Airport time capsule setup question

[compute]

Hi folks,

I have got an airport time capsule (2TB) as a gift but never used a airport Time Capsule before so i'm hoping someone could point me in the wright direction to setting this thing up on my macpro 2014. I did try and use the "manual" if thats what to call it but there's really not all that much info to be found in it.

a few questions:
Do i choose "create a new network" or "add to an existing network"?

What would be the best choice here, i'm connected wireless to my network and would like to use the Time capsule as a back up drive, to my understanding this thing backs up whats on my computer wirelessly using time machine. Do i do this over my existing wireless connection and thus choose "add to an exisiting network" or is it better to have a new network set up for the airport time machine.

All help and tips would be really appreciated...

 

[jenzjen]

i'd argue that, if this is the new tower designed time capsule, it will be a much better wifi router than what you currently have so i would use it to create a new network and replace whatever router you currently use

if your current router is an ISP combo modem/router, it is still doable, you'll just turn off wifi on this box and setup your tc in bridge mode

google for steps, you'll find lots of walk throughs with screen shots

 

[Altemose]

Hi folks,

I have got an airport time capsule (2TB) as a gift but never used a airport Time Capsule before so i'm hoping someone could point me in the wright direction to setting this thing up on my macpro 2014. I did try and use the "manual" if thats what to call it but there's really not all that much info to be found in it.

a few questions:
Do i choose "create a new network" or "add to an existing network"?

What would be the best choice here, i'm connected wireless to my network and would like to use the Time capsule as a back up drive, to my understanding this thing backs up whats on my computer wirelessly using time machine. Do i do this over my existing wireless connection and thus choose "add to an exisiting network" or is it better to have a new network set up for the airport time machine.

All help and tips would be really appreciated...

I recommend hooking the Time Capsule to the modem you own itself! I can almost guarantee that the Time Capsule you were given is a better router than what you use now. If you cannot or would prefer not to use the Time Capsule as the router but simply as a backup drive, then choose "Join an Existing Network". That is a wireless join so speeds may vary based on connection.

 

[compute]

I'm not quite sure if i can use this time capsule as the modem...i have an all included internet/digital TV package from our provider and the wireless modem that holds all the cables is attached to the wall downstairs.

There is however the possibility to attach an ethernet cable to the wireless modem. do i attach it that way or is it actually a different story when i have a wireless modem?

I'm really a noob at these things so sorry for the stupid questions

 

[Altemose]

I'm not quite sure if i can use this time capsule as the modem...i have an all included internet/digital TV package from our provider and the wireless modem that holds all the cables is attached to the wall downstairs.

There is however the possibility to attach an ethernet cable to the wireless modem. do i attach it that way or is it actually a different story when i have a wireless modem?

I'm really a noob at these things so sorry for the stupid questions

You can attach a Ethernet cable from the back of your "wireless modem" which is actually a modem and a router in one unit. Then plug it into the port with the little "Sun" on it on your Time Capsule and set it up.

 

[NukeIT]

Now decide: do you have a large house and need better wifi coverage or small apartment and your already saturated.

Option 1: route the ethernet cable away from your current modem/router/wifi unit (i.e. Upstairs, far side of the house, etc) and then set up the TC to extend your network with the same SSID and password, creating a roaming network.

Option 2: either set the ISP provided router into bridge mode and turn the radio off or have your ISP do it. And then use the TC as your router and set up a new network.

 

[compute]

thnx for replying everyone!

Final question...what is the difference in terms of plugin the ethernet cable attached to the ATC directly into the modem and/or plugin the ATC directly into my macpro using the ethernet cable. what are the cons. and pro's?

 

[r0k]

thnx for replying everyone!

Final question...what is the difference in terms of plugin the ethernet cable attached to the ATC directly into the modem and/or plugin the ATC directly into my macpro using the ethernet cable. what are the cons. and pro's?

