Time Capsule in small office with Mac and PC

[statikcat]

I am getting request to help setup a Time Capsule purchased by a local office of 2 Macs and 2 PCs. My first question is..

I know you can use the Time Capsule to extend the wireless network of an Apple router (Airport or whatever) but will it also do this easily with an office router? This particular office does not have any access to their router .. it is an "office router".

Second obviously the Macs can use Time Machine. I assume I can mount this as a network drive on a Windows 7 machine. Then they can either manually backup files like a regular file server or use Windows Backup and Restore schedule. Will this be a problem since the Time Capsule drive is probably formatted for Mac?

Thanks!

 

[maflynn]

For backups you may be better suited with a NAS since you're looking to backup up multiple computers and different platforms. I think what you're trying to do may not be all that viable with TC. I'm not sure how successful you can manually backup your PCs. Are you talking about people manually dragging files over to the TC?

What happens if there's a failure with the PC and the user only dragged over 5 out of 50 spreadsheets? A more comprehensive backup policy and solution may be safer.

 

[statikcat]

Yes, I believe with Airport for PC installed the Windows computer should be able to read Time Capsule as a file server to function similar to a NAS. Then Windows users can manually backup their files while OSx users can rely on Time Machine. I have read of people using it like this online but without much information to back it up.

 

[maflynn]

Ok, but that still doesn't mitigate the risk of manual backups, i.e., losing data because the person forgot to drag and drop the data or they don't manually drag and drop their data often enough

 

[statikcat]

Can a Time Capsule extend the wifi of a network that you have no control over? I mean obviously the office has the network password. Is that all the Time Capsule needs to extend the wifi? Then the computers would connect to the Time Capsule for internet and attached hard drive, printer, etc.

----------

You are right it does not. You can setup weekly schedule of Windows Backup and Restore to a file server though. It doesn't let you retrieve files like Time Machine but would be helpful in the case of a hard drive crash.

 

[maflynn]

Sounds like you have it fully vetted out. Good luck

 

[satcomer]

I am getting request to help setup a Time Capsule purchased by a local office of 2 Macs and 2 PCs. My first question is..

I know you can use the Time Capsule to extend the wireless network of an Apple router (Airport or whatever) but will it also do this easily with an office router? This particular office does not have any access to their router .. it is an "office router".

Second obviously the Macs can use Time Machine. I assume I can mount this as a network drive on a Windows 7 machine. Then they can either manually backup files like a regular file server or use Windows Backup and Restore schedule. Will this be a problem since the Time Capsule drive is probably formatted for Mac?

Thanks!

You would be better off with a Synology NAS in a small office.