Airport Time Capsule 2TB or 3TB?

[Snake201]

Hello team!

I am looking for some advice regarding whether I should by the new Airport Time Capsule in 2TB or 3TB.

The situation:

Currently in my house hold we have 4 MacBook Pros, the newest MacBook Air, 3 iPad minis, 1 iPad 3, 3 iPhone 5s, 2 iPhone 4S, 2 Apple TV's, 1 airport express the newest one and 1 airport express the first gen that plugs in the wall.

I am looking for a new router and since I am at it might as well get a time capsule to back up our computers. Only 3 computers will need to be backed up.
One of the MBP's and the MBA will be coming and going between a brother of mine being in the military and the other in college, so we won't need to back them up.

I want to keep the first gen airport express as I am using it now which is set up with some Bose speakers that I use for airplay and it is also connected to a printer.

So questions:

1.Price is not really an issue, Would 2TB be enough or should I get the 3TB option? The MBPs that will be staying at home have HDD sizes of 320GB, 750GB and 500GB.

2. Can the time capsule back up the 3 computers with hardly any work after the initial set up?

3. Our house is roughly about 2900 square feet split in 2 floors. Would the new airport time capsule be enough to span over the whole house? If its not can I just put the Airport Extreme somewhere upstairs and make it extend the network? If I won't have to do that what would be a better use of the airport express?

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[FreakinEurekan]

1.Price is not really an issue, Would 2TB be enough or should I get the 3TB option? The MBPs that will be staying at home have HDD sizes of 320GB, 750GB and 500GB.

If price isn't an issue, get 3TB. There is no drawback in having more capacity than you need, and a $100 price difference is a good value (about the same as the price difference for the drive).

2. Can the time capsule back up the 3 computers with hardly any work after the initial set up?

Yes, it's a very seamless experience.

3. Our house is roughly about 2900 square feet split in 2 floors. Would the new airport time capsule be enough to span over the whole house? If its not can I just put the Airport Extreme somewhere upstairs and make it extend the network?

If your Express plug-in is an 802.11n model it'll work fine as an extender. Certainly the newer one would, if needed.

 

[ColdCase]

If money is no object, get the 3TB. Time machine keeps records of every file, even if you delete them until the destination TM disk is near full, then it starts throwing out the oldest ones. So it will fill up any size disk and the more disk space you have, the further back you will have.

As far as coverage, perhaps. The TC is pretty good and covers my 4000 sq ft 2 level wood framed home just fine (so did my older APE). The express can be used to extend network, I think you may need to run a ethernet cable to it, however... but I dunno for sure. That would be worse case.

I have several expresses that play well with a TC.

 

[Serban]

i dont know the politics of apple when you return a Time capsule that is no longer working after you already backup personal and confidential information.

is there anyone maybe to tell us?

i return a TC 2T to my store after stop working at all, and they said they return to apple.
What happen to my informations

 

[Mike MA]

i dont know the politics of apple when you return a Time capsule that is no longer working after you already backup personal and confidential information.

is there anyone maybe to tell us?

i return a TC 2T to my store after stop working at all, and they said they return to apple.
What happen to my informations

Good question and you sure know Apple's answer already. But if it's really done you'll basically never know. But on the other hand your data fore sure will be safer than when returning devices to some "vendor around the corner".