New Time Capsule?

[Ellen]

I am buying a new Macbook Pro and am trying to decide if I should upgrade my Time Capsule at the same time.

I bought it in April 2011 and it still works - and as far as the router goes I get good speed in my apt. (use it on bridge mode with FIOS modem).

But since the new MBP's permit faster througkhput, is there a reason to spend the $299 and upgrade now? After 3 years would my Time Capsule be approaching the end of its useful like?

I'm not looking to waste money but also don't want to have problems down the road.

If anyone has done the same I would welcome hearing from you! Ellen

 

[Weaselboy]

Are you buying the Retina MBP? That model does have the faster 802.11ac support, so a new Time Capsule would take advantage of that faster connection.

However, this won't speed up your wireless Internet connection as it is unlikely your current 802.11n TC connection would even be saturated by Internet traffic.

The new AC wifi speeds would give you faster speeds within your local network like when copying files or backing up wirelessly to the TC.

If that local speed bump does not interest you, I would just keep the 2011 TC until it dies if it is working for you.

 

[Ellen]

Thanks, yes I'm getting the Retina MPB.

I was curious about the life span of the TC's since I remember that the first one I had was a model with a lot of problems and folks were seeing fails at 18 months or so. My current one has been fine but for an issue a year ago when there was an issue with my laptop booting up and TC was also unable to do a full restore (after that I reset it). But since then it's all been OK.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks, yes I'm getting the Retina MPB.

I was curious about the life span of the TC's since I remember that the first one I had was a model with a lot of problems and folks were seeing fails at 18 months or so. My current one has been fine but for an issue a year ago when there was an issue with my laptop booting up and TC was also unable to do a full restore (after that I reset it). But since then it's all been OK.

I remember those early models were dying all over the place. There was even a web site someone started that tracked the failures. It seems like Apple figured out the weak point since then because I have not seen any widespread reports of failures. The new tower model with AC wireless is a complete redesign, so hopefully we are past this.

I have the new tower AC Time Capsule since they first came out and I am happy with it.

 

[Ellen]

Thanks, I am wondering whether I should start clean with the new MBP since my current Time Capsule is out of warranty and I'll be getting AppleCare.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks, I am wondering whether I should start clean with the new MBP since my current Time Capsule is out of warranty and I'll be getting AppleCare.

That is not a bad idea so you end up with Applecare covering the TC also.

 

[Arran]

My guess is that a 2011 time capsule is good for another couple of years. Just last week I retired a 2008 TC (original model) that's been handling hourly backups for six solid years. It still works fine today, but I wanted to retire it before it fails.

That said, if you do buy a new TC you can still keep the old one on your network and have your Mac alternately backup to each one. First backup goes to TC-Old, 2nd backup goes to TC-New, 3rd backup goes to TC-Old, 4th to TC-New, etc.

It means that if one TC dies and you don't notice it (or if it's disk is corrupted) the other TC will still have an up-to-date backup.

 

[Ellen]

Thanks. I think if I retire the old one I'll just hold on to it in case something happens to the new one - I too want to replace the current one before it fails tho I don't know the lifespan of the one I have.