External hard drive TC? Questions

[cadairmanuk]

Good afternoon folk.

I'm looking for advise on what set up would suit my needs? As a family we currently have 4xiphones and 2xIpads also two windows laptops which are currently rammed with photos and music.. I was going to just buy a 1tb external harddrive and back everything up on that thus freeing space on the laptops. I was however looking at the time capsule and though would this be a better option. Could some one briefly explain how it works? I'm planning on buying a mac next year too. It would be great to access photos music and the like off my phone or ipad.

Thanks

Ben

 

[satcomer]

I have a Time Capsule and have a powered USB2 hub behind it. In the hub I have one 2 USB2 external (as a scratch drive & movie media drive) plugged in and a USB Printer plugged in. I set it up that anyone within the wireless network has access to the shared externals (off the time Capsule). And the Time Capsule internal disk I use as a backup for my laptop.

So far it has been working great and plan to add more externals for my main media drive.

The only caveat is using the TRUE wireless N channels (the highest number range in the wireless N range) to stream 1080 video without shuddering/lag.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Important to realize that you're not "backing up" the data if you're copying to an external HD and then deleting the data on the laptops.

Do you want a backup of the photos and music?

Also, I'm not sure I understand everything you'd like to be able to do and on which devices.

 

[satcomer]

One more thing to add. Make sure you look at the articles How to move an iTunes library to an external drive and the video about move iPhoto Library called How To Safely Move Your iPhoto Library to Another Hard Drive.