Any rumors that Apple will replace the Time Capsule?

[Vincent Hanna]

As for deleting files, iCloud does "hold onto" deleted files in it's equivalent of the "recycle bin" for 30 days, but this really isn't meant to be thought of as an incremental backup, it's just a "are you sure you should have deleted that file" safety-net in the short term.

Congratulations! You have finally grasped the value of iCloud as a backup!

This is all normal people need, especially in light of the fact that they will never in a million years ever spend the considerable upfront costs or learn the necessary skills to deploy and manage the complex, hardware-based alternatives you demand they choose instead.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

NO. IT IS A SYNC SERVICE. IF YOU DELETE SOMETHING, IT IS PERMANENTLY DELETED. YOU CANNOT GET IT BACK. THE 30 DAY BUFFER IS FALLBACK FOR IDIOTS. I look forward to you getting data from this backup that someone deleted 6 weeks ago.

If you can get it back in 30 days, then it isn’t “permanently deleted”, is it?

Do you even read what you write?

And you’re right, you can’t get a deleted file back if you don’t notice it’s gone for six weeks. This is an acceptable trade off for normal people, who again, are NEVER going to adopt a hardware-based incremental backup system.

And you cap it off with the good old elitist nerd insult that all consumers are idiots. Does that make you feel superior? Keep you warm at night?

 

[tallPete]

If you can get it back in 30 days, then it isn’t “permanently deleted”, is it?

Do you even read what you write?

And you’re right, you can’t get a deleted file back if you don’t notice it’s gone for six weeks. This is an acceptable trade off for normal people, who again, are NEVER going to adopt a hardware-based incremental backup system.

And you cap it off with the good old elitist nerd insult that all consumers are idiots. Does that make you feel superior? Keep you warm at night?

I can assure you that it is not a reasonable trade off for people. Having seen folk delete all their photos your belief is poison. I'm OK with you attacking me as a person, rather than what I am saying. That is a reflection on you.

 

[leifp]

I really wish it to be so. For my parents. For my wife’s parents. For our siblings. For ourselves.

Well, maybe not that last. I’ve been struggling with a more Windows-typical solution: lots of extra steps, a few never-to-be-used additions in functionality… but I’ll have something that I won’t mimic for others.

Even so, Apple’s wifi hardware was a joy to use (still is; we have an old one doing wifi but no longer backup duty and the in-laws still have one doing backup duty until the next macOS…) and I’d love to have it back as an option.

Just not enough $ in it for them…

 

[Happy_John]

I consider that I purchased a Time Capsule for a ridiculous amount of money circa 2011, I had to open it up and replace the had disk once since then. and it has saved my business completely. My business has paid for very fine life since. It could all have disappeared back in 2015-2016 ish. As I look at my Time Machine menu in my MacOS menu bar it has backed up to my 2011 device just over one hour ago.

I think that it is probably worth spending more than a Mac to get a perfect backup device that will work into the future. The backup device is worth more than any Mac. I understand that Time Capsule will be able to back up to another Mac, so maybe I will jsut go and buy a Mac Mini as a dedicated backup device. I understand that Synology doesn't advertise Time Machine compatibility as a feature, and they have had a reputation recently of removing features, so maybe another mac it is.

Honestly, a better bet than buying another Mac, if the aim is only for a back-up destination and/or network storage, is to buy either a UGREEN DH2300 2 bay NAS or a Ubiquiti UNAS2 2 bay nas. - The Ubiquiti looks more like a Airport Extreme / TimeCapsule, but both will be cheaper than a Mac mini, and factor in the fact that you'll need more drives for both the Mac or a 2 bay NAS.

You're talking about roughly 400 USD (hopefully less) for either of the NAS solutions above, with the drives, ( The UGREEN will be a little cheaper), but it still comes in at under the price of the Mac mini WITHOUT the extra drive you'll need.

EDIT: both NASes I've mentioned work very well with Macs and TM, and, in 2026, I think these are far better than what Synology is offering in a smaller NAS solution.

 

[Grumpus]

Even a 2 Bay NAS with decent sized drives is a large investment for someone with only one or two machines to back up.

Time Capsules were $300 to $400 when new. Just spot-checking on Amazon, a Synology DS223j two bay NAS with a single Seagate IronWolf 8TB drive is a little more than $400 US. A Synology DS124 1 bay NAS with an IronWolf 8TB drive is roughly $360 US. It's not necessary to populate every bay in a multi-bay NAS.

 

[Arran]

…Just not enough $ in it for them…

I’m not convinced that’s it: Apple’s never had a problem asking for high prices!

I think it’s more to do with strategy. They (and it’s not just Apple) want us to move all our data to the cloud - and rely on cloud-dependent, application-level features (like document version history) to get something approximating Time Machine over wireless. For a subscription, of course.

