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cdd543

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 13, 2006
277
27
Denver
I picked up the new 2TB model yesterday and so far I'm not impressed. The range seems very similar to my version 5 AE which I dumped due to not having good range and speed dropoff. Also--does the TC have any sort of built in QOS so when these backups are running it throttles bandwidth? I have three mac's in my house and two were running backups and it totally killed my ability to use the internet. Even with just one backup running it's quite slow(105mbps connection). Not feeling like it's worth $300 at this moment.
 
We love our new TC and Extreme combo. Our rMBPs stay in book arcs and are connected to TC via Ethernet. The wifi is for our iPads and iPhones...and AirPlay to the Marantz receiver, altec lancing inair speakers, and the AppleTV.


I wonder if you would see an improvement if your Macs were using 802.11ac?
 
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We love our new TC and Extreme combo. Our rMBPs stay in book arcs and are connected to TC via Ethernet. The wifi is for our iPads and iPhones...and AirPlay to the Marantz receiver, altec lancing inair speakers, and the AppleTV.


I wonder if you would see an improvement if your Macs were using 802.11ac?

Yeah I'm not sure, but with the wifi issues with the new air, I don't think I'm willing to try.
 
good question. initial backups to a new TC can be large and take a long time depending on the size of the user libraries..etc. But incremental backups are usually not noticeable.

Do initial backups and any restores via ethernet. ;)
 
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I picked up the new 2TB model yesterday and so far I'm not impressed. The range seems very similar to my version 5 AE which I dumped due to not having good range and speed dropoff. Also--does the TC have any sort of built in QOS so when these backups are running it throttles bandwidth? I have three mac's in my house and two were running backups and it totally killed my ability to use the internet. Even with just one backup running it's quite slow(105mbps connection). Not feeling like it's worth $300 at this moment.

I have both gens and are very happy with the range of the new AE, although I supplement it with two expresses.

It has no QOS.

Also I wouldn't be too concerned about the TC backup. You get the initial 5 hour backup but after that they only take a minute or so.
 
I bought both a new (Gen 6) TC and a Extreme.

The Extreme has a MUCH stronger signal, and better coverage than the TC.
However the new TC is better than my old (Gen3 TC 1TB)
And the new extreme is MUCH better than the TC & much better than my Gen 5. Extreme.

I am using the TC as my base and the extreme as an extension (connected via ethernet) and I am going to use my Gen 5 Extreme as a repeater for my upstairs. (Haven't done that so far, or i might just sell my Gen. on Ebay.)

The TC is good, but the Extreme is absolutely amazing.

My signal on my main floor of my house is incredibly strong, and my upstairs is now signal wise as strong as my downstairs use to be.
 
I bought both a new (Gen 6) TC and a Extreme.

The Extreme has a MUCH stronger signal, and better coverage than the TC.
However the new TC is better than my old (Gen3 TC 1TB)
And the new extreme is MUCH better than the TC & much better than my Gen 5. Extreme.

I am using the TC as my base and the extreme as an extension (connected via ethernet) and I am going to use my Gen 5 Extreme as a repeater for my upstairs. (Haven't done that so far, or i might just sell my Gen. on Ebay.)

The TC is good, but the Extreme is absolutely amazing.

My signal on my main floor of my house is incredibly strong, and my upstairs is now signal wise as strong as my downstairs use to be.

Why would the new TC be worse than the new AEBS? They are both the same, except the TC has a hard drive.
 
Why would the new TC be worse than the new AEBS? They are both the same, except the TC has a hard drive.

Yea, thats what I thought too, but it seems I am not alone with this.

Others are reporting the same thing, its not that the TC is bad, its definitely better than my old TC. But it might just be the Airport Extreme is just phenomenal.

Possibly since the power supply isn't powering a hard drive, it has more power for signal? (just taking a wild stab)

I bought the TC first and after I upgraded it, i noticed a stronger signal.
(Wow factor of 3-4)

After I upgraded the Airport Extreme I was blown away how much better it was. (Wow factor of 9-10).

If they come up with a firmware update for the TC to improve things great.
If not I am over "extremely" happy with the units.
 
You get a chance to hook it up over gigabit ethernet and see what the wired reads and writes to the capsule drive are? I usually have mine hooked up wired to a MP and wireless to the rest of the house. Just curious if they improved the throughput on the drive over wired conneciton any since the last model.
 
Yea, thats what I thought too, but it seems I am not alone with this.

Others are reporting the same thing, its not that the TC is bad, its definitely better than my old TC. But it might just be the Airport Extreme is just phenomenal.

Possibly since the power supply isn't powering a hard drive, it has more power for signal? (just taking a wild stab)

I bought the TC first and after I upgraded it, i noticed a stronger signal.
(Wow factor of 3-4)

After I upgraded the Airport Extreme I was blown away how much better it was. (Wow factor of 9-10).

If they come up with a firmware update for the TC to improve things great.
If not I am over "extremely" happy with the units.

