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Hardware/ Firmware is the real question for AEBS owners

I'm looking forward to someone tearing one of these open. If the Time Capsule uses the same USB device/ controller as in the AEBS, then we just need a firmware upgrade to get the AEBS to work with Time Machine and stable AirDisks. If it's a different controller, then I'll be taking me TWO AEBS's (one at work, one at home) back to the store and demanding store credit towards the TC's.

BTW- has anyone tried to return their Airport Extreme? Even though the "promises" to work with Time Machine were pulled pre-leopard and all product info was due to change, it still advertises as letting multiple machines use AirDisk and connect to a networked drive, which, by all accounts, doesn't work. My AirDisk is actually relatively stable- but relatively stable means that I restart my AEBS at LEAST once a day. I've just gotten used to it. I would say that it most definitely DOES NOT work as advertised and is a faulty product.

On a related note, since the TC works with external drives now, why would anyone buy the 1TB version? I know you can't transfer the TM files from one drive to another (though there are hints that SuperDuper might be able to do this), but I'd rather buy a cheaper 1TB external drive for TM of a couple machines and use the 500GB internal for file storage/ AirDisk access.
 
No Really...

Well thats good that Apple actually fulfilled their promise.

However, the first promise (When Steve Jobs announced Time Machine) was that we will be able to use our Airport-Extreme-N connected drives. Now Apple is selling "time capsule". I'm sure that if Time Capsule "doesn't fly" they will get back to the initial idea as promised...
 
Well, if you have a couple of laptops you can use the same drive for backing up both machines. Why would you want to have a laptop tethered to an external drive and left on 24/7 in case the other laptop wants to backup.

There are reasons for network backups. Just because you don't have a need doesn't mean nobody else does.



Well no kidding, but it's not just a drive, it's a networked drive. Do some price comparisons for network drives and see for yourself how much they cost.

Well said!

Why is it that lately this forum is filled with people that are so negative about anything that does not suit their exact (perceived) needs.
And posters who don't know what the hell they are talking about and refuse to or can't read the specs. :confused:

Time capsule is a really good (not perfect but nothing is) piece of kit. It is very fairly priced and does exactly what it was intended to do. For laptop owners especially it is the only real logical way to go if you want to use Time machine.

Come on people do the math...a nice network drive plus a really good WiFi hub for these prices is a deal any way you look at it. :D
 
I love Apple and am generally an apologist for almost every action they take that folks complain about. However, they screwed Airport Extreme Base Station customers on this one (including me), because they were explicit in their advertising that this would work. If Time Machine works to Time Capsule, it should work to a USB-attached AEBS drive.

I totally agree...

I just posted the same comment a few minutes ago... Steve Jobs announced that you will be able to use Time Machine on AEBS-n and now Apple is selling Time-capsule...

As I mentioned before... I'm sure that if TC doesn't fly they will put this functionality on AEBS as announced before...
 
Why is it that lately this forum is filled with people that are so negative about anything that does not suit their exact (perceived) needs.
And posters who don't know what the hell they are talking about and refuse to or can't read the specs. :confused:

Time Capsule is nice, the problem that some of us face is that we paid for AEBS hoping to be able to connect wirelessly to our USB HDD, and it is NOT working as advertised, nor as the tech specs/features offer.:mad:
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how to roll a joint
 
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Time Capsule is nice, the problem that some of us face is that we paid for AEBS hoping to be able to connect wirelessly to our USB HDD, and it is NOT working as advertised, nor as the tech specs/features offer.:mad:

Yeah, there's loads of us who are PO'd at the AEBS/TM problems. Even without TM, if I try to connect to my AirDisks, my AEBS stops functioning altogether and needs to be rebooted. I am starting to think that if Apple doesn't fix AirDisk soon, never mind TM to AirDisk, I might get a refurb or second-hand mini and use that as a home media hub/TM server/:apple:TV-like device.
 
Time Capsule is nice, the problem that some of us face is that we paid for AEBS hoping to be able to connect wirelessly to our USB HDD, and it is NOT working as advertised, nor as the tech specs/features offer.:mad:

On that point I completely agree and understand the frustrations.
It really does diminish the power and usefulness of Time Machine for many users.....moi included!
The dark side of Apple shows it's ugly face again :(

But I was responding to the topic of Time Capsule which in and of itself is a good product IMHO.
 
Why is no one talking about the fact that Apple didn't actually put an Enterprise grade HD in the machine?
...
Notice the DeskStar Label? It's the consumer variant of the UltraStar drive and of course significantly cheaper.

I was waiting on the initial teardown reports and official reviews before taking the plunge, but now am a little skeptical of buying it if Apple isn't being truthful about whats actually being used inside.

Holy crap - this is clearly false advertising and should open Apple up for lawsuits.

From the HGST website http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/DF2EF568E18716F5862572C20067A757/$file/Ultrastar_A7K1000_final_DS.pdf :

"...based on the popular Deskstar™ E7K500, the Ultrastar A7K1000 continues to set the standard in enterprise-class reliability and performance..."​

Hitachi has a "server class" (Ultrastar) and "consumer grade" (Deskstar) drives, and Apple is using the consumer grade Deskstar drives. Newegg is selling the Deskstar 1TB for $240 and the Ultrastar for $320...

Newegg comparison of Deskstar and Ultrastar

Wow. This should be a page one story by itself.
 
There seems to be a lot of confusion in what you can and cannot do with Time Capsule.

I think it would be a great idea for someone to assemble a FAQ for the product?
 
I'd rather just be able to have my backups sent to my server. I don't know why apple has to force us to buy a product in order to backup to other devices on our networks.

