How reliable is the Time Capsule?

[Ieziebie]

Hi,

I'm in doubt. I need some extra disk space and would also like to switch to an Apple product for my wireless network (too many disconnects on my Linksys router)

This leaves me with two options:

1. Airport Extreme with USB disk attached (later maybe a Synology NAS or the likes).

2. Time Capsule that would be expandable with an USB drive or NAS later on.

The disk would be used mainly for movie streaming to a media player (how easy is this?)

However, I'm hearing/reading quite a lot of horror stories about Time Capsules being failure prone. Power supplies dieing sooner or later.....

How reliable are they really? What solution would be the better one?

Thanks....

 

[androiphone]

because the time machine is only one hard disc then you definitely cannot use it to backup if that disc is going to hold the only copy of the file,

an airport extreme and a NAS would be a better solution both for data redundancy and also because it would support things like DLNA without having to have your computer on as a 'middle man' between the time machine and the device.

ps if you haven't already see if your linksys router has an available firmware update, it might solve your dropouts and save you ~£100 in the process.

 

[r0k]

Hi,

I'm in doubt. I need some extra disk space and would also like to switch to an Apple product for my wireless network (too many disconnects on my Linksys router)

This leaves me with two options:

1. Airport Extreme with USB disk attached (later maybe a Synology NAS or the likes).

2. Time Capsule that would be expandable with an USB drive or NAS later on.

The disk would be used mainly for movie streaming to a media player (how easy is this?)

However, I'm hearing/reading quite a lot of horror stories about Time Capsules being failure prone. Power supplies dieing sooner or later.....

How reliable are they really? What solution would be the better one?

Thanks....

My first gen TC died right on schedule at 18 months. Apple replaced it but my data was already gone. I own a NAS and a TC and I also use Crashplan. I don't take any chances with my data.

 

[Primejimbo]

My first gen TC died right on schedule at 18 months. Apple replaced it but my data was already gone. I own a NAS and a TC and I also use Crashplan. I don't take any chances with my data.

I have a TC and soon i'll get a 2TB and back up to that also. I am not sold on having someone having all my personal data on their site.

 

[flynz4]

I have a TC and soon i'll get a 2TB and back up to that also. I am not sold on having someone having all my personal data on their site.

IMHO, It is an unfounded fear. The data is securely encrypted on your own machine before it ever leaves your house. An attack on your own home network would be infinitely easier to accomplish than an attack on your encrypted backup data in the cloud.

/Jim

 

[Primejimbo]

IMHO, It is an unfounded fear. The data is securely encrypted on your own machine before it ever leaves your house. An attack on your own home network would be infinitely easier to accomplish than an attack on your encrypted backup data in the cloud.

/Jim

True, it would be easier to attack me, but who would a attacker go after, 1 or hundreds in 1 place?
Also look at all these companies out there messing up and personal data getting out there.

 

[Ieziebie]

Ok, I'm leaning more towards airport extreme with a NAS.

My Linksys has the latest firmware. Every now and then it drops. Incredibly annoying. Especially during youtube watching and streaming movies to my media player.

 

[flynz4]

True, it would be easier to attack me, but who would a attacker go after, 1 or hundreds in 1 place?
Also look at all these companies out there messing up and personal data getting out there.

The distrust of them managing your personal data is where the misplaced fears lie. Online backup is nothing like the companies that have access and control of your personal data (ex: banks, hospitals, stock trading, etc). With cloud backup, you own and manage the key. The key never leaves your personal machine. You encrypt the data on your own machine. You only send them highly encrypted data. 448b blowfish encryption will not be cracked even a century after you turn to dust.

The benefits of cloud backup are so significant that they greatly outweigh any possible risk.

The emotional fear of cloud backup is a parallel of when banks were first formed, and people refused to deposit their money because they didn't understand that it was safer than their mattress.

/Jim

 

[r0k]

The distrust of them managing your personal data is where the misplaced fears lie. Online backup is nothing like the companies that have access and control of your personal data (ex: banks, hospitals, stock trading, etc). With cloud backup, you own and manage the key. The key never leaves your personal machine. You encrypt the data on your own machine. You only send them highly encrypted data. 448b blowfish encryption will not be cracked even a century after you turn to dust.

The benefits of cloud backup are so significant that they greatly outweigh any possible risk.

The emotional fear of cloud backup is a parallel of when banks were first formed, and people refused to deposit their money because they didn't understand that it was safer than their mattress.

/Jim

You aren't telling me I have to take the money out of my mattress are you?!?

 

[Lennyvalentin]

True, it would be easier to attack me, but who would a attacker go after, 1 or hundreds in 1 place?

That's a valid concern, assuming the data isn't encrypted, which it almost certainly will be in a cloud solution, unless the service provider is completely incompetent.

As long as proper strong encryption is used then you could hand out your data to anyone and everyone and it wouldn't matter, as it would take thousands of years even with the most powerful supercomputers available today to crack it. Some encryption schemes have been cracked by distributed computing efforts using thousands of processors running for months, and that test used keys of about 60 bits in length. Each additional bit doubles complexity, so once you get into 256-plus bits territory we're talking almost astronomical timescales...

Also look at all these companies out there messing up and personal data getting out there.

Again not a problem if encryption is used.

Well, it's a problem obviously because it's an indicator the company you're using could be sloppy, but it won't harm you if the criminals are unable to decode your stuff.

 

[Acorn]

Ok, I'm leaning more towards airport extreme with a NAS.

My Linksys has the latest firmware. Every now and then it drops. Incredibly annoying. Especially during youtube watching and streaming movies to my media player.

I had this problem on my linksys router until i changed channels. I had to change the channel 2 or 3 times until i found a good one. Then all was good with the world.

 

[doobybiggs]

Why not go for another brand of external backup if these are having so many problems?

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I'm in the same boat. I just got an air, and I'm looking for a reliable backup solution. a 2TB time capsule looks nice, but it's pricy for what you get, and the reliability isn't where I'd like it to be.

I'm looking at getting a 2-disk Synology NAS from Newegg, throwing a 1TB drive in it for backup, and the largest drive I can find for holding my video collection on, for DLNA and such.

 

[Solublepeter]

I had this problem on my linksys router until i changed channels. I had to change the channel 2 or 3 times until i found a good one. Then all was good with the world.

Use the free "iStumbler" for your mac to see what other network traffic is nearby- this will help identify which channel will work best in your location (note that you should leave a few spare channels between your chosen one and any strong neighbouring sources, as they bleed into each other.)

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For what its worth I have had pretty lousy results backing up to a WD MyBook Live wirelessly using Time Machine, it only goes for a week of incremental backups before I need to back it all up again, and is prone to becoming stuck mid-backup.

Had it for three weeks, and not very impressed with the backing up so far, although it works fine for other uses around my network (the built in Twonky server is nice to have, then you need to use something like Plex on your Mac or Its Playing on iPad to play the different video formats)

I am a bit scared of all the reliability issues we hear about with Time Capsule and, although it was supposedly updated 6 months or so ago, Apple have had several previous attempts to get this right without managing to do so.

On the other hand, you are only going to hear from people it died on, not from those it worked well for.

Hmmmm, what to do...

 

[marzer]

How reliable are they really?

I bought the 2TB version in autumn of 2009, been running 24/7 ever since with no glitches or failures.