Time Capsule Help Setup/Questions

[zballer]

First newbie to Mac Networking. At home Apple products include 1-iMac, 2-MacBook Pro, 1 Macbook Air, 4-iPhones and HP printer all wireless networked with Verizon Fios Router. Having lag issues with internet and printer connectivity. House is three levels, whereas need connectivity at any given time.
Question: Am looking to purchase Time Capsule (3 TB) in hopes that this will extend the range and help with the connectivity issues plus a wireless backup for me. Have a external 3 TB connected to the iMac for backup with TimeMachine. None of the MacBooks have backup capabilities. Will this help with backing up just the MacBooks? Is this all I need?
Question: Would I need a Airport Express station on third and basement levels to help with the network connectivity, if the Time Capsule is located on the second level of the house?
Need a best setup before I go out and spend monies on product(s) that I would need or not need. Appreciate any help! Thanks for the time

 

[eduardrw]

People seem to be having problems setting the FIOS router in Bridge mode and letting the Time Capsule (TC) be the primary router. That would be the best configuration.

Second best in your case is to connect the TC via ethernet to the FIOS router. (connecting via WIFI to extend WIFI won't work between FIOS router and TC)
Depending on the material of your walls, you might be ok with just the TC.
Best result is putting the TC in the middle of the house.

If your walls are concrete, stone, etc. you may have to add additional Airport Express to the TC on the individual floors. Make sure to connect them via ethernet to the TC or FIOS router.
Extending TC with AE's via WIFI only works reliably if the TC is the main router - which it is not! See 1st paragraph.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4260?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

[Altemose]

First newbie to Mac Networking. At home Apple products include 1-iMac, 2-MacBook Pro, 1 Macbook Air, 4-iPhones and HP printer all wireless networked with Verizon Fios Router. Having lag issues with internet and printer connectivity. House is three levels, whereas need connectivity at any given time.
Question: Am looking to purchase Time Capsule (3 TB) in hopes that this will extend the range and help with the connectivity issues plus a wireless backup for me. Have a external 3 TB connected to the iMac for backup with TimeMachine. None of the MacBooks have backup capabilities. Will this help with backing up just the MacBooks? Is this all I need?
Question: Would I need a Airport Express station on third and basement levels to help with the network connectivity, if the Time Capsule is located on the second level of the house?
Need a best setup before I go out and spend monies on product(s) that I would need or not need. Appreciate any help! Thanks for the time

Verizon's FIOS equipment is very locked down in comparison to "vanilla" routers. Therefore, you probably won't get the FIOS router into Bridge Mode. Essentially, you would plug the Time Capsule into the FIOS router and disable the Wi-Fi on the FIOS router. Then add the Time Capsule to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) on the FIOS router. This may throw a "Double NAT" error but you can safely dismiss it.

If you centrally locate the Time Capsule and the home is not of signal blocking material, you may be fine with just the one TC. If necessary, you can add more base stations like an Extreme or Express over Ethernet or wireless. The downfall to wireless extension is that you cut the bandwidth in half when you do that and you must have a good enough connection to begin with. If you must use wireless extension, ensure the Express is in a location where it gets good signal. A lot of people mistake this and stick it at the edge of the home where it gasps for signal off the TC and they still have poor performance but see "full bars".