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Best way to use Time Machine?

F

Folmanik

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 26, 2007
19
0
Hey guys..
i have a two/three weeks old mackbook pro and i think it's about time to start using time machine,
so..since it's a laptop i dont like the idea of another cable wiggling from it, and besides, i'm afraid i'll be too lazy to plug it every day,
but on the other hand, time capsule is kind of expensive..

how do you use you time machine?
is there a generic time capsule?
 
+1 to a NAS solution. Beyond that, Time Capsule works well, but it is a bit slow. I really really wish Time Capsule had an option to plug in via USB 3.0 or even Thunderbolt (though with a simple spinning drive it's not likely to need more than USB 3) to restore from backup or do the initial backup.

However, a NAS such as a Synology NAS is cheaper, allows for more storage, and is a bit more flexible.

My one suggestion, would be to make sure that the NAS is wired via ethernet to your router, and if at all possible, you also have a wired ethernet connection somewhere that you can plug your MBP into. Time machine backups or restores will take around half to 1/4 as long via ethernet. In my case, I can access my NAS or Time Capsule via Wi-Fi (5GHz Dual-Band Wireless N) at about 15-20MB/s, versus over 100MB/s via gigabit ethernet.

Also, make sure to go into spotlight settings in your preferences and add your NAS or Time Capsule into the 'privacy' list. It'll greatly speed things up, as this disables spotlight indexing of that drive which seems to really slow Time Machine down.
 
el-John-o said:
However, a NAS such as a Synology NAS is cheaper, allows for more storage, and is a bit more flexible.
Click to expand...

How is it cheaper? Its $150 (diskless) + $70 (2TB HDD) + over $100 for a fast WiFi router. The 2GB Time Capsule costs $300. In the end, it all depends on whether you already own a fast router (or need one).

For backups over ethernet, a NAS is without doubt a better solution. For backups over WiFi it does not matter. I get copy speeds of around 25MB/s with my Time Capsule (e.g. 7Gb worth of movies are copied in about 5 minutes), which is in my experience comparable with the speeds one gets with the majority of USB2 drives.

In addition, I bought a fast USB3 external drive and use it for backups when I am on in the office or on the road. Its rather fast, so the backups complete quickly.
 
leman said:
How is it cheaper? Its $150 (diskless) + $70 (2TB HDD) + over $100 for a fast WiFi router. The 2GB Time Capsule costs $300. In the end, it all depends on whether you already own a fast router (or need one).

For backups over ethernet, a NAS is without doubt a better solution. For backups over WiFi it does not matter. I get copy speeds of around 25MB/s with my Time Capsule (e.g. 7Gb worth of movies are copied in about 5 minutes), which is in my experience comparable with the speeds one gets with the majority of USB2 drives.

In addition, I bought a fast USB3 external drive and use it for backups when I am on in the office or on the road. Its rather fast, so the backups complete quickly.
Click to expand...

Same here, over Wi-Fi the NAS and the Time Capsule are at about the same speed over Wi-Fi, though the NAS is twice as fast over ethernet than the Time Capsule is over ethernet. The time capsule is twice as fast over ethernet than WiFi (so the NAS is 4x as fast over ethernet than Wi-Fi)

Also, the synology diskless setups are a bit bigger. There are single drive NAS units (more comparable to a single drive time Capsule) with a disk that are cheaper. Though, obviously, it DOES depend on the router you have.

Personally, I prefer the NAS. Even if you buy a 4 bay diskless NAS and one hard drive, it's expandable. Also, I really like having data redundancy in the NAS. Mine is a 4 drive server with hot-swap bays I obtained from a family friend who was getting rid of it in his office. I use two of them for a mirrored Array. Later I'll add two more, in a second mirrored array.
 
How is it cheaper? Its $150 (diskless) + $70 (2TB HDD) + over $100 for a fast WiFi router. The 2GB Time Capsule costs $300.
Click to expand...
Most people already have a router of some type. If you were considering a time capsule instead of an Extreme plus NAS, then yes, it's cheaper. NAS has the advantage of easier to replace drives and RAID capability.

First backup and restores are best done via Ethernet, hourly backups do fine over wifi.
 
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