Just curious if you have your TC and AEBS 2.4 and 5ghz channels set to auto or if you manually set them. Wonder if there is some conflict there.
 
Just curious if you have your TC and AEBS 2.4 and 5ghz channels set to auto or if you manually set them. Wonder if there is some conflict there.

I set them myself, (tried several settings but currently on)
Flipped setting between the TC and AEBS , TC still weaker either way.

5Ghz - 161, 153
2.4 Ghz - 11, 8

No neighbors using 5 ghz at all.
2 weak signals on 2.4 ghz at channel 1 and channel 12.

My laptops are always connected to 5Ghz.


iStumbler shows a stronger signal reading always from the AEBS , wether i am 2,5,10, 20 ft away from either unit.
 
so i have my situation and i want to ask if- shall i go with Time capsule or just the Airport Extreme. I have my iMac/macbook/iphone/ipad in one room that are connected wireless, and a windows xp PC connected to my router wired in the other room . I have a d-link for over 4 years now, but i want to try the apple product. First question will be, does these new apple routers work with windows xp ? and a second one shall i go with time capsule or airport extreme.

PS: on wifi i have a connection of 15-20mbs from a 50mbs connection, any chance to improve that if i will buy AE or TC?

Thank you so much
 
I picked up the new extreme yesterday to replace (not broken) net gear R6300 802.11ac router. Coverage/range was about the same as the netgear along with throughput. However when I was copying files from my office mac to the USB-connected drive, the extreme crashed.

Okay, so I did a power reset and it restored. However it happened again. Returned the extreme for another one and could not believe it happened again. So I will return this extreme as well and just extend my network via ethernet to my other linksys E4200 router. Wanted to try the new express but it doesn't have ethernet GB and is not 3-stream 450mb.
 
Yea, thats what I thought too, but it seems I am not alone with this.

Others are reporting the same thing, its not that the TC is bad, its definitely better than my old TC. But it might just be the Airport Extreme is just phenomenal.

I wonder if a hard drive in there running creates some minor interference that impacts wifi reception?
 
I bought both a new (Gen 6) TC and a Extreme.

The Extreme has a MUCH stronger signal, and better coverage than the TC.
However the new TC is better than my old (Gen3 TC 1TB)
And the new extreme is MUCH better than the TC & much better than my Gen 5. Extreme.

I am using the TC as my base and the extreme as an extension (connected via ethernet) and I am going to use my Gen 5 Extreme as a repeater for my upstairs. (Haven't done that so far, or i might just sell my Gen. on Ebay.)

The TC is good, but the Extreme is absolutely amazing.

My signal on my main floor of my house is incredibly strong, and my upstairs is now signal wise as strong as my downstairs use to be.

Got any real numbers to back up these statements? You are making me question my choise of getting an tc instead of an extreme. Are the tc and extreme in the same place when testing the range? Objects around the tc could influence it. Would love it if you could provide some actual numbers/differences. Thanks :)
 
Got any real numbers to back up these statements? You are making me question my choise of getting an tc instead of an extreme. Are the tc and extreme in the same place when testing the range? Objects around the tc could influence it. Would love it if you could provide some actual numbers/differences. Thanks :)

Not to discount anything Jazwire is saying, but the new TC has pretty good wifi speeds. I did a test in this post. Much better than my previous gen. TC.
 
Not to discount anything Jazwire is saying, but the new TC has pretty good wifi speeds. I did a test in this post. Much better than my previous gen. TC.

I currently have a gen 5 tc, and range in the house isnt very good. I was wondering if a 6th gen would change this. Im just interested in howmutch of a difference there is between a tc and an extreme.
 
I have a 5th Gen TC also. One of my Apple TV's is just far enough away that it drops on WiFi from time to time. I'm wondering if the new Time Capsule has improved range on the older A/B/G/N standards.
 
I have a 5th Gen TC also. One of my Apple TV's is just far enough away that it drops on WiFi from time to time. I'm wondering if the new Time Capsule has improved range on the older A/B/G/N standards.

I did a completely unscientific test by walking down the street away from my house with my iPhone on wifi to see how far until the signal dropped and I got much further away with the new tower TC than the last gen. I replaced. Probably 30-40% further away with a working wifi signal. I do think the newer antenna design has helped.
 
That sounds pretty promising, any way of doing a more scientific measurement? (Sorry for asking)

If you option click in the wifi menulet on OS X it will show signal levels, but I no longer have my old Time Capsule to compare, so it won't do you much good.
 
I've been trying out an extreme AP/TC (the newest one) and I'm going to return it. I need my backup to be separate from my router and my existing Dlink router, while not as fancy or as new as the AE, allows me a level of control and tweaking that I really do need. For $323 (incl tax) it was not worth the expense (for me).
 
Here are my results from my AEBS 4 and my new TC. The first 3 pics are of the AEBS 4 with 2.4 Ghz, 5Ghz abd istumbler results, followed for the same with the TC. Much better range with the new TC. Computer was in same location for both tests. In another room, downstairs from AEBS and TC.

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