Hi folks,
I'm new here so please, be gentle. I'm new to the world of mac. I got an iMac a couple months ago and have become a convert. So much so, that my girlfriend now wants to get a macbook. We have an ipod touch and over the next few months will have an iphone (hers) and an ipad (mine). Given all of these new devices and such, I want to set up a simple home network so we can each access everything without being dependent on the others computer. For instance, she will want to play with the pictures we have on the iMac when I'm not home but will want to use her macbook when I'm using the iMac.
I currently have all of our media (500+GB worth) on an external HDD attached to the iMac USB and our documents are saved on the iMac HDD. From what I've been reading, the simplest way to handle all of this would be to keep all of the media (movies/music/etc) on a Time Capsule 2TB and manually backup from time to time using an additional 2TB external HDD plugged into the Time Capsule USB. Then for backing up the iMac and Macbook where our documents live, simply use Time Machine to back up to the Time Capsule.
Given all of that, does this seem like a good way to set all of this up? Is there a simpler (and cheaper) way for both iMac and Macbook to access all of the same media while being able to have everything backed up as well? I'm a little concerned about the short lifespan of TC's I've been reading about but hopefully that's an issue that's been resolved.
In a perfect world, we would be able to keep everything (all media and documents) saved on the time capsule then use time machine to backup to the external HDD plugged into the Time Capsule USB, though I'm not sure that's possible.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hoped the Airport Extreme would be the way to go since it's cheaper but I've read you cannot use time machine to backup to an external HDD on that without some "maneuvering" so just wanted to avoid that since I'm no expert by any stretch.
Thanks again.
I'm new here so please, be gentle. I'm new to the world of mac. I got an iMac a couple months ago and have become a convert. So much so, that my girlfriend now wants to get a macbook. We have an ipod touch and over the next few months will have an iphone (hers) and an ipad (mine). Given all of these new devices and such, I want to set up a simple home network so we can each access everything without being dependent on the others computer. For instance, she will want to play with the pictures we have on the iMac when I'm not home but will want to use her macbook when I'm using the iMac.
I currently have all of our media (500+GB worth) on an external HDD attached to the iMac USB and our documents are saved on the iMac HDD. From what I've been reading, the simplest way to handle all of this would be to keep all of the media (movies/music/etc) on a Time Capsule 2TB and manually backup from time to time using an additional 2TB external HDD plugged into the Time Capsule USB. Then for backing up the iMac and Macbook where our documents live, simply use Time Machine to back up to the Time Capsule.
Given all of that, does this seem like a good way to set all of this up? Is there a simpler (and cheaper) way for both iMac and Macbook to access all of the same media while being able to have everything backed up as well? I'm a little concerned about the short lifespan of TC's I've been reading about but hopefully that's an issue that's been resolved.
In a perfect world, we would be able to keep everything (all media and documents) saved on the time capsule then use time machine to backup to the external HDD plugged into the Time Capsule USB, though I'm not sure that's possible.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I hoped the Airport Extreme would be the way to go since it's cheaper but I've read you cannot use time machine to backup to an external HDD on that without some "maneuvering" so just wanted to avoid that since I'm no expert by any stretch.
Thanks again.