A huge failure on behalf of the modern router companies whose devices are indeed better than Apple's own, is that their designs still aren't simple and elegant. All feature rows of obnoxious LEDs and LCDs. None have come to realize Apple's one, small indicator light is all that's needed.
iOS devices can’t backup to Airport/Time Capsule on their own, and iCloud sync isn’t a replacement for Time Machine, so nope.Time Machines cut into profits from iCloud backup plans. Easier to discontinue the product line than push out an update that removes the feature.
That's over AFP, not SMB2. TM over AFP has been deprecated by Apple.I always recommend synology routers over other brands as the updates come thick and fast it's the most stable router I have used and the signal strength and quality us insane. Plus you can add synology add ons for more functionality. If you attach a hard drive and configure correctly as time machine it appears as an available back up drive. To be fair I dont use it for that as I also have a synology nas which I do use for time machine.
The 2.4 GHz band is dead anyway if you have neighbours.The only downside to using a USB drive on a router is if its USB 3 it can Interfere with the 2.4ghz channel synology add a virtual switch to downgrade to usb2 to avoid that.
Asus RT-AC68U, Netgear R7000P, or even a QNAP or other NAS will support Time Machine.This has probably been answered already but one of my main reasons for using the AirPort Extreme is the benefit of being able to attach an external HD to it and use it as a poor-man's NAS, are there other routers that allow this nowadays?
The bad capacitors is hardly an "Apple" thing. Dozens, if not hundreds, of manufacturers of electronic gear of all sorts got caught up in the bootleg capacitor snafu.2832. Airports are lovely if you want something simple and straight forward with minimal features. But that’s it.
As for rock solid you must mean software those expiring capacitors on the time capsules were quite a problem on the hardware side.
This is getting more popular now that samba supports Time Machine natively, and you don't have to install Netatalk to support time machine on an open source platform. I imagine most products will be able to support Time Machine now, if they choose to."Apple's AirPort base stations provided some unique benefits that are not available through third-party options like built-in Time Machine backup support in the Time Capsule"
My Asus Wi-Fi router actually supports remote time machine to a hard drive plugged into it.
You make some very good points. Interesting post.Because Apple Router was never designed with performance in mind. Nor was it designed to offer the best coverage. It was designed to be Stable, an Appliance that you didn't even know it exists. It wasn't based on Linux, it was NetBSD. The WAN Port was kept at 300Mbps, despite it is a 1Gbps Port. Port to Port LAN speed wasn't top notch either, it didn't do 900Mbps as other router tries to do. It did that so the CPU and overall system won't push to the limit and overheat or what other edge case happened.
I think only Eero comes close to ease of use and stability. Apple could have made its own Apple router. The thing about an Apple Router is that it is tested against all of Apple devices. You don't get this something silly mistake Router and devices not working in perfect harmony and requires a firmware upgrade.
I really wanted an Apple router. The mesh Router market offer the margin that Apple is happy to operate in, and not a race to the bottom. And yet Apple decide to quit.
I still think it make sense to have an Apple TV with Router function. That way the Apple TV streaming services get the QoS it needs. It will be like an Airport Express with Apple TV built in.
And dozens, didn't.The bad capacitors is hardly an "Apple" thing. Dozens, if not hundreds, of manufacturers of electronic gear of all sorts got caught up in the bootleg capacitor snafu.
That's more of a function of the luck of the draw of the supply chain used by each company's Contract Manufacturer than anything else.And dozens, didn't.
Yeah, probably not.That's more of a function of the luck of the draw of the supply chain used by each company's Contract Manufacturer than anything else.
And you should know that.
The only time I'm aware of Time Machine 'prompting' is to ask if you want to use the plugged in external drive, to do backups.
So, you're seeing the prompt literally because you've plugged in something you can use to do backups with.
Ah yes, of course... 400 days is quite the achievement.Not entirely true. If you set up TM and then stop using it, you'll get bugged via notification popups. My wife had one pop up on her MacBook that said like 400 days. (I gave her grief about it)
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As I pointed out previously, do some research on Mac owners having difficulty using NAS drives for Time Machine backups. I gave up trying to get a Western Digital My Home NAS drive to work as a TM server and a simple data server (it seems to need a internet connection which sought of defeats the purpose of a local cloud device).Asus RT-AC68U, Netgear R7000P, or even a QNAP or other NAS will support Time Machine.
Yeah, well, I have spec'ed plenty of parts, too in my life. So, I know how it works. These caps were NOT employed outside of their design-spec. They were DEFECTIVE. MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF THEM. Didn't matter if you put a 105C cap in a 70C application, or a 35V cap in a 15V application, they STILL FAILED. THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE APPARANTELY NOT GETTING!!!Yeah, probably not.
As a product manufacturer, I have the choice to order consumer grade, military grade or whatever else grade components for my machine.
It is up to me what I choose and I very likely know up front what the MTBF or anything else is before I use these components.
I also have the option to design in overhead to try and account for problems like this.
The Apple way of making everything thin and then throttle like crazy indicates that this is something they might not be doing.
Have you actually tried this? I ran into tons of issues with Samba running out of "SMB2 credits" (which means that macOS kept sending commands without permission from the server), making initial backups take multiple days instead of hours.
And don't even ask about all the update notifications. It's sobering to help a non-tech family member every once in a while and realize that a lot of users just the notifications that folks here would act on immediately. I'm surprised Apple doesn't make the super important ones red or something.Ah yes, of course... 400 days is quite the achievement.
Time Machines cut into profits from iCloud backup plans. Easier to discontinue the product line than push out an update that removes the feature.