If you have more than one computer, it's best to have cables going to them. Wifi is good for computers in rooms that are hard to reach cables to. Wifi is also good for handhelds and streaming media players such as ATV or Chromecast.

I suggest you run ethernet from the WAN port of the TC to your cable or DSL modem. Then run ethernet from the LAN port of the TC to your Mac Pro. If you add a wired printer, network storage or another Mac, wired will almost always outperform wifi so I'd run a cable to those as well, as long as you aren't tripping over unsightly cables all the time.

One advantage of using your TC as a router is it caches OSX and iOS updates so you normally only have to download them from Apple once per household rather than once per machine you are updating.

Modem <==> TimeCapsule
                   \==>Mac 1
                   \==>Mac 2
                   \...>Iphone 1
                   \...>Iphone 2

==> = ethernet
...> = wifi

 

[marzer]

One advantage of using your TC as a router is it caches OSX and iOS updates so you normally only have to download them from Apple once per household rather than once per machine you are updating.

That feature was just a rumor years ago, and never came to fruition. The only way to locally cache Apple software updates is using OS X Server.

 

[r0k]

That feature was just a rumor years ago, and never came to fruition. The only way to locally cache Apple software updates is using OS X Server.

Doh! I heard about it and assumed it came to be. I don't use my TC as my router so I never found out whether it worked or not. Darn.

 

[compute]

Thnx so much for all the help everyone, really appreciate it!

I have it up and running now, i connected the ATC using an ethernet cable attached to my modem and when setting it up i chose "add to existing network"

when i'm downstairs now i have access to whats on my time machine with my other computer so i guess all is working well.

I chose not to let time machine perform automatic backups so i turned time machine off...i'd rather have it perform a backup when i'm not behind the computer...time machine calculated 12 hours for the first backup...

Here's another question: when i open up my time capsule from the finder menu, there is a folder inside that says "data" lets say if i want my complete pictures folder that is on an external hdd to be backed up and accessible trough my time capsule, do i simply drag my "pictures" folder from my external drive into the time capsule's "data" folder?
And since my pictures folder is 1.5TB in size whats the fastest way to transfer this folder to the time capsule's disk...wirelessly transferring this folder would take hours...

Sorry for the load of questions guys but the help is really appreciated!

When i open the time capsule

 

[Barney63]

I chose not to let time machine perform automatic backups so i turned time machine off...i'd rather have it perform a backup when i'm not behind the computer...time machine calculated 12 hours for the first backup...

Time Machine does backups in the background, there should be no or little performance hit on your MacPro.

And since my pictures folder is 1.5TB in size whats the fastest way to transfer this folder to the time capsule's disk...wirelessly transferring this folder would take hours...

Doing it via ethernet will be faster, but 1.5TB is going to still take a while.

Barney

 

[compute]

Time Machine does backups in the background, there should be no or little performance hit on your MacPro.


Doing it via ethernet will be faster, but 1.5TB is going to still take a while.

Barney

Isn't it possible to hook up my hard drive to the time capsule and transfer that way?

 

[Weaselboy]

Isn't it possible to hook up my hard drive to the time capsule and transfer that way?

Nope... you could attach your USB drive to the TC and the TC would see the drive and you could read and write to/from that disk from your Mac, but there is no way to copy the photos directly from the USB drive to the TC drive. You would still need to use Finder or a similar utility on the Mac to move the files from the USB drive to the TC drive, and that data would still be coming over the network connection.

 

[compute]

that sucks....its going to take me days to transfer all my pictures wireless...

 

[Boyd01]

So, if I understand correctly, copying from an external USB drive directly connected to the Time Capsule, data is sent over wifi to your mac, then back over wifi to the Time Capsule internal drive?

If so, then it would be better to use an external drive connected directly to your mac since that would only use wifi going in one direction. I am also going to be copying a lot of data to my Time Capsule and was wondering about this. I have a MBA, so no ethernet. It's not such a big deal though, I will just let the copies run overnight on a couple days.