Airport Time Capsule or a Different Hard Drive for Backup?

I've got an older 3TB version. Really easy to set up for Time Machine. My Macs are connected to gigabit Ethernet so the backups were speedy also. No real issues. Another good choice is a high capacity USB 3 external HDD directly connected to the iMac. I'd go that route if you only have one Mac.

How much data you need backed up and how many machines? What kind, just Time Machine? Photos?

 

My father is still using a 1st generation 500GB Time Capsule since day one, for what it's worth. Still works just fine.

 

if you get applecare , it will cover your time capsule!

once a week or whenever you feel like it, you can use airport utility ( comes with os x ) to backup your time capsule to an external hard disk , connected to the time capsule's usb port

 

thunderbolt drives can be an alternative

 

I use lacie little big disk with time machine with my iMac.

 

All good. It was just a suggestion.

 

The Pages app can be an alternative to sync across your Macs and iDevices

 

My suggestion is do both a hard drive backup and TimeCapsule.

Reasoning: A Carbon Copy, or SuperDuper backup is a true baseline backup. If you have a hard drive crash (yes, even an ssd), you can easily and quickly put your machine back up an running with this "cold" backup.

Time Machine, is reliable to a point, but in the end, it is simply incremental file backups, not a full system backup. You can recover your files from a point in time, which is great for those older files you want back. However, it will not restore your system on it's own. It gives you that intra-day security (or security between your full backups with Carbon Copy or SuperDuper).

You can easily do both with one external drive. Simply partition it, making the first partition the same size as your machines hard drive - this is where you would CC or SuperDuper. The remainder can be used for the TimeMachine.

 

I use a 3 TB time Capsule with our family network - 1 IMAC and 3 MBP.

I also use online Idrive service

 

I've done full restores from Time Machine before. The entire OS. There are a few benefits to CC etc, but I have fully restored my OS from Time Machine.

 

Time Machine can restore your entire system to a freshly formatted drive in a matter of minutes. Trust me, I've been unfortunate enough to test it.

I formatted my SSD to do a clean install of Yosemite from a USB. The install failed. I was left with no OS on my Mac. Restored from Time Machine, and 40 minutes later I was back on Mavericks with everything as it was pre-screw-up.

 

The problem is if either the router or hard drive become unusuable, or you want to upgrade either, you're stuck if you use the TC. I don't particularly like Apple routers, but it is decent for one of that speed. The big advantage is that TM works with it. Some other routers that you can attach USB 3 drives to claim TM compatibility, but you'd have to check.

If you don't need to back up over a LAN, then USB 3 is way faster. And more versatile. There are portables, caddies, and of course you can use it for faster video storage, TM or clone backups or both (a real advantange), for off site storage (with portable or caddy), etc.

 

Hi: I previously had a 1TB Time capsule which failed (electrical short) and I lost both the router and hard disk containing my backups. I now have an ASUS router and back up my IMAC directly using a 5TB seagate HD where I have 2 partitions -one for time machine backup and the second for storage. Seems to work for far. Good luck with your mulling...