Time Capsule? LaCie? Others??!

[makeminemaudlin]

So, I got a Time Capsule 500GB for Christmas to replace my 250GB LaCie Porsche drive that crashed last month. In that crash, I lost absolutely all my media. The LaCie I had was connected to my Mac Mini via FireWire, and I used it for about 3 years without a problem. My question is, is the Time Capsule too much for my needs? I basically want to extend the capacity of my desktop to accomodate my need for space. But when I got the LaCie I only had a desktop, and now I also own a MacBook Pro, which has only my photographs on it, but none of my music or movies. I'm pretty technologically illiterate, so all the reviews I have read of the Time Capsule kinda go in one ear and out the other. I don't know what 802.11 is or why it's important.

So, is the Time Capsule too much? Could I use it to access my media libraries on both machines on my home network? Or, should I go with a LaCie Rugged drive, or maybe a Passport-type drive that I can move between the two? I don't print from home. I already have a wireless router. What good would keeping the Time Capsule do?

Thanks for your time!

 

[mrparet]

Time Capsule is meant to work hand-in-hand with Time Machine, an automatic backup feature on OS X Leopard. Time Capsule is basically a wireless router--it will allow your computers to have wireless access to the internet--plus a hard drive. This combination is useful especially with laptops because it allows a user to do wireless backups using Time Machine. Also, you can use one Time Capsule to backup all of your Macs.

So, the hard drive in Time Capsule is meant for Time Machine backups. I am not sure if you can use this hard drive for other data storage (i.e. your photos), however. The best way to find out is to call Apple. If they tell you that the Time Capsule must be used for backups, and if backups aren't important to you, you may want to consider returning it. From this point, you can buy an AirPort Extreme or an AirPort Express (these are wireless routers without hard drives built it) and connect your own hard drive to it with a USB cable. I know for a fact that this setup will allow you to share the files on the hard drives with all the computers connected to it. If Apple tells you that you can do general data storage on the Time Capsule, you should be able to share those files with all the other computers connected to it.

Time Capsule is a great piece of technology and to be given one is great. If you cannnot use it for general data storage, you should at least consider using it for backups.

 

[natebookpro]

Time capsule can be used as a network drive, it will show up in finder and you can use it like any other drive. I would keep it, especially after losing all my stuff in a hd crash. It's nice knowing everything is backed up hourly without any intervention.

 

[makeminemaudlin]

But the thing is, I don't really have anything on my computer that I want to back up. I have a 60 gig HD in the mini. It's what I kept on the external that I was worried about losing, and if I use the TC as an external, I don't see how that would deal with that.

 

[natebookpro]

It wouldn't deal with that. But you can plug a USB drive into time capsule and hit archive and it will copy everything off the time capsule onto the USB drive. You can get a USB drive for very cheap as an insurance policy. Just a thought....

 

[eleven59]

im using mine to keep extra copies of my itunes media content as an extra layer of back-up protection. i am not using it at all for time machine. just so that you know