Time Capsule or Airport Extreme?

[macswitcha2]

Would you buy a wireless 1TB Time Capsule for $150

or

a wireless Air Port Extreme for $130?

I have a chance to buy either for those prices.

However, I read better reviews in he Apple Store for the Airport Extreme than I do with the Time Capsule.

Is the TC the better choice?

 

[Miker2k]

If they are both equal as far as wireless capabilities then it comes down to the disk. Do you need the 1 TB disk or not? Are either of those simultaneous dual band (2.4 and 5)? If performance is your goal make sure you go dual band.

 

[skorpien]

That depends which models and what you are looking to do with it. Make sure that they're the newer models, at least with the capability to do simultaneous dual band. If you're looking to use the Time Capsule with Time Machine, that might be a better choice for you.

The reason you read better reviews for the AirPort Extreme is because the Time Capsule has (had?) a tendency to overheat and stop working. I'm not sure if the latest ones have had this issue resolved but just be aware that this might affect you down the line. This is also another reason to make sure it's the latest model as that is the one most likely to have that issue resolved.

My recommendation would be to get the AirPort Extreme, and if you require Time Machine backups, get a NAS that has Time Machine support.

 

[macswitcha2]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I'm looking towards the Airport Extreme but the story the seller gave me sounds fishy. He does not have the packaging but he says it's the latest and its brandnew.

He writes, "Part number MC340LL/A, Model #A1345)." 

 

[midloman]

Extreme or TC?

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I'm looking towards the Airport Extreme but the story the seller gave me sounds fishy. He does not have the packaging but he says it's the latest and its brandnew.

He writes, "Part number MC340LL/A, Model #A1345)."*

I just went through this dilemma. I ended up buying a refurb simultaneous dual-band Extreme from Apple for about $135 and added a Lacie 1 TB external drive (from MacMall) to it. Time Machine's been working great with that setup. Backups work wirelessly.

I had heard stories of external drives sometimes not cooperating with TM. One thing I had read was that the external drive should have its own power supply.

I went the Extreme route because I couldn't tell for sure if the past TC problems had been completely resolved.

Now I'm looking for a way to modify the Time Machine backup schedule to something other than every hour.

LT

 

[devan963]

I just went through this dilemma. I ended up buying a refurb simultaneous dual-band Extreme from Apple for about $135 and added a Lacie 1 TB external drive (from MacMall) to it. Time Machine's been working great with that setup. Backups work wirelessly.

I had heard stories of external drives sometimes not cooperating with TM. One thing I had read was that the external drive should have its own power supply.

I went the Extreme route because I couldn't tell for sure if the past TC problems had been completely resolved.

Now I'm looking for a way to modify the Time Machine backup schedule to something other than every hour.

LT

sudo nano /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto.plist

Change: 3600 in bold below to (desired seconds*60)
(1800 for 30 min etc.)

then Ctrl+X,
do you want to save? Y/n
Enter,
Done.

<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.apple.backupd-auto</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/System/Library/CoreServices/backupd.bundle/Contents/Re$
<string>-auto</string>
</array>
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>3600</integer>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<false/>
<key>KeepAlive</key>





DONT QUOTE ME, DONT BLAME ME

 

[Stoutman11]

heard nothing but bad things about the storage on the time capsule. I would stay away. i do have the airport extreme and it is a dream.

 

[sportster]

I tend to try to stay away from all in one bundled items. I would go with the airport extreme and add a usb drive to it. It then would pretty much be the same as a time capsule, but with expandability

 

[keaide]

I have asked myself the same questions these days. After reading in several mac and tech forums that the TC has issue with heat and stability (some even wrote that it's quite slow), I got the AE. Works great. I now may add a FireWire 2TB disc for time machine directly to the iMac. Then I also don't block the wireless bandwidth for TM backups.

 

[born4sky]

its pretty much same thing, except that one has hard drive... even if its fails you still have airport extreme, also you can always replace the hard drive.