I'd also be happier if they sold time capsule as a shell so I can use my own hard drive.
 
From today's Apple web page on the TC: (in regards to Apple shipping desktop rather than server grade HD in TC)
 

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Wow.. I cant believe they are using consumer level products after advertising server-grade. I have to reconsider if I want my order still. Im annoyed now!

AidenShaw is absolutely right... I have seen plenty of server-grade drives fail under normal to moderate use.
 
Power input? 110-220V?

Just a question regarding the Time Capsule:

My Linksys b router sucks big time (has to be rebooted about 10 times daily, not even exaggerating), so I was thinking about replacing it with a Time Capsule.

However, I currently live in North-Am. but I'll probably move to Europe in a few months and I don't want to buy it now if it's not going to work over there without a huge power converter box thing.

So does anyone know if all I need is an adapter for the plug (meaning the TC can handle around a power input of 110 to 240V like the iPod and computer chargers), or do I need a power converter (not sure what you call them) as well to use the TC in Europe?

I'll buy it in the US if all I need is a plug adapter to get a few months of reliable wireless connection and to save a few bucks. Thank you record-low USD (at least from my point of view...)

Thanks!
 
Holy crap - this is clearly false advertising and should open Apple up for lawsuits.

From the HGST website http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/DF2EF568E18716F5862572C20067A757/$file/Ultrastar_A7K1000_final_DS.pdf :

"...based on the popular Deskstar™ E7K500, the Ultrastar A7K1000 continues to set the standard in enterprise-class reliability and performance..."​

Hitachi has a "server class" (Ultrastar) and "consumer grade" (Deskstar) drives, and Apple is using the consumer grade Deskstar drives. Newegg is selling the Deskstar 1TB for $240 and the Ultrastar for $320...

Newegg comparison of Deskstar and Ultrastar

Wow. This should be a page one story by itself.

Yeah... that sucks. I was looking to get the 1TB TC for all of the other computers in my house. I have an iMac G5 (160GB) 24" iMac (500GB) and soon to be MacBook Air (probably 80GB... hopefully 64GB) that can all be backed up to TC without any hassles...

Without a trust worthy drive, what's the point of trying to keep a safe backup copy? Why is Apple screwing up so much nowadays?
 
Yeah... that sucks. I was looking to get the 1TB TC for all of the other computers in my house. I have an iMac G5 (160GB) 24" iMac (500GB) and soon to be MacBook Air (probably 80GB... hopefully 64GB) that can all be backed up to TC without any hassles...

Without a trust worthy drive, what's the point of trying to keep a safe backup copy? Why is Apple screwing up so much nowadays?

Conversation has moved here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/445606/
 
My only issue with stopping the use of SuperDuper in favor of Time Machine as opposed to using them in parallel is the fact that Time Machine does not create a bootable back-up. If a catastrophic drive failure happened you would be SOL until you could hook up yet another external drive, reload OS X on it from scratch, then restore using Time Machine. I realize this is not in the scope of the main function that Time Machine was designed to perform (i.e. backups to comprehensively track and store multiple file versions) yet it is a reason to still use a solution such as SuperDuper just in case.

You're definitely right about the need of a full backup. But I've never found the need to reboot from anything other than the restore CD. In my cases, just replacing the data has been enough, which is what the TM offers.
 
Shipping from...

China? This is the first time that my Apple order has originated from China. Am I naive here, or does this mean they're having to hustle to fill orders?
 
Time Capsule is nice, the problem that some of us face is that we paid for AEBS hoping to be able to connect wirelessly to our USB HDD, and it is NOT working as advertised, nor as the tech specs/features offer.:mad:

I will agree that TM not working with the AEBS is annoying but if you bought an AEBS before Leopard was released then you have no one to blame but yourself. Yes wireless backups were a feature that many people anticipated and possibly bought AEBS's because of but you should have waited to see what the final build of Leopard included. The AEBS is still a great piece of hardware to have.
 
I will agree that TM not working with the AEBS is annoying but if you bought an AEBS before Leopard was released then you have no one to blame but yourself. Yes wireless backups were a feature that many people anticipated and possibly bought AEBS's because of but you should have waited to see what the final build of Leopard included. The AEBS is still a great piece of hardware to have.

I bought it before Leopard, in my case it doesn't matter because the feature I can't use is the AirDisk. My USB HDD can't mount nor connect to my MacBook.
And I'm not the only one experiencing this.

Also there are some others that bought the AEBS because during the Leopard Announcement and their +300 new features, one of them was that Time Machine was supposed to work with AirDisk.
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Hahaha how are you supposed to backup the MacBook Air then? It's got no ethernet. Good going, Steve.

Hey - give us a break my man. MBA has WiFi and a USB2-to-Ethernt adapter. I backed up my MBA without issues today using a TC 500gig model. No problems seen and went as smooth as a babies bottom. :D
 
me still thinks this is waste of money....what is so difficult about plugging your External Drive onto your USB or Firewire? 500gb external USB drives cost around $120 and if 1TB ATA drive prices fall, you can just buy the drive and replace it in the external closure.

of course, that voids the warranty for external drive but i thought warranties for those external drives were useless since you can't get back what you lost during the damage anyway.

I guess if you have no airport extreme then $299 for 500GB is reasonable but noway in earth $499 for 1TB is reasonable.

A retail version of the TC's internal 1 TB HDD known as HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000 HDS721010KLA330 will run you around $300 to $375 today. Now if Apple has applied some form of firmware upgrade for this drive then it would cost even more. This makes the $499 for the 1 TB TC seem more reasonable to me.
 
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