For someone brand-new to the Mac universe, that will probably work. For many, however, we prefer keeping local control of our data. For yet others, it’s an unholy mix of local and cloud (that’s actually me - and I’m honestly not happy with it)

Personally, I don’t see this fog clearing for a decade or so. A lot of things will have to change (hardware, services, pricing, availability, user expectations) and that will be a gradual process with pain along the way. I’ve seen this in enterprises too. It’s not just budget-conscious individuals locked in this fight over who holds the data.

 

[Arran]

Time Capsules were $300 to $400 when new….

Quite. And that’s back when $300-$400 was a LOT of money! 🙂

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Congratulations! You have finally grasped the value of iCloud as a backup!

This is all normal people need, especially in light of the fact that they will never in a million years ever spend the considerable upfront costs or learn the necessary skills to deploy and manage the complex, hardware-based alternatives you demand they choose instead.

It doesn't backup things that aren't in Documents or the Desktop on Mac. I think people usually need more than that, even if they don't know it. My brother and his wife share a MacBook, and a couple months ago it got zapped during a surge and the mainboard was fried. They were able to recover things stored in those directories, but still lost a ton of data. They keep a time machine now.

I agree that people don't want to manage other things, but iCloud isn't the answer. In my case, I just plug in a hard drive once a week.

When my wife was in Law school, they advised everyone to setup Backblaze on their computers. Simple, quick and cheap. She still uses it.

 

[Happy_John]

Congratulations! You have finally grasped the value of iCloud as a backup!

This is all normal people need, especially in light of the fact that they will never in a million years ever spend the considerable upfront costs or learn the necessary skills to deploy and manage the complex, hardware-based alternatives you demand they choose instead.

That's NOT an incremental back-up. It's a "quick and dirty" solution, it isn't comparable.

It also doesn't scale well, which is the point you're avoiding. You cannot delete files off your Mac, you have to keep everything in the documents and desktop folders, you don't back up apps more any systems files etc, and you have to be prepared to rent enough storage capacity from Apple every month equal to the combined total local storage capacity of all your Macs + iOS / iPad os devices. Within a year, that's a false economy.

And, the most glaringly obvious point is that you can NEVER delete files from your Mac, so what happen when you internal storage on your Macs is filled? Is you answer just to buy another Mac with increased internal storage?

Your method does not scale well. You're not addressing that.

 

[Happy_John]

Time Capsules were $300 to $400 when new. Just spot-checking on Amazon, a Synology DS223j two bay NAS with a single Seagate IronWolf 8TB drive is a little more than $400 US. A Synology DS124 1 bay NAS with an IronWolf 8TB drive is roughly $360 US. It's not necessary to populate every bay in a multi-bay NAS.

True, but if you're buying a NAS, it's crazy not to populate at least two bays, so you can run RAID 1 to have a failover. If you're investing in a full-fat NAS solution to have safe back-ups, the redundancy of RAID is strongly recommended.

I bought a 3TB Time Capsule when it came out. It cost me the equivalent of 399 USD ( I wasn't living in the USA), so Yyu're right about the price, but it was a terribly overpriced piece of kit when it came out. Apple got away with it because there wasn't a really a home 2 bay NAS market at the time. But there is now.

There's a market for a small TM destination solution at about the 200 USD dollar price point, but there's little to nothing available that's clearly branded as a small back-end for TM at that price point.

 

[leman]

For good NAS option with excellent Time Machine support, do check out Ubiquity UNAS series. I’d stay away from Synology - very poor experience.

 

[DankeBrutus]

I don't think Apple will ever make another Time Capsule type of product. They don't even instruct users on setting up Time Machine on their LAN anymore.

Part of me wouldn't be surprised if Apple eventually removed the network backup feature of Time Machine and just forced everyone to use USB drives (that they still won't support S.M.A.R.T with). But at least there are backup solutions like Restic or Borg.

 

[Arran]

When my wife was in Law school, they advised everyone to setup Backblaze setup on their computers. Simple, quick and cheap. She still uses it.

Never heard of Backblaze before so I looked them up.

Interesting: Unlimited cloud storage for $9 monthly, $99 yearly or $189 for two years. That pricing must be per Mac, right?

 

[Happy_John]

I don't think Apple will ever make another Time Capsule type of product. They don't even instruct users on setting up Time Machine on their LAN anymore.

Part of me wouldn't be surprised if Apple eventually removed the network backup feature of Time Machine and just forced everyone to use USB drives (that they still won't support S.M.A.R.T with). But at least there are backup solutions like Restic or Borg.

