOR]

What are the real use pros and cons of using the latest Airport Extreme with a USB hard drive vs a Time Capsule, for a great wireless network and time machine?

I believe the USB connector on the Extreme is only USB2, so the connection to the external HD should be slower than to the internal HD of the Time Capsule. Connecting a external HD to the Extreme has more flexibility for selecting HD's and upgrading to different HD's if there is a problem. A HD failure or capacity upgrade in the Time Capsule would require taking it apart.

 

[whodatrr]

+1.... USB 2.0 is capped at 480 Mb, which is about half of the theoretical speed of Gigabit ethernet. Having said that, my experience is that one rarely reached true Gigabit speed, with backups, either way.

Also, at one time I heard that Time Capsules shipped with server-grade drives, though I'm not sure if that's the case any more?

I believe the USB connector on the Extreme is only USB2, so the connection to the external HD should be slower than to the internal HD of the Time Capsule. Connecting a external HD to the Extreme has more flexibility for selecting HD's and upgrading to different HD's if there is a problem. A HD failure or capacity upgrade in the Time Capsule would require taking it apart.

 

[Altemose]

Considering the fact that the AirPort Extreme gets about 23 MB/s read/write to a USB 2.0 hard drive and the Time Capsule gets about 27 MB/s, the performance difference is not all that different. The only true benefit that I see to the TC is the fact that you can archive the whole internal disk to another disk which is not supported on the Extreme.

 

[priitv8]

Considering the fact that the AirPort Extreme gets about 23 MB/s read/write to a USB 2.0 hard drive and the Time Capsule gets about 27 MB/s, the performance difference is not all that different. The only true benefit that I see to the TC is the fact that you can archive the whole internal disk to another disk which is not supported on the Extreme.

From what I can tell, the speed is capped mostly by CPU power inside the AirPort base station, not the IO throughput of the drive. Long time ago, when I did my tests, the exact same USB drive performed considerably better when connected to a Mac Mini:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ted-to-airport-extreme.1645198/#post-18013924

 

[Altemose]

From what I can tell, the speed is capped mostly by CPU power inside the AirPort base station, not the IO throughput of the drive. Long time ago, when I did my tests, the exact same USB drive performed considerably better when connected to a Mac Mini:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ted-to-airport-extreme.1645198/#post-18013924

Exactly. Most chipsets within routers will not take full advantage of USB 2.0, so I see USB 3.0 on most routers as a gimmick.