For a MacBook, directly connecting an external drive backup is an awful solution -, it goes against the whole premise of back-ups, which should be "I set it up and never have to think about it again, until I need to access it." It makes it less likely, not more likely, that people will regularly back-up. Automated network backups is the way Tm should be intended to be used ( less of an issue with a desktop Mac, as you can have an external drive plugged in permanently, but Apple sells far more laptops than desktops).


Another personal rant is that TM has been around for a very long time, and it's annoyed the hell out of me that they never implemented it on IOS, iPad OS, when they do let you back up an iPad / iPhone onto a Mac either cabled or wirelessly, but they don't let you automate the process.

There are third party solutions for this, but they are aimed at enterprises, not single users, and are priced accordingly.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Never heard of Backblaze before so I looked them up.

Interesting: Unlimited cloud storage for $9 monthly, $99 yearly or $189 for two years. That pricing must be per Mac, right?

Yes, it's per machine, and all connected external drives.

 

[cheesygrin]

Business-grade backups can be a very complex area - realistically though, for most home users, Cloud services are probabaly the way to go now. I know there will be a lot of people quick to point out that Cloud services are not backups - but this is only partly true.

It is true that Cloud services were primarily designed are a way to SYNCHRONISE data, not back it up. This means that all changes, including errors, file corruption, and deletion are also replicated across the Cloud copies.

However, saying that this makes it ineffective as a backup ignores a key feature: Versioning. Cloud storage that offers strong file and folder versioning can roll back these changes fairly easily, effectively making them a viable and simple to use iterative backup option.

Personally, I already subscribe to Microsoft 365 for the Apps, and this comes with 1TB of Cloud storage included with decent file versioning, so I use this for my personal data, and iCloud for photos and settings.

I would not rely on a Cloud-only system for business-critical servers, for example - but realistically, how complex does a home backup solution actually need to be? Cloud services can be relatively effective, simple to use, cheap and are always running in the background so backups are never missed.

A few caveats though:
If you have very large quantities of data, paying for additional Cloud storage can get expensive.
If you are very concerned about privacy, Cloud storage does put your data in the hands of a third-party company (albeit encrypted).
If you have exceptionally slow internet in your area, Cloud storage may not be practical.

 

[Happy_John]

Yes, it's per machine, and all connected external drives.

That's not too bad, actually, if reliable and safe (encrypted and unreadable by the service provider). I'd still far prefer to have everything local, but the charge isn't too bad (even though it'll be more expensive than a local after about 3 years), even though it's a subscription, and it does give a second or third tier off-site backup storage.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

You can connect an external HDD to a router via USB and have a network hard drive and backup to that. You can use it for Tome Machine and access it for file storage as well

 

[Happy_John]

...

It is true that Cloud services were primarily designed are a way to SYNCHRONISE data, not back it up. This means that all changes, including errors, file corruption, and deletion are also replicated across the Cloud copies.

....

I think this is more about what type of cloud storage service it is. Some are syncing services, other are cloud-based / off-site destinations for incremental back-ups (to simplify, you're simply renting space for backups on someone else's NAS which you connect to over internet) .

 

[Happy_John]

You can connect an external HDD to a router via USB and have a network hard drive and backup to that. You can use it for Tome Machine and access it for file storage as well

Not always. The implementation of this can be rough, not all routers play nice with TM. Some work, some don't, some work for a minute or two but then drop the connection before the back-up is completed. It very much depends on the router you have. Yo can't take it as a given that, just because your router has a USB port, that TM will work reliably.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

That's not too bad, actually, if reliable and safe (encrypted and unreadable by the service provider). I'd still far prefer to have everything local, but the charge isn't too bad (even though it'll be more expensive than a local after about 3 years), even though it's a subscription, and it does give a second or third tier off-site backup storage.

I'll let others chime in, but Backblaze has been around a long time, and is well regarded.

 

[cheesygrin]

I think this is more about what type of cloud storage service it is. Some are syncing services, other are cloud-based / off-site destinations for incremental back-ups

Very fair point. I was thinking about the Cloud services people typically already have and use, like OneDrive or iCloud, so it may be possible to pay nothing more than they already are, and still have a functional backup in place. There are, of course, other Cloud services such as BackBlaze, which are specifically focused on being a backup solution, but it may not be strictly necessary for basic backup needs.

 

[hawwkk55]

The Unifi UNAS 2 or UNAS 4 would work well as a Time Capsule replacement. They have native support for Time Machine Backups. I use the UNAS Pro (just a larger rack mount version) to back up several Macs as a Time Capsule replacement and attached storage drive.

 

[Ctrlos]

Current prices excluded, I always wondered why they never stuck an NVMe slot in the HomePod and allowed you to do it that way. It could have acted as a home server, downloading and queueing video during the day and locally storing all your own media.